Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases

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"He turned from them to a woman that was prattling near by,
and at once entered her life, it seemed. She turned to him
as one who worships.

"'Come, drink!' Emmanuel called to them. 'This is my
farewell, you people. I've come to the jump-off place.
Reach me a glass, somebody, and put something in it. What
will you have, Walters? Help yourselves, all of you.'

"With chattering and laughter the bottles passed about, and
a woman at the foot of the bed raised her glass with a
flourish and drank to the sick man. 'You're game, boy,' she
cried; 'you finish like a ferret!'

"Barend stood for three hours watching them, Peter by his
side. 'It was like reading in Chronicles and Kings,' he
said, when he related it later. 'There was a boil of
business all about, and drinking and gabbling, and I saw
faces, flushed and working, that I am sick to remember. The
wine they drank came soon to possess them as Legion
possessed the swine; in an hour they were lost to all
reason and decency, and women were cursing in the voices of
men and men weeping loosely like women. They cast off their
outer garments when the room grew hot, and lounged half-
naked; and of all of them, only two seemed to live aloof,
like men among beasts--Emmanuel and the young man Walters.

"'This young man passed in and out like an eel in water.
Nothing clung to him of all the filth in which he trod. He
drank, but was not less the master of himself; he jested,
but his laughter was the mirth of the pure in heart,
without harshness in it, and they made him way and listened
when he spoke; and even the gross, hot-eyed women dulled
their terrible speech when he stood before them. The eyes
of Emmanuel, propped in his bed, his blankets wet with the
wine he spilled from his glass, were ever upon him. I think
the boy admired him. Whenever he stirred, sovereigns
dribbled to the floor, but he looked not once after them;
he was all for watching Walters, who barely turned towards
him. Ah, but he was very sick, our Emmanuel! His breath
rasped as he drew it; there was a fire in his great eyes
that made one tremble--that fire that makes you think of
hell-fire and naked souls writhing in it. A look of savage
hunger, but far off, as though desiring things not of
earth!'

"A strange scene, was it not, for a chamber overshadowed by
the wings of death. Towards midnight, Emmanuel sighed, and
slipped down a little. Peter moved to lift him and started
at the pinch of death on his face. His exclamation drew
most of the others to look, but as they crowded near
Emmanuel opened his eyes.

"'Walters,' he said faintly.

"'Well, my boy,' said Walters.

"'What-do-you-think-of-this?' Emmanuel asked, his weakness
watering his speech.

"Walters laughed quietly. 'I'll tell you in the morning,'
he said. 'But you're a good actor, my friend.'

"You'll see,' whispered Emmanuel, and closed his eyes
again.

"Then Barend bade them all go forth, and after awhile, when
he had taken one lewd man in his hands and cast him on the
stair, they went, and the noise of their voices, raw and
ungentle, filtered away. The two Boers were left at the
bedside, among the bottles and the gold and the strewn
clothes; and Emmanuel lay rigid, with a buzz in his throat
and a spot of blood on his lips. Peter kneeled and prayed.

"But in a couple of hours, when his face had grown thin and
his nose sharp, and his hands cold as clods, they saw he
was dead, and spoke together of what they must do. They
knew nothing of that treacherous web of law and custom
which is the life of a city; they knew only that their feet
were among pitfalls, and that they must move quickly if
they would take Emmanuel away to the farm and the kraal. So
while Peter went forth to bring three horses, Barend sought
among the garments scattered about the room and dressed the
thin body in them, and put his own broad-brimmed hat on the
fair head that should henceforth need no shelter from the
sun. When he had done, Peter returned, and came up the
stairs quietly.

"They took the body of Emmanuel under the armpits, one on
each side of him, and thus carried him down the stairs. A
man met them on the way, his face bland and foolish in the
glow of a candle he carried.

"'Drunk, eh?' he said, without particular curiosity.
'Almost dead, by the looks of him.'

"'Quite dead,' answered Barend, and they passed him and
came down to the horses, hitched at the sidewalk.

"They put the body in the saddle, and rode on either side,
close in, and Peter held it upright with a hand on its
shoulder, as a man might conceivably ride by a comrade.
There was yet no light of day, only a grayness that
streaked the night sky, and a bitterness in the air like a
note of mourning. Slowly, walking their sleepy horses, they
passed along the streets, dark save where a lamp at a
corner shed a yellow and dismal light about it. Creatures
of the night, slouching here and there, looked at them;
policemen, screening from the wind in dark corners, thrust
forth heads; but they rode on, and none stopped them, and
thus they came forth of the city and faced the veld again.

