Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases Part 15

"'No,' she answered.

"'No charm?' he asked again. 'Not a charm to compel love? I can give you even that.'

"'Take me back,' she begged, 'and teach me how to win my husband to forgive me.'

"He smiled very sadly, and she could almost have pitied him, so poor he seemed, bereaved of his desire.

"'You are greater than Tagalash,' he said slowly, 'since you make a slave of him. You shall have what you will. Go back to your world, my beloved, my love that shall henceforth dread the still pools.'

"'So I came back,' she said, looking-round on us as though all were explained.

"'How?' we asked.

"'Why, I came,' she answered plaintively, and had no more to tell. She had been found sleeping on the gra.s.s near the spruit, after a week of absence during which the men of the district had combed the very bushes for a trace of her.

"'But the charm?' asked one of us. 'The charm to win forgiveness? What was that?'

"She looked timidly at the tall Johannes who stood by her chair in silence.

"'I have forgotten what it was,' she answered with wet eyes.

"'No,' he cried, bending to her lips. 'No! It is a true charm that, my kleintje.'"

"Good old Tagalas.h.!.+" remarked Katje cheerfully.

THE HOME KRAAL

After sunset on a summer's day, when evening has overcome the oppression of the still heat and breezes grow up like thoughts, the world of veld becomes odorous, and every air has its burden of unforgettable scents.

As we sat in the stoop, steeped in a flood of shadow, looking down over the kraals to where the gra.s.ses are ever green about the spruit, the Vrouw Grobelaar spoke gently.

"I should remember this," she said, "after a hundred years of heaven. The winds of Mooimeisjes would call me even then."

Katje's hand moved in mine.

"It is home," said Katje. "It--it makes me want to cry."

The Vrouw Grobelaar smiled. "As for me," she answered, "it makes me think of nothing so much as that hollow beside Cornel's grave, where, in my time, I shall go to my long dreaming. This place has peace written large on its face; and ah! it is at home that one would like to lie at last.

Yes, none of your damp churchyards for me! The home kraal, like a Boer vrouw; for the grave and the home are never quite two things to us Boers. How some have striven for the home kraal, that feared to lie with strangers. Allemachtag, yes!"

She moved a little in her armchair, and we waited in silence for the tale to come. Katje came closer to me, in that way she has, like a dear child or a little dog.

"The Vrouw van der Westhuizen," said the old lady, "had but one child, a son. Emmanuel, she called him, for a dozen poor reasons; and for him and in him she had her whole life. The poor, they say, are rich in poor things, and this lad grew to manhood with a mult.i.tude of mean little vices and dirty ways which showed like a sign on his pale weak face, and summed up the trivial soul within for you at the first glance. Most of us have cause to thank G.o.d that He has not written on our faces; but Emmanuel could have carried no writing large enough for his mother to read.

Because he was weak and idle, two of her nephews lived on the farm, Barend and Peter van Trump, great slow true men, with hearts like children; yet she esteemed Emmanuel as much above them as they in truth, in all points of worth and virtue, were over him. Ah, but a mother is a traitor to the whole world.

"I remember this Emmanuel well. A bony small man of the color of straw, with eyes that moved too quickly and a cold hand, a body like a wisp of linen-cloth-so flimsy and slight--and some slenderness at the knee that made him shamble like a thief! Peter stood with a great brown hand on his shoulder, smiling at me with a frank open mouth and cheeks creased with pleasantry. When he laughed, his body shook mightily, and the motion of his hand made the other stagger. And the Vrouw van der Westhuizen stood there looking, with eyes like pools of pride for her son.

"There was nothing in the farm to hold Emmanuel, no charm in the veld nor interest in the work. He was barely a man when he would ride on to the dorp and its saloons, and in time he was there oftener and oftener, drinking and soiling his hands with all the strange foulness of life the English bring with them. We, the neighbors round about, marked it of course; but none thought much of Emmanuel and his doings; and the thing was little talked of till it became known that at last he was gone for good, and had betaken himself to live in a great town, among devilries that have no name in our clean Taal.

"It was a grievous blow for the Vrouw van der Westhuizen.

From the time he departed, she became old; as she went about her affairs, the woe at her heart was plain to see.

She was a stricken woman, the world had been cut from under her; and about her, now that her child was gone, she felt nothing familiar, but lived, dumb and bewildered, in a maze of strangers. Barend and Peter had no wits to console her.

