第33章 CHAPTER XII(1)

He Bites

Bonaparte Blenkins was riding home on the grey mare. He had ridden out that afternoon, partly for the benefit of his health, partly to maintain his character as overseer of the farm. As he rode on slowly, he thoughtfully touched the ears of the grey mare with his whip.

"No, Bon, my boy," he addressed himself, "don't propose! You can't marry for four years, on account of the will; then why propose? Wheedle her, tweedle her, teedle her, but don't let her make sure of you. When a woman," said Bonaparte, sagely resting his finger against the side of his nose, "When a woman is sure of you she does what she likes with you; but when she isn't, you do what you like with her. And I--" said Bonaparte.

Here he drew the horse up suddenly and looked. He was now close to the house, and leaning over the pigsty wall, in company with Em, who was showing her the pigs, was a strange female figure. It was the first visitor that had appeared on the farm since his arrival, and he looked at her with interest. She was a tall, pudgy girl of fifteen, weighing a hundred and fifty pounds, with baggy pendulous cheeks and up-turned nose.

She strikingly resembled Tant Sannie, in form and feature, but her sleepy good eyes lacked that twinkle that dwelt in the Boer-woman's small orbs.

She was attired in a bright green print, wore brass rings in her ears and glass beads round her neck, and was sucking the tip of her large finger as she looked at the pigs.

"Who is it that has come?" asked Bonaparte, when he stood drinking his coffee in the front room.

"Why, my niece, to be sure," said Tant Sannie, the Hottentot maid translating. "She's the only daughter of my only brother Paul, and she's come to visit me. She'll be a nice mouthful to the man that can get her," added Tant Sannie. "Her father's got two thousand pounds in the green wagon box under his bed, and a farm, and five thousand sheep, and God Almighty knows how many goats and horses. They milk ten cows in mid- winter, and the young men are after her like flies about a bowl of milk.

She says she means to get married in four months, but she doesn't yet know to whom. It was so with me when I was young," said Tant Sannie. "I've sat up with the young men four and five nights a week. And they will come riding again, as soon as ever they know that the time's up that the Englishman made me agree not to marry in."

The Boer-woman smirked complacently.

"Where are you going to?" asked Tant Sannie presently, seeing that Bonaparte rose.

"Ha! I'm just going to the kraals; I'll be in to supper," said Bonaparte.

Nevertheless, when he reached his own door he stopped and turned in there.

Soon after he stood before the little glass, arrayed in his best white shirt with the little tucks, and shaving himself. He had on his very best trousers, and had heavily oiled the little fringe at the back of his head, which, however, refused to become darker. But what distressed him most was his nose--it was very red. He rubbed his finger and thumb on the wall, and put a little whitewash on it; but, finding it rather made matters worse, he rubbed it off again. Then he looked carefully into his own eyes. They certainly were a little pulled down at the outer corners, which gave them the appearance of looking crosswise; but then they were a nice blue. So he put on his best coat, took up his stick, and went out to supper, feeling on the whole well satisfied.

"Aunt," said Trana to Tant Sannie when that night they lay together in the great wooden bed, "why does the Englishman sigh so when he looks at me?"

"Ha!" said Tant Sannie, who was half asleep, but suddenly started, wide awake. "It's because he thinks you look like me. I tell you, Trana," said Tant Sannie, "the man is mad with love of me. I told him the other night I couldn't marry till Em was sixteen, or I'd lose all the sheep her father left me. And he talked about Jacob working seven years and seven years again for his wife. And of course he meant me," said Tant Sannie pompously. "But he won't get me so easily as he thinks; he'll have to ask more than once."

"Oh!" said Trana, who was a lumpish girl and not much given to talking; but presently she added, "Aunt, why does the Englishman always knock against a person when he passes them?"

"That's because you are always in the way," said Tant Sannie.

"But, aunt, said Trana, presently, "I think he is very ugly."

"Phugh!" said Tant Sannie. It's only because we're not accustomed to such noses in this country. In his country he says all the people have such noses, and the redder your nose is the higher you are. He's of the family of the Queen Victoria, you know," said Tant Sannie, wakening up with her subject; "and he doesn't think anything of governors and church elders and such people; they are nothing to him. When his aunt with the dropsy dies he'll have money enough to buy all the farms in this district."

"Oh!" said Trana. That certainly made a difference.

"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "and he's only forty-one, though you'd take him to be sixty. And he told me last night the real reason of his baldness."

Tant Sannie then proceeded to relate how, at eighteen years of age, Bonaparte had courted a fair young lady. How a deadly rival, jealous of his verdant locks, his golden flowing hair, had, with a damnable and insinuating deception, made him a present of a pot of pomatum. How, applying it in the evening, on rising in the morning he found his pillow strewn with the golden locks, and, looking into the glass, beheld the shining and smooth expanse which henceforth he must bear. The few remaining hairs were turned to a silvery whiteness, and the young lady married his rival.

"And," said Tant Sannie solemnly, "if it had not been for the grace of God, and reading of the psalms, he says he would have killed himself. He says he could kill himself quite easily if he wants to marry a woman and she won't."

"Alle wereld!" said Trana: and then they went to sleep.