"They raised their faces to its freshness, familiar and
friendly as the voice of one's kin, and pushed the horses
to a trot, while behind them the blur of light that was the
city paled and died down as the miles multiplied under
their hoofs. Peter had the leading rein of the middle horse
while Barend steadied its burden, and thus they traveled
towards the east and home.

"When the sun was high, they no longer dared follow the
road. Out of those they must meet and exchange words with,
there would surely be some whom they could not deceive-some
who had seen death before and knew the signs of it. So they
pulled aside, and made for the high land of Baviaan's Nek,
riding across the gray grass and among the yellow ant-hills
till close on noon. Then, dipping to a hollow, where some
willows cast a shade upon a pool of a spruit, they
dismounted and laid the dead man in the cool, while they
off-saddled the horses and rested themselves. There were
biltong and bread in their saddle-bags, and tobacco they
did not lack, and the need for food drove them to make a
big meal. They were concerned with this so deeply that they
did not notice that a Kafir, carrying the bundles which
Kafirs always carry on the trek, had come up to them.

"He was an old Kafir, his wool gray and his skin rough with
age, but his eyes were bright with the full of strength and
peaceful with wisdom. He lay down at the pool's brink and
drank, and then gave them good day.

"'Will the baas permit me to sit in the shade of the
trees?' he asked. 'It is hot traveling.'

"He looked from them to the stretched body of Emmanuel as
he spoke.

"'Sit over there, then,' said Barend, 'and see you keep
quiet.'

"'Oh, I shall not wake that baas, at all events,' said the
old Kafir, pointing to the body.

"Both the Boers were startled at this, but the man walked
calmly to the farthest tree, and piled his bundles there.

"'We all have our troubles,' he said, as he shook out his
brown blanket. 'Age for some of us, sorrow for others. And
then there is death, too. I am not dead, at least.'

"'Why do you talk of death?' demanded Peter sharply.

"The old Kafir held up a finger. There was a kind of mirth
in his motion. 'Hush, or you will wake him,' he replied.
'But I know all about death, except the taste of it. I know
how it looks, and how it lies on the ground, and how it
comes, and how it is concealed.'

"He raised his hard old face with eyes half-closed, and
snuffled at the air.

"'And how it smells, too,' he said.

"'You will learn the taste of it in a minute,' cried
Barend, springing to his feet with a white face. 'You old
scarecrow, what is it you are hinting about? Do you take us
for murderers?'

"The old Kafir sat down among his bundles and fumbled for
his pipe. There was no concern on him; he had the still
ease of one who comes upon his own special task, sees it,
and knows he is the master of it. While Barend, shaking a
little, stood gauntly over him, he filled his pipe, lit it,
and blew forth a cloud of smoke.

"'Pooh!' he said. 'The baas gives too much importance to
trifles. A dead man is of less worth than a living one. It
is the baas I am interested in--not the carrion.'

"He spat very leisurely and took the pipe to his lips
again.

"Barend, after a little hesitation, sat down again.

"'I have known white men,' said the old Kahr, leaning back
against his tree, 'who scratched crosses in the ground, and
traced them on their breasts with a finger, when they came
upon death or the dead. That is a strong charm. And in the
east, yonder, are others who spill wine on the earth. But
in my tribe we neither make crosses nor waste liquor. We
spit. Where is the baas going?'

"'Across Baviaan's Nek,' said Barend, very quietly.

"'Ah! That is a long way. Tonight the baas should camp by
the huts that are over the drift where the great rocks are.
There are Kafirs there who will not fear this luggage of
yours. They will sell food and shelter, and refrain from
curiosity. Will that serve the baas?'

"'Surely,' said Barend, and tossed him some tobacco.

"The old Kahr caught the horses for them and helped them to
lift the dead man to the saddle. By this time the body had
become stiff, and needed a constant effort to hold it
steady. The sun was hot as they rode on, and the dust
smoked up about the fetlocks of the horses. The stiff feet
of the dead man were in the stirrups, and as now and again
they broke into a short canter, he seemed as though he
would stand up in his stirrups to look ahead.

"'So Emmanuel always did when he rode among ant-heaps,'
said Peter once.

"Barend only grunted in reply; the strain on his arm and
wrist was a heavy one.

"They camped that night at the huts the old Kafir had
spoken of. The Kafirs there were of a large build, strong
and silent. They glanced once or twice at the body, but
said nothing.

Food was forthcoming--, and a big clean hut, and here the
two Boers slept beside the corpse. It was only next
morning, when they had mounted and were about to start,
that one, with the head-ring of dignity about his scalp,
gave a word of counsel.

