"Did he kill himself?" inquired Katje.
"Kill himself! Indeed he didn't. That would be a crime, and a dreadful scandal. No, he took death by the hand in a most seemly and respectable way, and his family were always thought the better of for it.
"Yes, I'll tell you about it. It will be a lesson to you, Katje, and I hope you will think about it and take it to heart.
"The man I am talking about was Mynheer Andries van der Linden, a most godly and prosperous Burgher, whose farm was on the High Veld. All the days of his life he walked uprightly, and married twice. His sons and daughters were many, and all good, save for one sidelong skellum, Piet, his second son, who afterwards went to live among the English. He had cattle and sheep at pasture for miles, and a kerk on his land, where his nephew, the Predikant, used to preach. And by reason of his sanctity and cleverness Andries grew richer and richer till the Burghers respected him so much that they made him a commandant and a member of the Church Council.
"All prospered with him, as I was telling you, until one day it seemed as if God's hand had fallen from him. He was smitten with a disease of which not the oldest woman in the district had ever seen the like, and his own flesh became a curse to him. The very marrow in his bones bred fire to feed on his body, and he lay on his bed in the torments of hell. For weeks he writhed and screamed like a madman, tossing on his blankets and tearing at his body, or struggling and howling as his sons held him down for fear he should injure himself in his frenzy. The whole thing was very terrible and mysterious; and it was said among the farms that Andries van der Linden could not have been so good after all, or God would not thus visit him with such a scourge.
"For myself, I never believed this, and what he afterwards did will show that I had the right of it. Still, good or bad, the affliction was undeniable, for I myself heard him screaming like a beast as I drove to Nachtmaal.
"The malady lasted for months, and all herbs and pills that were given him did not an atom of good. Even the Kafirs could do nothing, though Klein Andries, the old man's eldest son and a good lad, caught a witch-doctor and sjamboked him to pieces to make him help. In short, the illness was plainly beyond mortal cure, and the old man at last came to see this.
"I should have told you that he had times of peace, when the agony forsook him, and left him limp like a wet clout. Then he would sweat and quake with terror of the pains that would return; and so pitiful was his condition that he could not even listen with a proper patience to the reading of Scripture or the singing of David's psalms. You will see from this what a terrible visitation to a God-fearing man this illness was.
"So he made up his mind. One morning early, while quietness was with him, he called for Klein Andries and bade him shut the door of the room.
"'Andries,' he said, 'I have been thinking the matter to a finish, and I am determined to have an end to this torment.'