Kitabı oku: «The Triumph of Hilary Blachland», sayfa 8
Chapter Two.
A Waft of Strange News
“I say, Uncle Luke. Do you happen to be aware that it’s jolly well tiffin time – Hallo, Canon! Didn’t know you were here. How are you?”
He who thus unceremoniously burst in upon them, in blissful ignorance of the momentous matter under discussion and of course of how his own fortunes had been balancing in the scale, was a goodly specimen of English youth, tall, and well-hung, and athletic, but the bright frank sunniness of his face, his straight open glance, and entirely unaffected and therefore unspoiled manner rendered him goodly beyond the average. Percival West and Hilary Blachland were both orphaned sons of two of Sir Luke’s sisters, and had been to him even as his own children. There was a difference of many years between their ages, however, and their characters were totally dissimilar, as we have heard set forth.
“Time for tiffin is it, Percy?” said Sir Luke, glancing at his watch. “You see we old fogies haven’t got your fine healthy jackass-and-a-bundle-of-greens appetite. We must have overlooked it.”
“I don’t agree with you at all, Canterby,” laughed the Canon. “I’ll answer for it. I feel uncommonly like beefsteaks, or anything that’s going. And what have you been doing with yourself, Percy?”
“Biking. Got ten miles out beyond Passmore since eleven o’clock. Oh, bye-the-bye, Canon, I saw the Bishop in Passmore. He wanted you badly.”
“Percy, speak the truth, sir,” returned the Canon, with a solemn twinkle in his eyes. “You said the Bishop wanted me badly? And – his Lordship happens to be away!”
“Every word I said is solemn fact,” replied Percival. “I saw the Bishop in Passmore, but I didn’t say to-day though. And there’s no denying he did want you badly. Eh, Canon?”
“You’re a disrespectful rascal, chaffing your seniors, sir, and if I were twenty years younger, I’d put on the gloves and take it out of you.”
“Come along in to tiffin, Canon, and take it out of that,” rejoined Percival with his light-hearted laugh, dropping his hand affectionately on to the old man’s shoulder. And the trio adjourned to the dining-room.
Jerningham Lodge, Sir Luke Canterby’s comfortable, not to say luxurious establishment, was a roomy old house, standing within a walled park of about a hundred and fifty acres. Old, without being ancient, it was susceptible of being brought up to fin-de-siècle ideas of comfort, and the gardens and shrubberies were extensive and well kept. It had come into his possession a good many years before, and soon after that he was left a childless widower. Thus it came about that these two nephews of his had found their home here.
The elder of the two, however, did not turn out entirely to the satisfaction of his uncle.
“Hilary is such a confounded young rake,” the latter used to say. “He’ll get himself into a most infernal mess one of these days.”
Both dicta were true. Headstrong and susceptible, there was hardly ever a time when Hilary Blachland was outside some entanglement: more than once getting him into a serious scrape. Such, however, did not invariably come to the ears of his uncle, though now and then they did, and on one occasion Sir Luke found himself obliged to pay down a heavy sum to keep an uncommonly awkward breach of promise case against his nephew from coming into court. Hilary at last made Passmore too hot to hold him, but the worst of it was that sooner or later the same held good of everywhere else. Still, the infinity of trouble he gave him notwithstanding, this scapegrace was the one of his two nephews for whom Sir Luke had the softest place in his heart – but at last the climax arrived, and the name of that climax was the name of the suit which we have just heard Sir Luke mention. Therein Hilary had got himself – as his uncle had forcibly put it – “into a most infernal mess.” His said uncle, moreover, had found himself called upon to pay the somewhat heavy damages and costs.
He need not have done so, of course. He might have left the scapegrace to drag himself out of the mud he had got into. But, unlike many men who have coined their own wealth, there was nothing close-fisted about Sir Luke Canterby. He had disbursed the large sum with scarcely a murmur – anything to close down the confounded scandal. But with Hilary Blachland he was seriously angry and disgusted, and told him as much in no halting terms. The other replied he had better go abroad – and the sooner the better. So he took himself off – which, declared Sir Luke, was the most sensible thing he had decided to do for some time. He changed his mind though, on learning that Hilary had not gone alone, and – missed him, as he put it to himself and his most intimate friend, viz. Canon Lenthall, “like the very devil.”
