“Careless words are sometimes very costly in Johannesburg, and a silent tongue is worth a great deal more than its weight in gold here. We don’t talk much in society here, and never about politics.”
“But your wrongs?” asked Ned, “We leave that to the newspapers to air, and to those who have no money to be confiscated in fines.”
The heart of Ned sank as he listened to these wise and prudent words of this successful citizen. Gold was the chain which the Uitlanders had forged for themselves; and while the supply continued, it seemed hopeless to expect them to make any effort towards deliverance.
The three lads went off to dress themselves sadly and silently. Clarence hung his head with shame for all the splendour which appeared so many tokens of his father’s fall from independence; while his chums, out of sympathy and pity for him, refrained from looking at him.
It is terrible for a brave and generous boy to feel ashamed of his father. Poor Clarence went into the sumptuous room appointed to him, and, after locking the door, he flung himself on a couch and groaned in the bitterness of his heart.
He remembered his father before he had come to the Transvaal and before he was quite so rich. Thus he had good cause to look up to him with pride, for he was a strong, fearless, and self-reliant man, who could never have uttered such words as he had done that afternoon. What a change those six years of tyranny had wrought in him! He looked older now by a dozen years. His eyes had lost their straight, outward look, and his face had become softer and flabbier, while his voice had no longer its decided ring. All this was not the father he expected to meet.
He did not remember much about his mother, for she had died while he was very young. Somehow he felt glad now for the first time to think that she had died before the Transvaal migration. It would have utterly broken his heart had he seen the same servile look on her face as he had seen on his father’s.
All at once he pushed those wretched feelings from his heart, to replace them by an increased hatred for the Boers who had wrought this evil—the old obstinate baboon of Pretoria, who stood and with his darkened mind stemmed the tide of civilisation. Ah, how Clarence abhorred Oom Paul Kruger that afternoon!
Fred Weldon bathed and dressed himself quietly, thinking all the time upon poor Clarence, and wishing that he could comfort him, as Clarence had done when he lost his father. He felt now that death was not the worst calamity which could happen to a boy with his father. Time cured that; but what could cure the death of respect?
“Perhaps he is only lying low, like Brer Rabbit, and playing Indian for a special purpose. That would be quite fair in a game of this kind. I must give old Clar this idea and hope.”