"He stood at Barend's bridle, looking up to him with a sort
of pity.

"'The day will be hot, baas,' he said, 'and that will be
doubly burdensome. So you may know that beyond the Nek,
where the mimosas grow on a damp plain, the ground is very
soft. There are huts there, and shovels.'

"Barend nodded his thanks, and they rode through the drift
and up the Nek. It was, as the Kafir had predicted, a hot
day. One of those days which come in the throng of the
summer, when the sun is an oppressor, ruthless and joying
in pain, when the earth is dead with heat and dryness and
the very air forbears to take a freedom I When they came
down the slopes beyond the crest, the flanks and rumps of
the horses were slimy with running sweat, and red nostrils
spoke of distress. The dead man sat in the saddle with a
thin show of eyeball under each lowered lid, and a gleam of
teeth above the sunken lower lip, yet for all the world
like one that follows a purpose, like one guiding himself
to a steadfast end. In the face there was a growing hue
that does not visit the living, but the hat-brim cast a
shadow over it that lent it an effect of deep gravity and
solemn intention.

"'He means to reach the farm.' said Barend, after glancing
at him.

"Peter drew rein. 'And yet,' he said, 'he will never do it
if we travel thus. We killed horses to make the city in
three days; going at this rate, it will take us six to
return.'

"'Well,' replied Barend, 'what else is there to do?'

"'Only one thing,' said Peter, 'your horse is the weight-
carrier. You must take Emmanuel over your saddle-bow, and
we must kill more horses.'

"'But a dead man,' said Barend. 'It is like a blasphemy.'

"'We can do nothing else,' said Peter, and after a little
more talking they made the change."

The Vrouw Grobelaar paused and looked at us. Katje was
tight in the crook of my arm.

"Words limp while horses stride free," she said, "but
conceive that ride. Taking horses where they could find
them, they rested no more, nor drew rein save to fill and
light their pipes. From Baviaan's Nek they traveled at the
canter across the mimosa swamp, and so by the Rhenoster
Drift to Ookiep, where Barend's horse fell and he and that
other rolled on the veld together. When Peter had found and
brought another horse, they made one stage to Jantje's
Kraal, and thence, galloping wordless through the night, to
Zwartvark. Long rides, you will say! Aye, rides to
remember; but think of the brimming stillness of the
journey, hushed and governed by that silent companion,
while thought could not stray nor fancy escape from the
death that chased at the elbow of each. When, on the third
morning, as the sun came spouting up from the low country,
they saw afar the roof that was their goal, Peter cried
aloud like a child awaking from evil dreams.

"Ere noon their hoofs knocked on the stones in the front
kraal, and they bore the body to the shade of the tobacco
shed.

"'And now,' said Peter, when that was done, 'who is to tell
the ou tante?'

"Barend leaned at the door-post with his arm cast up over
his face and said nought, but there came from the house a
girl of the neighborhood, who laid a finger to her lips.

"'Hush,' she said. 'Make no noise about this house. Where
have you been, the two of you? An hour earlier, and you had
been in time. As it is, the Vrouw van der Westhuizen died
with no kin about her.'"

THE SACRIFICE

"Do not think," said the Vrouw Grobelaar, looking at me
with a hard unwinking eye, "that idle men should have
pretty wives. Though Katje will lose that poppy red-and-
white when she begins to grow fat. Still--"

Katje made an observation.

"Her mother," pursued the Vrouw Grobelaar, still holding me
fixed, "spent seventeen years in one room, because she
could not go through the door; and when she died they took
the roof on and hoisted her out like a bullock from a well.
But as I was saying, it is not well that idle men--those
with leisure for their littlenesses, like schoolmasters and
doctors and Predikants should have pretty wives, or they
tend to waste themselves. A man with real work and money
matters and the governing of cattle and land and Kafirs to
fill his day, for such a one it is very well. Her
prettiness is an interval, like the drink he takes in the
noonday. But for an idle man it becomes the air he
breathes. He is all-dependent on it, and it is a small and
breakable thing.

"Look how men have been wrecked upon a morsel of pink-and-
white, how strong brains have scattered like seed from a
burst pod for a trifle of hunger in a pair of eyes! I
remember many such cases which would make you stare for the
foolishness of men and the worthlessness of some women.
There was the Heer Mostert, Predikant at Dopfontein, who
fell to blasphemy and witchcraft when his wife Paula was
sick and muttered emptily among her pillows."

The old lady shifted in her wide chair and took her eyes
from me at last.