“By the way,” said Percival when lunch was half through. “I brought out a later paper from Passmore. Here it is,” producing it from the pocket of his Norfolk jacket. “Want to see it, uncle? Not much news, I expect.”
“Let’s see the stock and share column,” holding out one hand for the paper, and fixing his glasses with the other. A glance up and down a column, then a turning over of the sheet. Then a sudden, undisguised start.
“God bless my soul! What’s this?”
His hand shook as he held the news sheet, running his glance hastily down it. “Why, that must be Hilary. There, Canon, read it out I can hardly see – there – that paragraph.”
The old priest took the paper. “‘Trouble brewing in Mashonaland’? Is that it? Yes? Well, here’s what they say: —
“‘Stirring times seem in store for our Chartered Company’s pioneers in their new Eldorado. It has been known that Lo Bengula’s concession of the mining rights in Mashonaland to that Company was very distasteful to his people, and for some time past these have been manifesting their displeasure in such wise as to show that it is only a question of time when the settlers of Mashonaland will find themselves called upon to vindicate their rights by force, against their truculent neighbours. The last instance that we have seems to have happened early in November, when an armed force of Matabele crossed into Mashonaland, raiding and threatening at their own sweet will. Several native servants in the employ of settlers were murdered in cold blood, Lo Bengula’s warriors asserting their right to carry on their time-honoured pastime, declaring that the lives of these people were not included in the concession; but so far they have refrained from murdering Europeans. One specific example of the unbridled aggressiveness of these savages is also to hand. The impi went to the house of a man named Blachland, a trader and hunter residing near the head waters of the Umnyati river. Two of his servants had got wind of its approach, and after warning their master fled for their lives to the bush. It appears however, that Blachland was ill with a bad attack of fever, and too weak to move.’”
An exclamation from Percival and Sir Luke caused the reader to pause.
“Go on, Canon, go on,” said the latter hurriedly.
“‘It appears that the induna in charge of the impi was well known to the sick man, and while he entered the house and engaged the latter in conversation, his followers amused themselves by ransacking the out-premises. Here they discovered two little Mashona boys, Blachland’s servants, who were hiding in terror. These were dragged forth, and regardless of their shrieks for mercy, were ruthlessly speared, the bloodthirsty savages roaring with delight as they tossed the miserable little wretches to and fro among each other, on the blades of their great assegais. Then they went away, leaving the bleeding and mangled corpses lying in the gateway, and calling out to the sick occupant of the place that the time for killing white people had not come yet.
“‘From there they proceeded to the camp of two prospectors named Skelsey and Spence. The last-named was away, but Skelsey had got wind of their coming and had promptly put his camp into a position of defence – and prepared to give them a warm reception. When they arrived he showed them his magazine rifle and revolver, and called out to the induna in command that he was going to shoot until he hadn’t a cartridge left, if they advanced a step nearer. They did not appear to relish the prospect, and drew off, uttering threats. Thus this brave fellow saved the lives of his four scared and cowering Mashona servants, who, however, showed their appreciation by deserting next day.
“‘Blachland, it is reported, is out of favour with Lo Bengula, who recently ordered him out of his country for some reason or other, while he was on a trading trip at Bulawayo.’”
Then followed some more comments on the insecurity of life and property at the mercy of savage neighbours, and the necessity for prompt and decided action, and the paragraph ended.
“I suppose there’s no doubt about it being Hilary?” said Percival, when the reader had stopped. “Blachland isn’t such a common name, and he did go out there as a trader or something. By Jove, wouldn’t I like to be with him!”
Both his seniors smiled. They were thinking his wish might soon be realised.
“Down with fever, poor chap!” said Sir Luke. “But that up-country fever isn’t fatal, I’ve heard, not if men take proper care of themselves. He ought to have a run home though. The voyage would soon set him on his feet again.”
“Rather!” echoed Percival, enthusiastically. “It would be grand to see the dear old chap again.”
“Well, perhaps we may, Percy, perhaps we may,” rejoined his uncle, rather excitedly. “How would you like to go over and fetch him?”
“Me? By George! I’d like it better than anything else in the world. But – suppose he wouldn’t come?”
“Of course he’d come. Why shouldn’t he come?” testily answered Sir Luke, to whom this afterthought was not a pleasant one. And the rest of the time was spent in discussing this news from a far-away land.
