The Story of an African Farm Part 7

"I have only worn them once. They might serve; they might be endured."

Bonaparte drew them on and stood upright, his head almost touching the beams. The German looked at him with profound admiration. It was wonderful what a difference feathers made in the bird.

Chapter 1.V. Sunday Services.

Service No. I.

The boy Waldo kissed the pages of his book and looked up. Far over the flat lay the kopje, a mere speck; the sheep wandered quietly from bush to bush; the stillness of the early Sunday rested everywhere, and the air was fresh.

He looked down at his book. On its page a black insect crept. He lifted it off with his finger. Then he leaned on his elbow, watching its quivering antennae and strange movements, smiling.

"Even you," he whispered, "shall not die. Even you He loves. Even you He will fold in His arms when He takes everything and makes it perfect and happy."

When the thing had gone he smoothed the leaves of his Bible somewhat caressingly. The leaves of that book had dropped blood for him once; they had taken the brightness out of his childhood; from between them had sprung the visions that had clung about him and made night horrible.

Adder-like thoughts had lifted their heads, had shot out forked tongues at him, asking mockingly strange, trivial questions that he could not answer, miserable child:

Why did the women in Mark see only one angel and the women in Luke two?

Could a story be told in opposite ways and both ways be true? Could it?

could it? Then again: Is there nothing always right, and nothing always wrong? Could Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite "put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer?" and could the Spirit of the Lord chant paeans over her, loud paeans, high paeans, set in the book of the Lord, and no voice cry out it was a mean and dastardly sin to lie, and kill the trusting in their sleep? Could the friend of G.o.d marry his own sister, and be beloved, and the man who does it today goes to h.e.l.l, to h.e.l.l? Was there nothing always right or always wrong?

Those leaves had dropped blood for him once: they had made his heart heavy and cold; they had robbed his childhood of its gladness; now his fingers moved over them caressingly.

"My father G.o.d knows, my father knows," he said; "we cannot understand; He knows." After a while he whispered, smiling--"I heard your voice this morning when my eyes were not yet open, I felt you near me, my Father.

Why do you love me so? His face was illuminated. In the last four months the old question has gone from me. I know you are good; I know you love everything; I know, I know, I know! I could not have borne it any more, not any more." He laughed softly. "And all the while I was so miserable you were looking at me and loving me, and I never knew it.

But I know it now. I feel it," said the boy, and he laughed low; "I feel it!" he laughed.

After a while he began partly to sing, partly to chant the disconnected verses of hymns, those which spoke his gladness, many times over. The sheep with their senseless eyes turned to look at him as he sang.

At last he lapsed into quiet. Then as the boy lay there staring at bush and sand, he saw a vision.

He had crossed the river of Death, and walked on the other bank in the Lord's land of Beulah. His feet sank into the dark gra.s.s, and he walked alone. Then, far over the fields, he saw a figure coming across the dark green gra.s.s. At first he thought it must be one of the angels; but as it came nearer he began to feel what it was. And it came closer, closer to him, and then the voice said, "Come," and he knew surely Who it was. He ran to the dear feet and touched them with his hands; yes, he held them fast! He lay down beside them. When he looked up the face was over him, and the glorious eyes were loving him; and they two were there alone together.

He laughed a deep laugh; then started up like one suddenly awakened from sleep.

"Oh, G.o.d!" He cried, "I cannot wait; I cannot wait! I want to die; I want to see Him; I want to touch him. Let me die!" He folded his hands, trembling. "How can I wait so long--for long, long years perhaps? I want to die--to see Him. I will die any death. Oh, let me come!"

Weeping he bowed himself, and quivered from head to foot. After a long while he lifted his head.

"Yes; I will wait; I will wait. But not long; do not let it be very long, Jesus King. I want you; oh, I want you--soon, soon!" He sat still, staring across the plain with his tearful eyes.

Service No. II.

In the front room of the farmhouse sat Tant Sannie in her elbow-chair.

In her hand was her great bra.s.s-clasped hymn-book, round her neck was a clean white handkerchief, under her feet was a wooden stove. There too sat Em and Lyndall, in clean pinafores and new shoes. There too was the spruce Hottentot in a starched white kapje, and her husband on the other side of the door, with his wool oiled and very much combed out, and staring at his new leather boots. The Kaffer servants were not there because Tant Sannie held they were descended from apes, and needed no salvation. But the rest were gathered for the Sunday service, and waited the officiator.

Meanwhile Bonaparte and the German approached arm in arm--Bonaparte resplendent in the black cloth clothes, a spotless s.h.i.+rt, and a spotless collar; the German in the old salt-and-pepper, casting shy glances of admiration at his companion.

At the front door Bonaparte removed his hat with much dignity, raised his s.h.i.+rt collar, and entered. To the centre table he walked, put his hat solemnly down by the big Bible, and bowed his head over it in silent prayer.

The Boer-woman looked at the Hottentot, and the Hottentot looked at the Boer-woman.

