Allans Wife | Page 7

literally by the page. It was from that I contracted a fondness for the
latter amusing writings, which has never left me. Burns I never cared
for so much, probably because of the Scottish dialect which repelled
me. What little education I got was from my father, but I never had
much leaning towards books, nor he much time to teach them to me.
On the other hand, I was always a keen observer of the ways of men
and nature. By the time that I was twenty I could speak Dutch and three
or four Kaffir dialects perfectly, and I doubt if there was anybody in
South Africa who understood native ways of thought and action more
completely than I did. Also I was really a very good shot and horseman,
and I think--as, indeed, my subsequent career proves to have been the
case--a great deal tougher than the majority of men. Though I was then,
as now, light and small, nothing seemed to tire me. I could bear any
amount of exposure and privation, and I never met the native who was
my master in feats of endurance. Of course, all that is different now, I
am speaking of my early manhood.
It may be wondered that I did not run absolutely wild in such
surroundings, but I was held back from this by my father's society. He
was one of the gentlest and most refined men that I ever met; even the
most savage Kaffir loved him, and his influence was a very good one
for me. He used to call himself one of the world's failures. Would that
there were more such failures. Every morning when his work was done
he would take his prayer-book and, sitting on the little stoep or
verandah of our station, would read the evening psalms to himself.
Sometimes there was not light enough for this, but it made no

difference, he knew them all by heart. When he had finished he would
look out across the cultivated lands where the mission Kaffirs had their
huts.
But I knew it was not these he saw, but rather the grey English church,
and the graves ranged side by side before the yew near the wicket gate.
It was there on the stoep that he died. He had not been well, and one
evening I was talking to him, and his mind went back to Oxfordshire
and my mother. He spoke of her a good deal, saying that she had never
been out of his mind for a single day during all these years, and that he
rejoiced to think he was drawing near that land wither she had gone.
Then he asked me if I remembered the night when Squire Carson came
into the study at the vicarage, and told him that his wife had run away,
and that he was going to change his name and bury himself in some
remote land.
I answered that I remembered it perfectly.
"I wonder where he went to," said my father, "and if he and his
daughter Stella are still alive. Well, well! I shall never meet them again.
But life is a strange thing, Allan, and you may. If you ever do, give
them my kind love."
After that I left him. We had been suffering more than usual from the
depredations of the Kaffir thieves, who stole our sheep at night, and, as
I had done before, and not without success, I determined to watch the
kraal and see if I could catch them. Indeed, it was from this habit of
mine of watching at night that I first got my native name of
Macumazahn, which may be roughly translated as "he who sleeps with
one eye open." So I took my rifle and rose to go. But he called me to
him and kissed me on the forehead, saying, "God bless you, Allan! I
hope that you will think of your old father sometimes, and that you will
lead a good and happy life."
I remember that I did not much like his tone at the time, but set it down
to an attack of low spirits, to which he grew very subject as the years
went on. I went down to the kraal and watched till within an hour of

sunrise; then, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As I came
near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my father's chair. At first
I thought it must be a drunken Kaffir, then that my father had fallen
asleep there.
And so he had,--for he was dead!
CHAPTER II
THE FIRE-FIGHT
When I had buried my father, and seen a successor installed in his
place--for the station was the property of the Society--I set to work to
carry