On several Sundays in succession I took De Swardt over the rant to the house of Frans Welman. I hadn’t a very high regard for Frans’s judgment since the time he voted for the wrong man at the School Committee. But I had no other neighbour within walking distance, and I had to go somewhere on a Sunday.
We talked of all sorts of things. Frans’s wife Sannie was young and pretty, but very shy. She wasn’t naturally like that. It was only that she was afraid to talk in case she said something of which her husband might disapprove. So most of the time Sannie sat silent in the corner, getting up now and again to make more coffee for us.
Frans Welman was in some respects what people might call a hard man. For instance, it was something of a mild scandal the way he treated his wife and the kaffirs on his farm. But then, on the other hand, he looked very well after his cattle and pigs. And I have always believed that this is more important in a farmer than that he should be kind to his wife and the kaffirs.
Well, we talked about the mealies and the drought of the year before last and the subsidies, and I could see that in a short while the conversation would come round to the Volksraad, and as I wasn’t anxious to hear how Frans was going to vote at the General Election – believing that so irresponsible a person should not be allowed to vote at all – I quickly asked John de Swardt to tell us about his paintings.
Immediately he started off about his Veld Maiden.
“Not that one,” I said, kicking his shin, “I meant your other paintings. The kind that frighten the locusts.”
I felt that this Veld Maiden thing was not a fit subject to talk about, especially with a woman present. Moreover, it was Sunday.
Nevertheless, that kick came too late. De Swardt rubbed his shin a few times and started on his subject, and although Frans and I cleared our throats awkwardly at different parts, and Sannie looked on the floor with her pretty cheeks very red, the young painter explained everything about that picture and what it meant to him.
“It’s a dream I have had for a long time, now,” he said at the end, “and always she comes to me, and when I put out my arms to clasp her to me she vanishes, and I am left with only her memory in my heart. But when she comes the whole world is clothed in a terrible beauty.”
“That’s more than she is clothed in, anyway,” Frans said, “judging from what you have told us about her.”
“She’s a spirit. She’s the spirit of the veld,” De Swardt murmured, “she whispers strange and enchanting things. Her coming is like the whisper of the wind. She’s not of the earth at all.”
“Oh, well,” Frans said shortly, “you can keep these Uitlander ghost-women of yours. A Boer girl is good enough for ordinary fellows like me and Schalk Lourens.”
So the days passed.
John de Swardt finished a few more bits of rock and drought-stricken kakiebos, and I had got so far as to persuade him to label the worst-looking one “Frans Welman’s Farm.”
Then one morning he came to me in great excitement.
“I saw her again, Oom Schalk,” he said, “I saw her last night. In a surpassing loveliness. Just at midnight. She came softly across the veld towards my tent. The night was warm and lovely, and the stars were mad and singing. And there was low music where her white feet touched the grass. And sometimes her mouth seemed to be laughing, and sometimes it was sad. And her lips were very red, Oom Schalk. And when I reached out with my arms she went away. She disappeared in the maroelas, like the whispering of the wind. And there was a ringing in my ears. And in my heart there was a green fragrance, and I thought of the pale asphodel that grows in the fields of paradise.”
“I don’t know about paradise,” I said, “but if a thing like that grew in my mealie-lands I would see to it at once that the kaffirs pulled it up. I don’t like this spook nonsense.”
I then gave him some good advice. I told him to beware of the moon, which was almost full at the time. Because the moon can do strange things to you in the Bushveld, especially if you live in a tent and the full moon is overhead and there are weird shadows amongst the maroelas.
But I knew he wouldn’t take any notice of what I told him.
Several times after that he came with the same story about the Veld Maiden. I started getting tired of it.
Then, one morning when he came again, I knew everything by the look he had in his eyes. I have already told you about that look.
“Oom Schalk,” he began.
“John de Swardt,” I said to him, “don’t tell me anything. All I ask of you is to pack up your things and leave my farm at once.”
“I’ll leave tonight,” he said. “I promise you that by tomorrow morning I will be gone. Only let me stay here one more day and night.”
His voice trembled when he spoke, and his knees were very unsteady. But it was not for these reasons or for his sake that I relented. I spoke to him civilly for the sake of the look he had in his eyes.
“Very well, then,” I said, “but you must go straight back to Johannesburg. If you walk down the road you will be able to catch the Government lorry to Zeerust.”
He thanked me and left. I never saw him again.
Next day his tent was still there behind the maroelas, but John de Swardt was gone, and he had taken with him all his pictures. All, that is, except the Veld Maiden one. I suppose he had no more need for it.
And, in any case, the white ants had already started on it. So that’s why I can hang the remains of it openly on the wall in my voorhuis, and the predikant does not raise any objection to it. For the white ants have eaten away practically all of it except the face.
As for Frans Welman, it was quite a long time before he gave up searching the Marico for his young wife, Sannie.
Yellow Moepels
If ever you spoke to my father about witch-doctors (Oom Schalk Lourens said), he would always relate one story. And at the end of it he would explain that, while a witch-doctor could foretell the future for you from the bones, at the same time he could only tell you the things that didn’t matter. My father used to say that the important things were as much hidden from the witch-doctor as from the man who listened to his prophecy.