"She was pretty, if you like," she said. "A tall girl, with
a small red mouth, and hair that swathed her head like
coils of bronze. The Predikant, who had more fire in him
than a minister should have, and more fullness of blood
than is good for any man, spent the half of his life in the
joy of being near to her. She was full in the face and slow
with a sleek languor, but on his coming there was to see a
quickness of welcome spread itself in her. She would flush
warmly, and her eyes would cry to him. Their love glowed
between them; they were children together in that mighty
bond. So when a spring that came down with chill rains
smote Paula with a fever, and laid her weakly on her bed,
the Predikant was a widower already, and walked with a face
white and hard, drawn suddenly into new lines of pain and
fear.

"Women are strange in sickness. Some are infants, greatly
needing caresses and the neighborhood of one tender and
familiar. Others grow bitter, with an unwonted spite and
temper, venting their ill-ease on all about them. But after
the first, Paula was neither of these. The sense of things
left her, and she lay on her bed with wide eyes that saw
nothing and spoke brokenly about babies. For she had none.
The doctor, a man of much brisk kindness, whose face was
grown to a cheerful shape, frowned as he bent above her and
questioned her heart and pulse. Paula was very ill, and as
he looked up he saw the Predikant, tall and still, standing
at the foot of the bed, gazing on the girl's face that gave
no gaze back; and there was little he could say.

"'Speak to her,' he told him.

"The Predikant kneeled down beside her, and took her hand,
that pinched and plucked upon the quilt, into his.

"'Paula!' he said gently. 'Wife!' and oh! the yearning that
shivered nakedly in his voice.

"'Little hands,' moaned Paula weakly--'little hands beating
on my breasts. Little weak hands; oh, so little and weak!'

"The Predikant bowed his head, and the doctor saw his
shoulders bunch in a spasm of grief.

"'Paula!' he called again. 'Paula, dear. It is I--John.
Don't you know John, Paula? Won't you answer me, dear?'

"With eyes shut tight, he lifted a face of passionate
prayer.

"'Say daddy!' said Paula, crooning faintly. 'Say daddy.'

"The doctor passed his arm across the Predikant.

"'Come away,' he said gently. 'This does no good. Come
away, now. There is plenty of hope.'

"He led him outside, rocking like a sightless man. When he
sat down on the edge of the stoop, he stared straight
before him for a little while, fingering a button on his
coat till it broke off. Then he flung it from him and
laughed--laughed a long quiet laugh that had no tincture of
wildness.

"'Look here,' said the doctor, 'unless you go and lie down,
you'll not be fit to help me with Paula when I need you.
Lie down or work, whichever you please. But one or the
other, my man.'

"'Suppose,' said the Predikant quietly--'suppose I go and
pray?'

"'That'll do capitally,' answered the doctor. 'But pray
hard, mind. It might even do some good. There's nothing
certain in these cases.'

"'I have just been thinking that,' said the Predikant,
turning to him with a face full of doubt. But we can try
everything, at any rate.'

"'We will, too,' said the doctor cheerfully; and then the
Predikant passed to his room to pour out the soul that was
in him in prayer for the life of Paula.

"It was a great battle the doctor fought in the dark room
in which she lay. When late that night the Predikant, his
face dull white in the ominous gloom, came again to the
rail at the foot of the bed, his hand fell on something
soft that hung there. It was Paula's long bronze hair they
had cut off for coolness to her head.

"The doctor did not wait for the question.

"'There will be a crisis before day,' he said.

"'What does that mean?' asked the other. The doctor
explained that Paula would rise, as it were, to the crest
of a steep hill, whence she would go down to life or death
as God should please.

"'But what can we do?' demanded the Predikant.

"'Very little,' replied the doctor. 'Beyond the care I am
giving her now, the thing is out of our hands. We can only
look on and hope. There is always hope.'

"'And always hope betrayed,' said the Predikant. 'But is
she worse now than she was this afternoon when she babbled
of the little hands?'

"'Yes,' answered the doctor.

"'But I prayed,' said the Predikant, with a faint note of
argument and question.

"'Quite right, too,' replied the doctor.' Go and pray
again,' he suggested.

"The Predikant shook his head.' It is wasting time,' he
whispered, and turned to tiptoe out. But at the door he
turned and crept back again.

"'It is my wife, you see,' he said mildly--'my wife, so if
one thing fails we must try another. You see?'

"The doctor nodded soothingly, and the Predikant crept out
again.

"The doctor sat beside the bed and watched the sick woman,
and heard her weak murmur of children born in the dreams of
fever. It was a still night, cool, and hung with a white
glory of stars, and the point at which life and death
should meet and choose drew quickly near.

