Jess | Page 8

middle of the afternoon, and
they were till eight o'clock getting here, poor little dears, for the track
was fainter then than it is now, and they wandered off into the veldt,
and would have perished there in the wet and cold had they not chanced
to see the lights of the house. That was how my nieces came here,
Captain Niel, and here they have been ever since, except for a couple of
years when I sent them to the Cape for schooling, and a lonely man I
was when they were away."
"And how about the father?" asked John Niel, deeply interested. "Did
you ever hear any more of him?"
"Hear of him, the villain!" almost shouted the old man, jumping up in
wrath. "Ay, d--n him, I heard of him. What do you think? The two
chicks had been with me some eighteen months, long enough for me to
learn to love them with all my heart, when one fine morning, as I was
seeing about the new kraal wall, I saw a fellow come riding up on an
old raw-boned grey horse. Up he comes to me, and as he came I looked
at him, and said to myself, 'You are a drunkard you are, and a rogue, it's
written on your face, and, what's more, I know your face.' You see I did
not guess that it was a son of my own father that I was looking at. How
should I?
"'Is your name Croft?' he said.
"'Ay,' I answered.
"'So is mine,' he went on with a sort of drunken leer. 'I'm your brother.'
"'Are you?' I said, beginning to get my back up, for I guessed what his
game was, 'and what may you be after? I tell you at once, and to your
face, that if you are my brother you are a blackguard, and I don't want
to know you or have anything to do with you; and if you are not, I beg
your pardon for coupling you with such a scoundrel.'

"'Oh, that's your tune, is it?' he said with a sneer. 'Well, now, my dear
brother Silas, I want my children. They have got a little half-brother at
home--for I have married again, Silas--who is anxious to have them to
play with, so if you will be so good as to hand them over, I'll take them
away at once.'
"'You'll take them away, will you?' said I, all of a tremble with rage and
fear.
"'Yes, Silas, I will. They are mine by law, and I am not going to breed
children for you to have the comfort of their society. I've taken advice,
Silas, and that's sound law,' and he leered at me again.
"I stood and looked at that man, and thought of how he had treated
those poor children and their young mother, and my blood boiled, and I
grew mad. Without another word I jumped over the half-finished wall,
and caught him by the leg (for I was a strong man ten years ago) and
jerked him off the horse. As he came down he dropped the sjambock
from his hand, and I laid hold of it and then and there gave him the
soundest hiding a man ever had. Lord, how he did holloa! When I was
tired I let him get up.
"'Now,' I said, 'be off with you, and if you come back here I'll bid the
Kafirs hunt you to Natal with their sticks. This is the South African
Republic, and we don't care overmuch about law here.' Which we didn't
in those days.
"'All right, Silas,' he said, 'all right, you shall pay for this. I'll have those
children, and, for your sake, I'll make their lives a hell--you mark my
words--South African Republic or no South African Republic. I've got
the law on my side.'
"Off he rode, cursing and swearing, and I flung his sjambock after him.
This was the first and last time that I saw my brother."
"What became of him?" asked John Niel.
"I'll tell you, just to show you again that there is a Power which keeps

such men in its eye. He rode back to Newcastle that night, and went
about the canteen there abusing me, and getting drunker and drunker,
till at last the canteen keeper sent for his boys to turn him out. Well, the
boys were rough, as Kafirs are apt to be with a drunken white man, and
he struggled and fought, and in the middle of it the blood began to run
from his mouth, and he dropped down dead of a broken blood-vessel,
and there was an end of him. That is the story of the two girls, Captain
Niel, and now I am off to