How, indeed, should they have hoped to console a mother thus bereft? The days lounged by inexorably, bringing no word of Emmanuel with them, and no mercy. Their footprints were the wounds upon the Vrouw van der Westhuizen's heart; and, in the end she sickened wearily and lay listless, due to death.

"Then only did the silence break and let through a word of news. Some one--I cannot remember now who it was--had been to the town to a law-case to be cheated of some land, and he brought back news of Emmanuel--news that he was deadly ill in a mean place, and lacking money. He told it shortly to the Vrouw van der Westhuizen, and she sent at once for Barend and Peter.

"'Get to your horses,' she told them, 'and bring my kleintje back to me. Be quick to bring him--why do you stand gaping like sick cows while he is dying? And take money.

Take all the money that is in my box under the bed, in case he should need something. Get the box out quickly, now!'

"They obeyed her. In the box was the money of the house, as the Boers need to keep it, a great deal of money in sovereigns, very heavy to carry. But she would not even suffer them to count it, so they filled a bag with it, and Barend tied it to his belt, and then they caught the horses and started on the long trek to the town.

"It is a journey of fifteen days by wagon, yet those two, by killing horses--they who used all beasts so gently--did it in three, and on the fourth, much troubled by the great throng of people all about them, came to a narrow street, smelling of poor food, and found the house in which Emmanuel lay. A woman with a cruel face and naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s opened to them, staring at their great size and their beards, and showed them up a long stair to a room with a bed, from which Emmanuel looked up at them.

"It was a small room, tucked close under the roof, and held but the tumbled frowsy bed, an uneasy table and a chair. On the floor, clothes and boots lay heaped with old newspapers, and the place was hot with stale air. From the pillows, the face of Emmanuel met them with something of expectancy; and the two big men, fresh from the wind of the veld, saw with a quick dismay how his pale skin stood tight over the bones of him, and a clear pink burned like a danger lamp high up on each cheek.

"'I thought you would come,' said the sick man in a weak voice, 'I knew it. I was sure I should not die alone in this hole, while my mother's horses were sound. It is bad enough to die at all, but no man deserves to die away from home.'

"Peter kneeled down beside the bed and would have pa.s.sed an arm under his shoulder. But he would not have it.

"'No need to s...o...b..r,' he said, with a note of contempt in the voice that rang so faintly. The woman, who was leaning in the door, laughed harshly, and a pa.s.sing smile flickered over Emmanuel's face.

"'I couldn't live, could I, Flo?' he said to her. 'But I can die. You watch--it'll be worth seeing. What's that you have at your belt, Barend? Not money?'

"Barend nodded. 'Yes, it is money,' he said. 'The ou ma sent it, if you should need it.'

"'Need it!' Emmanuel laughed harshly.

"'G.o.d, but I do need it. When didn't I? How much is it, man?'

"'She would not have us stay to count it,' answered Barend.

'But it is a very great sum.' He loosened the bag from his belt. 'All gold,' he added, and poured the sovereigns in a heap on the tumbled bed.

"'G.o.d! said Emmanuel again, striving to sit up. The woman at the door uttered a short oath and came forward with parted lips and bent over the gold.

"'Laddie, it's a pile,' she said hoa.r.s.ely. 'A jugfull!' Her twitching hands ploughed through the heap, and the coins tinkled among her fingers. She was glancing from one to another of the men, and drew forth her hand clenched on a full fist of sovereigns. Peter, still kneeling beside the bed, made a noise in his throat.

"She bent her look on him, a look of narrow warlike eyes and bared teeth, the first stare of a savage animal disturbed on its kill; but the big Boer met her with a face of calm.

"'The ou ma sent it for Emmanuel,' he said slowly, and rose to his feet.

"She snarled at him, but Barend, with his teeth clenched on his beard, moved to the door and stood there with his legs apart and his great hands on his hips, filling up the way.

Emmanuel lay on his back, breathing a little hard, the color pulsing in and out on his cheeks and a twisted smile on his lips. She turned a second to him, as though to appeal, but saw him as he lay and said nothing.

"'Put that money, Emmanuel's money, back on the bed!' said Peter.

"She lifted it to her bosom as though to pouch it, but Peter moved his arm and she flung the coins suddenly on the floor, and laughed gratingly at him.

"'D'you see that, laddie?' she called to Emmanuel. 'Oh, you sneering devil, gasping there, ain't you got a word to say to me? Say, can't I have some of this cash? There's enough here to spare me a fistfull.'