“Strange, isn’t it?” said Sir Luke, thereafter, Percival having gone out of the room. “Just as we were talking over Hilary, and here this bit of news comes right in upon us from outside. If Percy hadn’t brought back that paper we might never have heard it.”
“Looks like an omen, doesn’t it, Luke?” laughed the Canon. “Looks as if he were to be instrumental in bringing Hilary back.”
“I hope to Heaven he may. I say, Dick, old friend, I’m more than glad you turned in here to-day, in time to make me put that abominable draft in the fire.”
“Will you walk back with me a little way, Percy?” said the Canon as he was taking his leave, having refused Sir Luke’s offer to send him back on wheels.
“Why rather. Wait, I’ll just get my bike. I can wheel it along, and ride it back.”
They passed down the village street together, nodding here and there to an acquaintance, or acknowledging the salutation of a rustic. The rector of the parish passed them on a bicycle, and the two professors of rival creeds exchanged a cordial and friendly greeting, for somehow, no one was anything other than friendly with Canon Lenthall. But it was not until they had left the village behind and had gained the open country that he began to discourse seriously with his younger friend as to the matter of which both were thinking.
“Let me see. How long is it since you saw Hilary?” he began.
“Oh, about half a dozen years – just before he got into that – er – mess. What a splendid chap he was, Canon. I’ve sometimes thought Uncle Luke was a bit hard on him that time.”
“You’re quite wrong, Percy. Hard is the one thing your uncle could not be. Why, he’s the softest hearted man in existence.”
“Yes, I know. But, does he really want me to go out there and hunt up Hilary?”
“I believe so. As a matter of fact, we happened to be discussing that very thing just before you came in. It was a strange coincidence that you should unconsciously have brought the news you did.”
Percival whistled. “Were you really? Strange indeed. Well, I’m on for the scheme. It doesn’t matter if I enter at the Temple now, or in six or eight months’ time – and, what an experience it’ll be in the mean time.”
They were nearing Passmore, and the chimneys and spires of the town were growing larger and larger in front of them – and already the haze of smoke was dimming the bright green of the expanse of meadow between. They had gained the wooden road-bridge, beneath which the sluggish water ran oily between the black piers, and here the Canon paused.
“It will be a great thing if we can bring Hilary back to his uncle, so that they are thoroughly reconciled. But Percy, my boy – remember that so far, for all these years past you have been the first and only one near him. How will you feel when you see another first – and to all appearances of more consequence than yourself, as is natural in the case of one who has long been away. Are you sure of yourself?”
But the young man burst into a free, frank and hearty laugh.
“Great Scot, Canon!” he cried merrily. “What sort of a bounder are you trying to take me for? There’s nothing I’d like so much as to see the dear old chap back again.”
The old priest gazed steadily at him for a moment, and felt greatly relieved. The answer rang so spontaneous, so true.
“Well, I had that to say to you, and have said it. In fact I brought you with me now on purpose to say it. Now, good-bye my boy, and God bless you.”
Chapter Three.
Bayfield’s Farm
There is a rustling in the cover, faint at first, but drawing nearer. As it does so, the man with the gun, who has been squatting half concealed by a shrub in one corner of the little glade, picks himself up stealthily, noiselessly, and now widely on the alert. A fine bushbuck ram leaps lightly into the open, and as its large protruding eye lights on this unusual object, its easy, graceful bound becomes a wild rush. Then the gun speaks. The beautiful animal sinks in his stride and falls, a frantic, kicking heap, carried forward some six or eight yards by the impetus of his pace. Twirling, twisting, now attempting to rise, and almost succeeding, then rolling back, but still fighting desperately for life – the blood welling forth over his black hide where the deadly loepers have penetrated – the stricken buck emits loud raucous bellowings of rage and fear and agony. But the man with the gun knows better than to approach too near, knows well the power of those long, needle-pointed horns, and the tenacity of life contained within the brain beneath them; knows well that a stricken bushbuck ram, with all that life still in him, can become a terribly dangerous and formidable antagonist, and this is a very large and powerful unit of the species.
