There were no fine wines, no foaming English ale, but the Cape Madeira made good beverage, mixed with water; and there was an old-fashioned silver service before Mrs Daveney, from which she distilled coffee clear as amber, and steaming milk; the table-linen was white as an African sun can bleach it, and the light from two tall wax candles, mantled in the cherry-patterned delf. The ladies took some coffee, in compliment to their guests—what trifles place people at ease with one another. Their light supper was long since over; but Mr Daveney, who had been busy about his farm defences all day, enjoyed his meal the more for the companionship of brother-soldiers.
At the sound of Eleanor’s voice, Ormsby, who had paid no attention to her appearance beyond a bow, glanced across the table, and, with his usual air of nonchalance, put aside the light on his left hand, that he might have a better view of the speaker; and having satisfied himself that the pale cheek and braided hair of the one sister was less attractive to him than the radiant smile and sunny ringlets of the other, he helped himself to the smoking La partje, and prepared to do full justice to the good cheer he so little expected to find in the wilderness.
Frankfort, as he looked round upon this family group, entered with deep interest into Mr Daveney’s anecdotes of sport and peril—his anxieties for the present, his projects for the future. They went back together to the crowded homes of England, its pallid manufacturing children, its cities with dark buildings jammed together, its thronged populace, toiling; toiling on, with heaven’s sunlight bricked out; its gigantic schemes,—some successful, blazing up and illuminating the world; some, like rockets, aiming at the sky, and falling in smoke upon the great ocean of eternity; some lying in gloom, with hopeless projectors, whose thoughts were to be seized and worked out by men who could and would be heard. They talked too, of the struggle of the better classes to “keep up appearances,” to “get their sons on,” and their daughters “settled;” they, who had scarcely wherewithal to buy food and raiment,—while here was a fair, plentiful country lying waste—a savage hunting-ground—space for thousands—a wild and lovely country, awaiting the hand of civilisation to make it prosperous and peaceful for all.
Frankfort could see that to touch on domestic questions was tender ground. His host turned the tide of conversation to the troubles of the colony, its grand resources; and Mrs Daveney, as she listened to the conversation, at times joining in it, said earnestly to Frankfort, how she wished that such as he might stand up in the council-chambers of England, and plead the cause of the colonist of Southern Africa. But Eleanor only joined in the discussion with a smile or a sigh, as her father’s reference to past events demanded. Still, Frankfort read the heart, as he looked into those deep eyes, and pondered afterwards on trifling things, which would have escaped a man not enthralled with their expression of deep melancholy.
The meal ended, the ladies retired to a table, on which books and work had been scattered in some confusion on the arrival of the sportsmen and their wagons. The cloth was withdrawn from the polished oaken table; a little kettle, with its spirit-lamp, was glowing beside Mr Daveney, and he was about to blew some mulled Pontac, the rich red wine of the Cape, when Frankfort begged to withdraw, in order to make inquiries concerning the absent Piet.
Some unusual sounds without had already caught the ear of the master of the dwelling. The dogs were growing restless in the yards; the people were astir in the outbuildings; and at the moment that Daveney and Frankfort rose together to go out and reconnoitre, Ormsby comfortably establishing himself in a camp arm-chair, brought from his wagon, the door was thrown open, and May rushed in; terror was in his face, the passage behind him was filled with servants, and, gasping for breath, he exclaimed—“Master, good Master Frankfort, come out and see, come out and listen; the fires are lighted on the hills; but that is not all—open your ears, and hear the war-cry on the mountains. Oh! master,” cried the poor bushman, in a voice of despair, “what shall I do?—my wife! my little child!”
Mrs Daveney stood up, silent, but appalled; Marion’s cheek faded to the hue of death; Eleanor went up to her father, and put her arm through his.
“My dear,” said he, “you must summon all your presence of mind, for I must go.”
“I know it, father, but tell us what you would have us do; the house is already defensible”—the windows had been partially bricked up for some days, in consequence of intelligence from the towns—“but you must appoint us our places, if you are obliged to leave us.”
“Your mother,” said Mr Daveney, “has had my instructions these three days; she has an able coadjutor in you; but Marion is faint-hearted, I am afraid.”