“And so, Vrouw Van Staden, you have come to join the trek. I scarcely looked to see you and your husband here. I had thought you were well settled on your farm in Zoutpansberg.”
“No; we are tired of that country. Our farm was good enough, and the winter veldt in the low country near at hand; but there is too much fever, and the Kaffirs are very troublesome; and as the President for years has been fighting Sekukuni, we have no strength ourselves for commandos in our own country. Cattle-stealing is worse than it has been for years. And so we thought we would join the trek and try a new country, where the game is more plentiful, and one is not to be pinched up on a farm of three thousand morgen.” (A morgen is rather more than two acres. The usual Boer farm averages three thousand morgen, more than six thousand acres.)
The woman spoke stiffly, and her face had assumed a touch of pride as she answered. But she went on: “I think it is rather I who should ask why Schalk Oosthuysen, with all his wealth, has left Marico, the garden of the Transvaal, as men call it.”
The man had gazed long and fixedly as Hendrika spoke. His eyes seemed to have softened, and a very visible pleasure was in them. And, indeed, Hendrika Van Staden was worth looking at. Clad though she was in a plain gown of rough brown material, bought at some up-country store and fashioned by herself, the admirable curves of her straight, well-rounded figure could not be concealed. Few Boer women can boast a figure. Here was a waist whose trim outlines would have done no disgrace to a well-set-up English girl. Matron though she was, the tall, shapely woman stood like a straight sapling upon the firm yellow sand. The broad chest and shoulders supported erect upon a strong and shapely neck a beautiful head. And the face? Well, most people would have agreed with Schalk Oosthuysen, whose eyes gazed with unconcealable admiration into Hendrika’s. The parting sunlight lent a wonderful charm to the oval face and the fair, clear complexion, so unlike the muddy skin of most Boer women. The soft rosy cheeks—just touched with a suspicion of African tan,—the white forehead, straight nose and proud lips, and the dark blue eyes, all set in a frame of golden yellow hair, every strand of it now glorified by the loving sun-rays, which the great sun-bonnet (kapje) ill-concealed—all went to complete a picture of feminine beauty that few Transvaalers—certainly not Schalk Oosthuysen—could resist.
Hendrika had, like most Dutch girls, married young; and now, mother though she was of a child more than six years old, was in the very pride and summer of her rich beauty.
Oosthuysen, without moving his gaze, spoke again.
“No one should know better than you, Hendrika, why I am leaving Marico and going to tempt fortune in the unknown veldt. How can I rest? Ever since I saw you, ever since the sunny years of our childhood, I have thought of you, dreamed of you. I can never marry now, unless—well, unless you should ever become free again, which is not likely before we are old people. It was you, Hendrika, that broke my happiness and disturbed my lot. Allemaghte! I am sorry almost that you have joined this trek.”
“Schalk, you have no right to speak like that. You know it was not my fault that I could not become your wife. My father had his reasons—good reasons, as I suppose; and I have a good husband, and am contented. Never speak of these things again; they are past and done with. Our ways are different, and it is better that we should see as little of one another as possible.”
She spoke almost with excitement, and her hands, folded, as all good Dutch women fold them, beneath her black apron, to protect them from the strong African sun, had become disengaged, and lent themselves with a slight gesture of impatience to enforce her words.
She turned away, saying as she went, “Good-night, Meneer Oosthuysen,” and took the path to her wagon.