There was this and that to do, small offices that a woman
should serve; but the doctor had ordered the women away and
did them himself. He was a large man, who continually fell
off when he mounted a horse, but in a sick-room he was
extraordinarily deft, and trod velvet footed. So in the
business of leading Paula to the point where God would
relieve him time went fast, and presently he knew the
minute was at hand.

"He was sitting, intent and strung, when he heard from the
garden outside the house a bell tinkle lightly. He frowned,
for it was no time for noises; but it tinkled again and yet
again, louder and more insistent, while a change grew
visibly on the face of the sick woman, and he knew that the
issue was stirring in the womb of circumstance. Then,
brazenly, the bell rang out, and with an oath on his breath
he rose and slipped soundlessly from the room.

"When he reached the garden all was still, and he loosed
his malediction upon the night air. But even as he turned
to go back the bell fluttered near at hand, and he dived
among the bushes to silence it He nearly fell over one that
kneeled between two big shrubs and wagged a little ram
bell.

"'What in hell is this?' demanded the doctor fiercely,
seizing the bell.

"'It is me,' answered a voice, and the Predikant rose to
his feet. 'Be careful where you tread. There are things
lying about your feet you had better not touch. Has it done
her any good?'

"'You stricken fool!' cried the doctor, 'do you know no
better than to go rattling your blasted bells about the
place tonight? You're mad, my man--mad and inconvenient.'

"'But is she better?' persisted the Predikant.

"'I'll tell you in ten minutes.' replied the doctor. 'But
if you make any more noise you'll kill her, mind that.'

"The Predikant went with him to the stoop, and stayed there
while the doctor returned to the bedside. At the end of an
interval he was out again, and took the husband by the arm.

"'It's over,' he said. 'She's doing finely. Sleeping like a
child. You can thank God now, Mynheer Mostert.'

"The Predikant stared at him dumbly.

"'Thank God, did you say?' he asked at last.

"'And me,' answered the doctor, smiling.

"'I do thank you,' answered the Predikant. 'I do thank you
from my heart, doctor. But for the rest--'

"And here, with a voice as even as one who speaks on the
traffic of every day, with a calm face, he poured forth an
awful, a soul-wracking blasphemy.

"'Here!' cried the doctor, startled. 'Draw the line
somewhere, Predikant. That sort of thing won't do at all,
you know.'

"'Now let me see my wife,' said the Predikant; and after a
while, when he had warned him very solemnly on the need for
silence, the doctor took him in and showed him Paula, thin
and shorn, sleeping with level breath. The Predikant looked
on her with parted lips and clenched hands, and when he was
outside again he turned to the doctor.

"' I value my soul,' he said simply. 'But it is worth it.'

"'I haven't a notion what you are gibbering about,'
answered the doctor, who had a glass in his hand. 'But
there's long sleep and a dream killer in this tumbler, and
you've to drink it.'

"'I need nothing,' said the Predikant, but at the doctor's
urgency he drank the dose, and was soon in his bed and
sleeping.

"Next day, when he was let in to Paula's bedside, she
smiled and murmured at him, and nodded weakly when he
spoke. The doctor warned him about noise.

"'We've won her back,' he explained, 'and she's going to do
well. But she has had a hard time, and there's no denying
she is very weak and ill. So if you go back to your bell--
ringing or any of those games you'll undo everything. She's
to be kept quiet, do you hear?'

"'I hear,' answered the Predikant. 'There shall be
stillness. Not that it matters for all your words, but
there shall be stillness.'

"'I warn you,' retorted the doctor seriously, 'that it
matters very much. You're off your axle, my friend, and I
shall have to doctor you. But if I hear of any foolishness,
Predikant or no Predikant, I'll have you locked up as sure
as your name's Mostert.'

"He left him there, and started through the garden to his
cart that stood in the road. On his way he stubbed his foot
against something that lay on the earth--a great metal cup.
He picked it up.

"'I am not a heathen,' he said, as he brought it to the
Predikant, 'and therefore a Communion-cup is no more to me
than a sardine tin, when it is out of its place. I don't
want to know what you were doing out here the other night,
my friend; but you had better put this back in the Kerk
before somebody misses it.'

"The Predikant took it from him, but said nothing.

"'And look here,' went on the doctor, 'it was my skill and
knowledge that saved your wife. Nothing else. Good-day.'

"As he drove off, he saw the Predikant still standing on
the stoop, the great cup, stained here and there with
earth, in his hand.

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