The rising of De Wet had stirred him not. That was a foolishness. Had not the predikant explained that Dutch slimness had given them the country back these eight years past. Louis Botha had very properly settled his goose, and the trek into German South-west Africa and Namaqualand was right. The German had no business there at all, Oud Brand had always said so. He knew what Germans were, he had known the old Legion men whom the English had settled on the land after that Crimean War of theirs—pretty settlers they were. Look at that Colonel Schermbrücker, bah! Verdomde Kerbs every one. But now—a dreadful story had come up from Philippolis. Folk said that Afrikanders were going to Europe to help the English in this mad war of theirs.
So old Schwartz was sore perplexed, as well he might be, and Julie, his wife, was away to town to Nachtmaal, the monthly Communion; an old body too, as years went, near thirty years his junior, and his third wife forby; and wise withal.
In the Zit-kammer hung a huge gold frame, and in the frame an illuminated border, and within the border a big black coffin, and round the coffin the names of the wives and the children who had died. The names were many, for the Boers bear more than they rear; the little cemetery above the dam had many little graves. Beneath the golden frame stood a table, and on it an old faded wool-worked cloth, and on the table stood the great family Bible in Dutch, the volume of the Sacred Law in all its glory, and therein were written the names of all the wives and all the children of Gabriel Schwartzberg and his wives, and the names were more numerous than those of the golden frame. Eleven sons and three daughters still survived. And the last were the entries of Julie Armand Duplessis, his last wife, and her sons, of whom two survived.
In the sacred volume also stood the names of Gabriel Hermanus Schwartzberg, born 1798, and Marie Duplooy, his wife, born 1802 and married in 1820, and of his father, Gabriel Petrus Schwartzberg, born 1760, and of his wife, Flavie Terblanche, married in 1782.
The record read like the record of the Patriarchs, and one might notice how the wives were always French, as indeed he who looks below the surface has always noticed, that the Dutch are more French than Dutch, Huguenots all. There are more Delareys, and Fouchées, and Terblanches, and Duplooys, and Duplessis, and Duprés, and Oliviers, and Villiers, and Dutoits, and Mathias, and Krugers, and Cronjes, and Bothas than ever there be Vandermerwes, or Forsters, or Rensbergs, or Vanzyls; which folk forget, or that they who strive most to preserve the Taal stamped out the French with a bitter fury. It is further to be remembered by those who care for such varieties that when the Emperor Napoleon would restore the old nobility, he found that Madame Guillotine had left the heirdom of the Ducs de Richelieu, the family of du Plessis and the great cardinal, in the Boer Huguenot family of Duplessis, and further that the heir, a placid, contented farmer, settled on the land a hundred years and more, and married to Helena Duplooy, refused the offer of land and estates in France. And so the rightful heir remained where he was, to trek later to the Krapzak Rivier in the Free State and speak the Taal for all time. Little there remains of the old France, save in those natural manners and courtesy and more that surprise those who really know the old Cape Dutch. Some of the old legends remain in some of the old families, cherished by the women more than the men, as such things are the world over.
Thinking nothing of such things, old Schwartz had grown as the other Dutch, and his own veldt was all the world to him, so that as he came back from Bessie’s Dam to talk of the outer world, his own solitary farm, with the poplars of Lombardy growing on the dam where Julie had planted them, her first communion after they married, peace for a while came over his vexed mind. At ninety-two perhaps even the thought of khaki hardly vexes for long.
But it was true; not only had the Dutch quelled their rebellions alongside the English, and had taken the German State, but they were actually fitting out troops to help the English overseas.
Now the English are a curious folk. The world understands them not, which is not to be marvelled at, since they certainly do not understand themselves—but as the lamented Price Collier wrote, they—the folks of a tiny island, own and rule a sixth of the world. The writers tell you that they are antiquated and unbusinesslike, but they govern a sixth of the world! Their navy is known to be bad and their army absurd, ‘but they govern a sixth of the world!’ Their finance, folk say, is archaic, and their politics a folly, ‘but,’ reiterates Price Collier, ‘they govern a sixth of the world.’
And so goes on the incomprehensible, with the persistent result, and still the world, and especially the poor Teutonic world, understands them not. Their allies the French have tried very hard, until some glimmer of light on island minds has come to them, and with that light, faith—faith to believe that, however dull, and queer, and gruff, and awkward the English might be, there is something to be liked and trusted in the queer methods that so successfully and so illogically govern one-sixth of the world.
Old Schwartz’s horse lolloped over the crisp red grass of the vlei, and a brace of Kuoorhaan, the scolding hens, rose with a whirr and a clatter that roused the old man from his dreams, and he pulled himself together to cross the slope to his farm. The sun was low over the veldt, and the light of fairyland was falling on the countryside, as he rode into the yards—past the sheep-kraals. There were geese under the willows picking at the water-cress in the fountain cut, and the boys were driving in the cows. Strangers had arrived, and Schwartz could see old Tanta Fouché, his half-sister, a woman of seventy, out in the stoep, and there were strange horses in the kraal.