The crash of the shot reverberates, roaring from the overhanging krantz – dislodging a cloud of spreuws from its rocky ledges. These dart hither and thither, whistling and chattering, their shrill din mingling with the bellowings of the wounded buck. But upon this arises another din and it is that of canine throats. Two great rough-haired dogs leap forth into the glade, following upon the line taken by the buck. Then ensues a desperate game. The stricken animal, summoning all his remaining strength to meet these new foes, staggers to his feet, and, with head lowered and menacing, it seems that no power on earth can stay the foremost of the dogs from receiving the full length of these fourteen-inch horns in his onward rush. These, however, are no puppies, but old, well-seasoned dogs, thoroughly accustomed to bush-hunting. Wonderfully quick are they in their movements as, just avoiding each deadly thrust, they leap, snapping and snarling, round their quarry – until one, seeing his chance, seizes the latter just below the haunch in such fashion as promptly to hamstring him. The game antelope is done for now. Weakened, too, by the jets of blood spurting from his wounds, he totters and falls. The fight is over.
With it the man with the gun has deemed it sound policy not to interfere. To encourage the dogs would render them too eager – at the expense of their judgment – and to fire a second shot would be seriously to imperil them. Besides, he is interested in this not so very ill-matched combat. Now, however, it is time to call them off.
To call is one thing, but to be obeyed is quite another. The two great dogs, excited and savage, are snarling and worrying at the carcase of their now vanquished enemy – and the first attempt to enforce the order is met with a very menacing and determined growl, for this man is not their master. Wisely he desists.
“Confound it, they’ll tear that fine skin to ribbons!” he soliloquises disgustedly. Then – “Oh, there you are, Bayfield. Man, call those brutes off. They don’t care a damn for me.”
A horseman has dashed into the glade. He, too, carries a gun, but in a trice he has torn a reim from the D. of his saddle, and is lashing and cursing with a will among the excited hounds. These draw off, still snarling savagely, for he is their master.
“Magtig! Blachland, but you’re in luck’s way!” he exclaimed. “That’s the finest ram that’s been shot here for the last five years. Well done! I believe it’s the same one I drove right over that Britisher last month, and he missed it clean with both barrels. That young fellow stopping with Earle.”
“Who’s he? A jackaroo?”
“No. A visitor. I don’t know who he is. By the way, I must take you over to Earle’s one of these days. He’s got a good bit of shoot. Look here, Jafta,” turning to a yellow-skinned Hottentot, also mounted, who had just arrived on the scene, “Baas Blachland has shot our biggest bushbuck ram at last.”
“Ja. That is true, Baas,” grinned the fellow, who was Bayfield’s after-rider, inspecting the edge of his knife preparatory to the necessary disembowelling and loading up of the quarry.
“We may as well be getting along,” said Bayfield. “Jafta, go and fetch Baas Blachland’s horse.”
“I thought an up-country man like you would turn up his nose at our hunting, Blachland,” said Bayfield as they rode along. “But what you can’t turn up your nose at is our air – eh? Why, you’re looking twice the man you were a fortnight ago even. I suppose that infernal fever’s not easily shaken off.”
“It’s the very devil to shake off, but if anything will do it, this will.” And the speaker glanced around with a feeling of complete and restful enjoyment.
The kloof they were threading afforded in itself a noble and romantic scene. Great krantzes soaring up to the unclouded blue, walls of red ironstone gleaming like bronze in the sun-rays – or, in tier upon tier, peeping forth from festoons of creeper and anchored tree and spiky aloe. Yonder a sweep of spur on the one hand, like a combing wave of tossing tumbling foliage, on the other a mighty cliff, forming a portal beyond which was glimpsed a round, rolling summit, high above in the distance – but everywhere foliage, its many shades of green relieved here and there by the scarlet and pink of the wild geranium, the light blue of the plumbago, and half a dozen other splashes of colour, bright and harmonising; aglow, too, with the glancing of brilliant-winged birds, tuneful with their melodious piping and the murmuring hum of bees. And the air – strong, clear, exhilarating, such as never could be mistaken for the enervating steaminess of up-country heat – for the place was at a good elevation, and in one of the settled parts of the Cape Colony.
Gazing around upon all this, Hilary Blachland seemed to be drinking in new draughts of life. The bout of fever, in the throes of which we last saw him lying, helpless and alone, had proved to be an exceptionally sharp one; indeed, but for the accident of Sybrandt happening along almost immediately after the Matabele raid, the tidings of which had reached England, as we have seen – it is probable that a fatal termination might have ensued. But Sybrandt had tended him with devoted and loyal camaraderie, and when sufficiently restored, he had decided to sell off everything and clear out. “You’ll come back again, Blachland,” Sybrandt had said. “Mark my words, you’ll come back again. We all do.” And he had answered that perhaps he would, but not just yet awhile.