There was one thing on earth for which Tant Sannie had a profound reverence, which exercised a subduing influence over her, which made her for the time a better woman--that thing was new, s.h.i.+ning black cloth. It made her think of the predikant; it made her think of the elders who sat in the top pew of the church on Sundays, with the hair so nicely oiled, so holy and respectable, with their little swallow-tailed coats; it made her think of heaven, where everything was so holy and respectable, and n.o.body wore tancord, and the littlest angel had a black-tailed coat. She wished she hadn't called him a thief and a Roman Catholic. She hoped the German hadn't told him. She wondered where those clothes were when he came in rags to her door. There was no doubt, he was a very respectable man, a gentleman.

The German began to read a hymn. At the end of each line Bonaparte groaned, and twice at the end of every verse.

The Boer-woman had often heard of persons groaning during prayers, to add a certain poignancy and finish to them; old Jan Vanderlinde, her mother's brother, always did it after he was converted; and she would have looked upon it as no especial sign of grace in any one; but to groan at hymn-time! She was startled. She wondered if he remembered that she shook her fist in his face. This was a man of G.o.d. They knelt down to pray. The Boer-woman weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and could not kneel. She sat in her chair, and peeped between her crossed fingers at the stranger's back. She could not understand what he said; but he was in earnest. He shook the chair by the back rail till it made quite a little dust on the mud floor.

When they rose from their knees Bonaparte solemnly seated himself in the chair and opened the Bible. He blew his nose, pulled up his s.h.i.+rt collar, smoothed the leaves, stroked down his capacious waistcoat, blew his nose again, looked solemnly round the room, then began.

"All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Having read this portion of Scripture, Bonaparte paused impressively, and looked all round the room.

"I shall not, my dear friends," he said, "long detain you. Much of our precious time has already fled blissfully from us in the voice of thanksgiving and the tongue of praise. A few, a very few words are all I shall address to you, and may they be as a rod of iron dividing the bones from the marrow, and the marrow from the bones.

"In the first place: What is a liar?"

The question was put so pointedly, and followed by a pause so profound, that even the Hottentot man left off looking at his boots and opened his eyes, though he understood not a word.

"I repeat," said Bonaparte, "what is a liar?"

The sensation was intense; the attention of the audience was riveted.

"Have you any of you ever seen a liar, my dear friends?" There was a still longer pause. "I hope not; I truly hope not. But I will tell you what a liar is. I knew a liar once--a little boy who lived in Cape Town, in Short Market Street. His mother and I sat together one day, discoursing about our souls.

"'Here, Sampson,' said his mother, 'go and buy sixpence of meiboss from the Malay round the corner.'

"When he came back she said: 'How much have you got?'

"'Five,' he said.

"He was afraid if he said six and a half she'd ask for some. And, my friends, that was a lie. The half of a meiboss stuck in his throat and he died and was buried. And where did the soul of that little liar go to, my friends? It went to the lake of fire and brimstone. This brings me to the second point of my discourse.

"What is a lake of fire and brimstone? I will tell you, my friends,"

said Bonaparte condescendingly. "The imagination unaided cannot conceive it: but by the help of the Lord I will put it before your mind's eye.

"I was travelling in Italy once on a time; I came to a city called Rome, a vast city, and near it is a mountain which spits forth fire. Its name is Etna. Now, there was a man in that city of Rome who had not the fear of G.o.d before his eyes, and he loved a woman. The woman died, and he walked up that mountain spitting fire, and when he got to the top he threw himself in at the hole that is there. The next day I went up.

I was not afraid; the Lord preserves His servants. And in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest at any time thou fall into a volcano. It was dark night when I got there, but in the fear of the Lord I walked to the edge of the yawning abyss, and looked in. That sight--that sight, my friends, is impressed upon my most indelible memory. I looked down into the lurid depths upon an incandescent lake, a melted fire, a seething sea; the billows rolled from side to side, and on their fiery crests tossed the white skeleton of the suicide. The heat had burnt the flesh from off the bones; they lay as a light cork upon the melted, fiery waves. One skeleton hand was raised upward, the finger pointing to heaven; the other, with outstretched finger, pointing downward, as though it would say, 'I go below, but you, Bonaparte, may soar above.' I gazed; I stood entranced. At that instant there was a crack in the lurid lake; it swelled, expanded, and the skeleton of the suicide disappeared, to be seen no more by mortal eye."

Here again Bonaparte rested, and then continued:

"The lake of melted stone rose in the crater, it swelled higher and higher at the side, it streamed forth at the top. I had presence of mind; near me was a rock; I stood upon it. The fiery torrent was vomited out and streamed on either side of me. And through that long and terrible night I stood there alone upon that rock, the glowing, fiery lava on every hand--a monument of the long-suffering and tender providence of the Lord, who spared me that I might this day testify in your ears of Him.

"Now, my dear friends, let us deduce the lessons that are to be learnt from this narrative.