CHAPTER XII
OVER IT
On leaving the house Bessie and John took their way down the long avenueof blue gums. This avenue was old Silas Croft's particular pride, sincealthough it had only been planted for about twenty years, the trees,which in the divine climate and virgin soil of the Transvaal grow at themost extraordinary rate, were for the most part very lofty, and as thickin the stem as English oaks of a hundred and fifty years' standing. Theavenue was not over wide, and the trees were planted quite close one toanother, with the result that their brown, pillar-like stems shot up formany feet without a branch, whilst high overhead the boughs crossed andintermingled in such a way as to form a leafy tunnel, through which thelandscape beyond appeared as though through a telescope.
Down this charming avenue John and Bessie walked, and on reaching itslimit they turned to the right and followed a little footpath winding inand out of the rocks that built up the plateau on the hillside whereonthe house stood. Presently this led them through the orchard; then camea bare strip of veldt, a very dangerous spot in a thunderstorm, buta great safeguard to the stead and trees round it, for the ironstonecropped up here, and from the house one might often see flash afterflash striking down on to it, and even running and zigzagging about itssurface. To the left of this ironstone were some cultivated lands, andin front of them the plantation, in which John was anxious to inspectthe recently planted wattles.
They walked up to the copse without saying a word. It was surroundedby a ditch and a low sod wall, whereon Bessie seated herself, remarkingthat she would wait there till he had looked at the trees, as she wasafraid of the puff-adders, whereof a large and thriving family wereknown to live in this plantation.
John assented, observing that the puff-adders were brutes, and that hemust have some pigs turned in to destroy them, which the pigs effectby munching them up, apparently without unpleasant consequences tothemselves. Then he departed on his errand, wending his way gingerlythrough the feathery black wattles. It did not take long, and he sawno puff-adders. When he had finished looking at the young trees, hereturned, still walking delicately like Agag. On reaching the border ofthe plantation, he paused to look at Bessie, who was some twenty pacesfrom him, perched sideways on the low sod wall, and framed, as it were,in the full rich light of the setting sun. Her hat was off, for the sunhad lost its burning force, and the hand that held it hung idly by her,while her eyes were fixed on the horizon flaming with all the variedglories of an African sunset. He gazed at her sweet face and lissomform, and some lines that he had read years before floated into hismind--
The little curls about her head Were all her crown of gold, Her delicate arms drooped downwards In slender mould, As white-veined leaves of lilies Curve and fold. She moved to measures of music, As a swan sails the stream--
He had got thus far when she turned and saw him, and he abandoned poetryin the presence of one who might well have inspired it.
"What are you looking at?" she said with a smile; "the sunset?"
"No; I was looking at you."
"Then you might have been better employed with the sky," she answered,turning her head quickly. "Look at it! Did you ever see such asunset? We sometimes get them like that at this time of year when thethunderstorms are about."
She was right; it was glorious. The heavy clouds which a couple of hoursbefore had been rolling like celestial hearses across the azure deepswere now aflame with glory. Some of them glowed like huge castleswrapped in fire, others with the dull red heat of burning coal. Theeastern heaven was one sheet of burnished gold that slowly grew to red,and higher yet to orange and the faintest rose. To the left departingsunbeams rested lovingly on grey Quathlamba's crests, even firing theeternal snows that lay upon his highest peak, and writing once more upontheir whiteness the record of another day fulfilled. Lower down the skyfloated little clouds, flame-flakes fallen from the burning mass above,and on the earth beneath lay great depths of shadow barred with thebrightness of the dying light.
John stood and gazed at it, and its living, glowing beauty seemed tofire his imagination, as it fired earth and heaven, in such sort thatthe torch of love lit upon his heart like the sunbeams on the mountaintops. Then from the celestial beauty of the skies he turned to look atthe earthly beauty of the woman who sat there before him, and foundthat also fair. Whether it was the contemplation of the glories ofNature--for there is always a suspicion of melancholy in beautifulthings--or whatever it was, her face had a touch of sadness on it thathe had never seen before, and which certainly added to its charm as ashadow adds to the charm of the light.
"What are you thinking of, Bessie?" he asked.