My father said that when he was sixteen he went with his friend, Paul, a stripling of about his own age, to a kaffir witch-doctor. They had heard that this witch-doctor was very good at throwing the bones.
This witch-doctor lived alone in a mud hut. While they were still on the way to the hut the two youths laughed and jested, but as soon as they got inside they felt different. They were impressed. The witch-doctor was very old and very wrinkled. He had on a queer head-dress made up from the tails of different wild animals.
You could tell that the boys were overawed as they sat there on the floor in the dark. Because my father, who had meant to hand the witch-doctor only a plug of Boer tobacco, gave him a whole roll. And Paul, who had said, when they were outside, that he was going to give him nothing at all, actually handed over his hunting knife.
Then he threw the bones. He threw first for my father. He told him many things. He told him that he would grow up to be a good burgher, and that he would one day be very prosperous. He would have a big farm and many cattle and two ox-wagons.
But what the witch-doctor did not tell my father was that in years to come he would have a son, Schalk, who could tell better stories than any man in the Marico.
Then the witch-doctor threw the bones for Paul. For a long while he was silent. He looked from the bones to Paul, and back to the bones, in a strange way. Then he spoke.
“I can see you go far away, my kleinbaas,” he said, “very far away over the great waters. Away from your own land, my kleinbaas.”
“And the veld,” Paul asked, “and the krantzes and the vlaktes?”
“And away from your own people,” the witch-doctor said.
“And will I – will I –”
“No, my kleinbasie,” the witch-doctor answered, “you will not come back. You will die there.”
My father s
aid that when they came out of that hut Paul Kruger’s face was very white. That was why my father used to say that, while a witch-doctor could tell you true things, he could not tell you the things that really mattered.
And my father was right.
Take the case of Neels Potgieter and Martha Rossouw, for instance. They became engaged to be married just before the affair at Paardekraal. There, on the hoogte, our leaders pointed out to us that, although the Transvaal had been annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, it nevertheless meant that we would have to go on paying taxes just the same. Everybody knew then that it was war.
Neels Potgieter and I were in the same commando.
It was arranged that the burghers of the neighbourhood should assemble at the veldkornet’s house. Instructions had also been given that no women were to be present. There was much fighting to be done, and this final leave-taking was likely to be an embarrassing thing.
Nevertheless, as always, the women came. And among them was Neels’s sweetheart, Martha Rossouw. And also there was my sister, Annie.
I shall never forget that scene in front of the veldkornet’s house, in the early morning, when there were still shadows on the rante, and a thin wind blew through the grass. We had no predikant there; but an ouderling, with two bandoliers slung across his body, and a Martini in his hand, said a few words. He was a strong and simple man, with no great gifts of oratory. But when he spoke about the Transvaal we could feel what was in his heart, and we took off our hats in silence.
And it was not long afterwards that I again took off my hat in much the same way. Then it was at Majuba Hill. It was after the battle, and the ouderling still had his two bandoliers around him when we buried him at the foot of the koppie.
But what impressed me most was the prayer that followed the ouderling’s brief address. In front of the veldkornet’s house we knelt, each burgher with his rifle at his side. And the womenfolk knelt down with us. And the wind seemed very gentle as it stirred the tall grass-blades; very gentle as it swept over the bared heads of the men and fluttered the kappies and skirts of the women; very gentle as it carried the prayers of our nation over the veld.
After that we stood up and sang a hymn. The ceremony was over. The agterryers brought us our horses. And, dry-eyed and tight-lipped, each woman sent her man forth to war. There was no weeping.
Then, in accordance with Boer custom, we fired a volley into the air.
“Voorwaarts, burghers,” came the veldkornet’s order, and we cantered down the road in twos. But before we left I had overheard Neels Potgieter say something to Martha Rossouw as he leant out of the saddle and kissed her. My sister Annie, standing beside my horse, also heard.
“When the moepels are ripe, Martha,” Neels said, “I will come to you again.”
Annie and I looked at each other and smiled. It was a pretty thing that Neels had said. But then Martha was also pretty. More pretty than the veld-trees that bore those yellow moepels, I reflected – and more wild.
I was still thinking of this when our commando had passed over the bult, in a long line, on our way to the south, where Natal was, and the other commandos, and Majuba.
This was the war of Bronkhorstspruit and General Colley and Laing’s Nek. You have no doubt heard many accounts of this war, some of them truthful, perhaps. For it is a singular thing that, as a man grows older, and looks back on fights that he has been in, he keeps on remembering, each year, more and more of the enemy that he has shot.
Klaas Uys was a man like that. Each year, on his birthday, he remembered one or two more redcoats that he had shot, whereupon he got up straight away and put another few notches in the wood part of his rifle, along the barrel. And he said his memory was getting better every year.
All the time I was on commando, I received only one letter. That came from Annie, my sister. She said I was not to take any risks, and that I must keep far away from the English, especially if they had guns. She also said I was to remember that I was a white man, and that if there was any dangerous work to be done, I had to send a kaffir out to do it.