He had gone down country to the seaside, but the heat at Durban was so great at the time of year as to counteract the beneficial effect of the sea air. Then he had bethought himself of George Bayfield, a man he had known previously and liked, and who had more than once pressed him to pay him a visit at his farm in the Eastern Province. And now, here he was.
A great feeling of restfulness and self-gratulation was upon him. He was free once more, free for a fresh clean start. The sequence of his foolishness, which had hung around his neck like a millstone, for years, had been removed, had suddenly fallen off like a load. For he had come to see things clearer now. His character had changed and hardened during that interval, and he had come to realise that hitherto, his views of life, and his way of treating its conditions, had been very much those of a fool.
George Bayfield had received him with a very warm welcome. He was a colonial man, and had never been out of his native land, yet contrasting them as they stood together it was Blachland who looked the harder and more weather-beaten of the two, so thorough an acclimatising process had his up-country wanderings proved. Bayfield was a man just the wrong side of fifty, and a widower. Two of his boys were away from home, and at that time his household consisted of a small son of eleven, and a daughter – of whom more anon.
The kloof opened out into a wide open valley, covered mainly with rhenoster brush and a sprinkling of larger shrubs in clumps. From this valley on either side, opened lateral kloofs, similar to the one from which they had just emerged, kloofs dark with forest and tangled thickets, very nurseries for tiger and wild-dogs, Bayfield declared – but they had the compensating element of affording good sport whenever he wanted to go out and shoot a bushbuck or two – as in the present case. His boundary lines ran right along the high rand which shut in the broad valley on either side, and the farm was an excellent one for sheep and ostriches. In fact the valley portion of it was a perfect network of wire fencing, and in their respective “camps” the great black bipeds stalked to and fro, uttering their truculent boom, or lazily picking at the aromatic grasses, which constituted their natural and aboriginal food. And the name of the place was Lannercost.
“These confounded ostriches spoil half the shooting on the place, and, for the matter of that, anywhere,” remarked Bayfield, as they ambled along through one of the large camps, where one exceptionally fierce bird hung about their flank, only kept from a nearer approach by the presence of the two dogs. “You flush a covey of partridges or a big troop of guinea-fowl, and away they go and squat in complete security under the wing of some particularly ‘kwai’ bird in the next camp. It’s beastly tantalising. Ever shot any wild ostriches up-country, Blachland?”
“Yes, on two occasions – and I enjoyed it for that very reason. I was held up once on top of a rail for nearly two hours besieged on each side by an infuriated tame one. Had to wait until dark to get down. So you see it was a kind of poetic justice to turn the tables on the wild ones.”
“Rather. These are good game preservers though, in that they keep the niggers from killing the small bucks in the camps. Look at those few springbuck I’m trying to preserve. They’d all have been killed off if it wasn’t for the ‘kwai’ birds in the camp. By George! the sun’ll be down before we get home. That isn’t good for a man with fever still in his system at this time of year.”
“Oh, that’s no matter. I’m a good deal too tough.”
“Don’t you be so sure about that. We’d better push the nags on a bit.”
The house stood at the head of the valley, and had been growing larger and larger as they drew near. The sun was dropping, and that wondrously beautiful glow which heralds his departure from the vivid, clear South African day was upon the surroundings, softening, toning everything. Hundreds of doves cooed melodiously from the sprays, and as they passed through a gateway, ascending a winding path between high quince hedges, clouds of twittering finks and long-tailed mouse-birds scattered with a whirr on either side of the way. Spreuws, too, whistling among the tall fig-trees in the orchard, helped to swell the chorus of Nature’s evensong.
“There are a sight too many of these small birds,” observed Bayfield. “They want keeping down. Sonny’s getting lazy with that air-gun of his. They’ll play the mischief with the garden if he gives them much more rope. There he is, the schepsel. Hi! Sonny!” he called out, as a good-looking boy came down the path to meet them. “Why don’t you thin off some of these birds? Look at ’em all. No one would think you’d got an air-gun and half a dozen catapults.”
“The gun’s out of order, father,” answered the boy.
“It’s always getting out of order. Those air-guns are frauds. Where’s Lyn?”
“She was about just now. We watched you from beyond the third gate. There she is.”
Following his gaze they descried a white-clad feminine form in front of the house, which they were now very near.