She looked up, and he saw that her lips were quivering a little. "Well,do you know," she said, "oddly enough, I was thinking of my mother. Ican only just recall her, a woman with a thin, sweet face. I rememberone evening she was sitting in front of a house while the sun wassetting as it is now, and I was playing by her, when suddenly shecalled me to her and kissed me, then pointed to the red clouds that weregathered in the sky, and said, 'I wonder if you will ever think ofme, dear, when I have passed through those golden gates?' I did notunderstand what she meant, but somehow I have remembered the words, andthough she died so long ago, I do often think of her;" and two largetears rolled down her face as she spoke.
Few men can bear to see a sweet and pretty woman in tears, and thislittle incident was too much for John, whose caution and doubts all wentto the winds together.
"Bessie," he said, "don't cry, dear; please, don't! I can't bear to seeyou cry."
She looked up as though to remonstrate at his words, then she lookeddown again.
"Listen, Bessie," he went on awkwardly enough, "I have something to sayto you. I want to ask you if--if, in short, you will marry me. Wait abit, don't say anything yet; you know me pretty well by now. I am nochicken, dear, and I have knocked about the world a good deal, and hadone or two love affairs like other people. But, Bessie, I never met sucha sweet woman, or, if you will let me say it, such a lovely woman as youare, and if you will have me, dear, I think that I shall be the luckiestman in South Africa;" and he stopped, not knowing exactly what else tosay, and feeling that the time had not come for action, if indeed it wasto come at all.
When first she understood the drift of his talk Bessie had flushed up tothe eyes, then the blood sank back to her breast, and left her as paleas a lily. She loved the man, and they were happy words to her, and shewas satisfied with them, though perhaps some women might have thoughtthat they left a good deal to be desired. But Bessie was not of anexacting nature.
At last she spoke.
"Are you sure," she asked, "that you mean all this? You know sometimespeople say things of a sudden, upon an impulse, and afterwards they wishthey never had been said. Then it would be rather awkward supposing Iwere to say 'yes,' would it not?"
"Of course I am sure," he said indignantly.
"You see," went on Bessie, poking at the sod wall with the stickshe held in her hand, "perhaps in this place you might be putting anexaggerated value on me. You think I am pretty because you see nobodybut Kafir and Boer women, and it would be the same with everything. I'mnot fit to marry such a man as you," she went on, with a sudden burstof distress; "I have never seen anything or anybody. I am nothing but anignorant, half-educated farmer girl, with nothing to recommend me, andno fortune except my looks. You are different to me; you are a man ofthe world, and if ever you went back to England I should be a drag onyou, and you would be ashamed of me and my colonial ways. If it had beenJess now, it would have been different, for she has more brains in herlittle finger than I have in my whole body."
Somehow this mention of Jess jarred upon John's nerves, and chilled himlike a breath of cold wind on a hot day. He wanted to put Jess out ofhis mind just now.
"My dear Bessie," he broke in, "why do you suppose such things? I canassure you that, if you appeared in a London drawing-room, you would putmost of the women into the shade. No
t that there is much chance of myfrequenting London drawing-rooms again," he added.
"Oh, yes! I may be good-looking; I don't say that I am not; but can'tyou understand, I do not want you to marry me just because I am a prettywoman, as the Kafirs marry their wives? If you marry me at all I wantyou to marry me because you care for _me_, the real _me_, not my eyesand my hair. Oh, I don't know what to answer you! I don't indeed!" andshe began to cry softly.
"Bessie, dear Bessie!" said John, who was pretty well beside himself bythis time, "just tell me honestly--do you care about me? I am not worthmuch, I know, but if you do all this goes for nothing," and he took herhand and drew her towards him, so that she half slipped, half rose fromthe sod wall and stood face to face with him, for she was a tall woman,and they were very nearly of a height.
Twice she raised her beautiful eyes to his to answer and twice hercourage failed her; then at last the truth broke from her almost with acry:
"Oh, John, I love you with all my heart!"
And now it will be well to drop a veil over the rest of theseproceedings, for there are some things that should be sacred, even fromthe pen of the historian, and the first transport of the love of a goodwoman is one of them.
Suffice it to say that they sat there side by side on the sod wall,and were happy as people ought to be under such circumstances, till theglory departed from the western sky and the world grew cold and pale,till the night came down and hid the mountains, and only the stars andthey were left to look out across the dusky distances of the wildernessof plain.
Jess Page 14