There were more things like that in Annie’s letter. But I had no need of her advice. Our kommandant was a God-fearing and wily man, and he knew even better ways than Annie did for keeping out of range of the enemy’s fire.
But Annie also said, at the end of her letter, that she and Martha Rossouw had gone to a witch-doctor. They had gone to find out about Neels Potgieter and me. Now, if I had been at home, I would not have permitted Annie to indulge in this nonsense.
Especially as the witch-doctor said to her, “Yes, missus, I can see Baas Schalk Lourens. He will come back safe. He is very clever, Baas Schalk. He lies behind a big stone, with a dirty brown blanket pulled over his head. And he stays behind that stone until the fighting is finished – quite finished.”
According to Annie’s letter, the witch-doctor told her a few other things about me, too. But I won’t bother to repeat them now. I think I have said enough to show you what sort of a scoundrel that old kaffir was. He not only took advantage of the credulity of a simple girl, but he also tried to be funny at the expense of a young man who was fighting for his country’s freedom.
What was more, Annie said that she had recognised it was me right away, just from the kaffir’s description of that blanket.
To Martha Rossouw the witch-doctor said, “Baas Neels Potgieter will come back to you, missus, when the moepels are ripe again. At sun-under he will come.”
That was all he said about Neels, and there wasn’t very much in that, anyway, seeing that Neels himself – except for the bit about the sunset – had made the very same prophecy the day the commando set out. I suppose that witch-doctor had been too busy thinking out foolish and spiteful things about me to be able to give any attention to Neels Potgieter’s affairs.
But I didn’t mention Annie’s letter to Neels. He might have wanted to know more than I was willing to tell him. More, even, perhaps, than Martha was willing to tell him – Martha of the wild heart.
Then, at last, the war ended, and over the Transvaal the Vierkleur waved again. And the commandos went home by their different ways. And our leaders revived their old quarrels as to who should be president. And, everywhere, except for a number of lonely graves on hillside and vlakte, things were as they had been before Shepstone came.
It was getting on towards evening when our small band rode over the bult again, and once more came to a halt at the veldkornet’s house. A messenger had been sent on in advance to announce our coming, and from far around the women and children and old men had gathered to welcome their victorious burghers back from the war. And there were tears in many eyes when we sang, “Hef, Burghers, Hef.”
And the moepels were ripe and yellow on the trees.
And in the dusk Neels Potgieter found Martha Rossouw and kissed her. At sundown, as the witch-doctor had said. But there was one important thing that the witch-doctor had not told. It was something that Neels Potgieter did not know, either, just then. And that was that Martha did not want him anymore.
The Love Potion
You mention the juba-plant (Oom Schalk Lourens said). Oh, yes, everybody in the Marico knows about the juba-plant. It grows high up on the krantzes, and they say you must pick off one of its little red berries at midnight, under the full moon. Then, if you are a young man, and you are anxious for a girl to fall in love with you, all you have to do is to squeeze the juice of the juba-berry into her coffee.
They say that after the girl has drunk the juba-juice she begins to forget all sorts of things. She forgets that your forehead is rather low, and that your ears stick out, and that your mouth is too big. She even forgets having told you, the week before last, that she wouldn’t marry you if you were the only man in the Transvaal.
All she knows is that the man she gazes at, over her empty coffee-cup, has grown remarkably handsome. You can see from this that the plant must be very potent in its effects. I mean, if you consider what some of the men in the Ma
rico look like.
One young man I knew, however, was not very enthusiastic about juba-juice. In fact, he always said that before he climbed up the krantz one night, to pick one of those red berries, he was more popular with the girls than he was afterwards. This young man said that his decline in favour with the girls of the neighbourhood might perhaps be due to the fact that, shortly after he had picked the juba-berry, he lost most of his front teeth.
This happened when the girl’s father, who was an irascible sort of fellow, caught the young man in the act of squeezing juba-juice into his daughter’s cup.
And afterwards, while others talked of the magic properties of this love potion, the young man would listen in silence, and his lip would curl in a sneer over the place where his front teeth used to be.
“Yes, kêrels,” he would lisp at the end, “I suppose I must have picked that juba-berry at the wrong time. Perhaps the moon wasn’t full enough, or something. Or perhaps it wasn’t just exactly midnight. I am only glad now that I didn’t pick off two of those red berries while I was about it.”
We all felt it was a sad thing that the juba-plant had done to that young man.
But with Gideon van der Merwe it was different.
One night I was out shooting in the veld with a lamp fastened on my hat. You know that kind of shooting: in the glare of the lamp-light you can see only the eyes of the thing you are aiming at, and you get three months if you are caught. They made it illegal to hunt by lamp-light since the time a policeman got shot in the foot, this way, when he was out tracking cattle-smugglers on the Bechuanaland border.
The magistrate at Zeerust, who did not know the ways of the cattle-smugglers, found that the shooting was an accident. This verdict satisfied everybody except the policeman, whose foot was still bandaged when he came into court. But the men in the Volksraad, some of whom had been cattle-smugglers themselves, knew better than the magistrate did as to how the policeman came to have a couple of buckshot in the soft part of his foot, and accordingly they brought in this new law.
The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories Page 7