“Well, my son do say as they don’t like the cold steel,” remarked Mrs. Stuckhey cautiously. “My son didn’t seem noways afeared on ’em. Says he, when he did last write, says he, ‘I should like a dig at the man what shot me’.”
“Ah, and did he?” said Mr. Joyce much impressed. “Well now, that was a good sayin’. A dig! Haw, haw?” here the farmer came to a standstill in the road to laugh more at his ease. “He’d like to give him a dig, would he?—haw, haw!—I d’ ’low he would. And ’tis but nat’ral, d’ye see, Mrs. Stuckhey,” he continued more seriously as he rolled forward again. “Nobody couldn’t blame the chap for wishin’ to stick the man as put a bullet in en—they couldn’t, indeed. Ye can’t expect a soldier to turn the other cheek, can ye now? But them Boers be jist same as rabbits—’tis what I do say constant. But we’ll ferret ’em out, yet—haw, haw, haw!—we’ll ferret ’em out, won’t us? Good-night to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey, and good-night to you, Mrs. Blanchard. We’ll be a-lookin’ for good noos soon.”
But the next war-news which came to Riverton was tragic. To the country at large, indeed, the glorious capture of Hlangwane Hill was a triumph, but among the killed on that day chanced to be Private Joseph Stuckhey, Riverton’s only soldier.
The blinds were drawn down in his mother’s little cottage, and friends and neighbours went in and out with dolorous faces. Who shall tell how the tidings were first broken to her, the faltering incredulous words she said, her bewildered grief?
A day or two after her home was made desolate Farmer Joyce, standing by his gate, happened to see her returning from the town, accompanied by Mrs. Blanchard, both of them burdened with a multiplicity of small parcels.
“Ah,” he said, greeting her with a groan of sympathy, “ye’ll ha’ been gettin’ o’ your deep Mrs. Stuckhey.”
“E-es, sir, I did have a few little things to get afore Sunday. There weren’t no sich hurry as usual when there be a death in th’ family—no funeral, you know. Dear, to be sure, it do seem so strange to think as there bain’t no funeral! ’Tis what d’ seem to come harder nor anything. If there were but a grave as I could ’tend to: if I could but ha’ done his last, Mr. Joyce. If it had but pleased the Lard to ha’ took him from me in England.”
“Nay, now, don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Stuckhey. They do say as the poor dead bodies be treated wonderful respectful abroad. E-es, they do say so, indeed; and if your son had a-died in England somewhere up the country as where his reg’ment mid be, you couldn’t ha’ done his last for en no more nor you can now. I’ve a-been told as there be some graveyards, Mrs. Stuckhey—and not so far away neither—as be just same as rabbit warrens; you wouldn’t never think there was no co’pses in them at all.”
“Dear, now, to think of that!” ejaculated Susan, almost forgetting her grief in her scandalised amazement.
“E-es, indeed, they telled I that. Things mid be worse, ye see. Not but what I do sympathise for ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey. It be a terrible visitation—an’ you a lone woman, and him your only son—I d’ ’low it be a terrible visitation. There bain’t a single person in Riverton village as don’t feel for ’ee.”