Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases | Page 5

strong, so
plain, so deep was his memory of it. He thought he recalled pain and
blindness, and a sudden light, in which he saw a face close to his, a
girl's face, pitiful, tender, loving, and charged with more than all the
sweetness of beauty that his sick heart could long for. The thing was
like one of those dreams from which one wakes sad and thoughtful, as
when one has overstepped the boundary mark of life and cast an eye on
heaven.
"It was no face that he knew, and he turned on his pillow to think of it.
He could not believe it was a dream. 'It was a soul,' he said to himself.
'I knew, I was sure, that somewhere there was such a face, but it only
came to my eyes when I was on the borderland of death. If ever God
gave a thing to a mortal man, he should have given me that woman.'
"So with such blasphemous thoughts he idled through the days of his
sickness, very quiet, very weak, and kind to his wife beyond the
ordinary. Of course she, poor woman, knew nothing of the silly tale,
and when her husband gave her those little caresses one would not
withhold from an affectionate dog, she blessed God that he was come
to himself again. You see, Katje dear, that as a man demands more than
he can claim with right, a woman must often make shift with less. It is
well to learn this early.

"Stoffel grew well in time, and got about again. But the stone had made
less of a dent in his skull than the face in his heart, and he was changed
altogether. He served a false god, but served it faithfully. He was very
gentle and patient with every one, almost like a saint, and he took
infinite pains with the work of his farm. He would hurt no living
thing--not even so much as lash a team of lazy oxen. You would have
thought Kafirs would have done as they pleased with him, but they
obeyed his least word, and hung on his eyes for orders as though they
worshipped him. Kafirs and dogs will sometimes see farther than a
Christian.
"Meanwhile Greta came to die. It was a chill, perhaps, with a trifle of
fever on top of that, and it carried her off like a candle-flame when it is
blown out. She died well-- very well indeed. None of your whimpering
and moaning and slinking out of the back-door of life when nobody is
looking; nor that unconscious death that shuts out a chance of a few last
words. No; Greta saw with her eyes and spoke with her mouth to the
last, then folded her hands and died as handsomely as one would wish
to see. She prayed a trifle, as she should; forgave her brother's wife for
speaking ill of her, and hoped her tongue would not lure her to
destruction. I have heard her brother's wife never forgave her for it.
"On the last day she sent everybody out of the room save only Stoffel,
and him she held by the hand as he sat beside the bed. She knew she
was drawing to her end (the dying always know it) and feared nothing.
But there was a matter she wanted to know.
"'Stoffel,' she said when they were alone, won't you tell me now who
that woman is?'
"'What woman?' said Stoffel amazed, for of his dream in his sickness
he had spoken to no living soul.
"She stroked his hand and shook her head at him. Ah, Stoffel,' she said,
'it is long since I first made place for that woman, and if I grudged her
you, I never grudged you her. I was content with what you gave me,
Stoffel; I thought you right, whatever you did, and I go to God still
thinking so. All our life, Stoffel, she prevailed against me, and I

submitted; but now, at this last moment, I want to have the better of it.
Tell me, who was it?'
"And Stoffel, looking on the floor, answered, 'I swear to you there was
no woman.'
"She replied, 'And ere the cock crows thou shall deny me thrice.' She
turned her head and looked at him with a pitiful drawn smile that would
have dragged tears from a demon. 'Was she dark, Stoffel? I am fair, you
know; but my hair--look at it, Stoffel,--my hair is golden. Did you
never notice it before? She was tall, I suppose? Well, I am something
short, but, Stoffel, I am slender, too. Will you not so much as tell me
her name, Stoffel? It is not as if I blamed you.'
"A truth, hardly won, is always