A Boer-wedding
"I didn't know before you were so fond of riding hard," said Gregory to his little betrothed.
They were cantering slowly on the road to Oom Muller's on the morning of the wedding.
"Do you call this riding hard?" asked Em in some astonishment.
"Of course I do! It's enough to break the horses' necks, and knock one up for the whole day besides," he added testily; then twisted his head to look at the buggy that came on behind. "I thought Waldo was such a mad driver; they are taking it easily enough today," said Gregory. "One would think the black stallions were lame."
"I suppose they want to keep out of our dust," said Em. "See, they stand still as soon as we do."
Perceiving this to be the case, Gregory rode on.
"It's all that horse of yours: she kicks up such a confounded dust, I can't stand it myself," he said.
Meanwhile the cart came on slowly enough.
"Take the reins," said Lyndall, and "and make them walk. I want to rest and watch their hoofs today--not to be exhilarated; I am so tired."
She leaned back in her corner, and Waldo drove on slowly in the grey dawn light along the level road. They passed the very milk-bush behind which so many years before the old German had found the Kaffer woman. But their thoughts were not with him that morning: they were the thoughts of the young, that run out to meet the future, and labour in the present. At last he touched her arm.
"What is it?"
"I feared you had gone to sleep and might be jolted out," he said; "you sat so quietly."
"No; do not talk to me; I am not asleep;" but after a time she said suddenly: "It must be a terrible thing to bring a human being into the world."
Waldo looked round; she sat drawn into the corner, her blue cloud wound tightly about her, and she still watched the horses' feet. Having no comment to offer on her somewhat unexpected remark, he merely touched up his horses.
"I have no conscience, none," she added; "but I would not like to bring a soul into this world. When it sinned and when it suffered something like a dead hand would fall on me--'You did it, you, for your own pleasure you created this thing! See your work!' If it lived to be eighty it would always hang like a millstone round my neck, have the right to demand good from me, and curse me for its sorrow. A parent is only like to God--if his work turns out bad, so much the worse for him; he dare not wash his hands of it. Time and years can never bring the day when you can say to your child: 'Soul, what have I to do with you?'"
Waldo said dreamingly:
"It is a marvellous thing that one soul should have power to cause another."
She heard the words as she heard the beating of the horses' hoofs; her thoughts ran on in their own line.
"They say, 'God sends the little babies.' Of all the dastardly revolting lies men tell to suit themselves, I hate that most. I suppose my father said so when he knew he was dying of consumption, and my mother when she knew she had nothing to support me on, and they created me to feed like a dog from stranger hands. Men do not say God sends the books, or the newspaper articles, or the machines they make; and then sigh, and shrug their shoulders and say they can't help it. Why do they say so about other things? Liars! 'God sends the little babies!'" She struck her foot fretfully against the splashboard. "The small children say so earnestly.
They touch the little stranger reverently who has just come from God's far country, and they peep about the room to see if not one white feather has dropped from the wing of the angel that brought him. On their lips the phrase means much; on all others it is a deliberate lie. Noticeable, too," she said, dropping in an instant from the passionate into a low, mocking tone, "when people are married, though they should have sixty children, they throw the whole onus on God. When they are not, we hear nothing about God's having sent them. When there has been no legal contract between the parents, who sends the little children then? The devil perhaps!" She laughed her little silvery, mocking laugh. "Odd that some men should come from hell and some from heaven, and yet all look so much alike when they get here."
Waldo wondered at her. He had not the key to her thoughts, and did not see the string on which they were strung. She drew her cloud tighter about her.
"It must be very nice to believe in the devil," she said; "I wish I did.
If it would be of any use I would pray three hours night and morning on my bare knees, 'God, let me believe in Satan.' He is so useful to those people who do. They may be as selfish and as sensual as they please, and, between God's will and the devil's action, always have some one to throw their sin on. But we, wretched unbelievers, we bear our own burdens: we must say, 'I myself did it, I. Not God, not Satan; I myself!' That is the sting that strikes deep. Waldo," she said gently, with a sudden and complete change of manner, "I like you so much, I love you." She rested her cheek softly against his shoulder. "When I am with you I never know that I am a woman and you are a man; I only know that we are both things that think. Other men when I am with them, whether I love them or not, they are mere bodies to me; but you are a spirit; I like you. Look," she said quickly, sinking back into her corner, "what a pretty pinkness there is on all the hilltops! The sun will rise in a moment."
Waldo lifted his eyes to look round over the circle of golden hills; and the horses, as the first sunbeams touched them, shook their heads and champed their bright bits, till the brass settings in their harness glittered again.
It was eight o'clock when they neared the farmhouse: a red-brick building, with kraals to the right and a small orchard to the left. Already there were signs of unusual life and bustle: one cart, a wagon, and a couple of saddles against the wall betokened the arrival of a few early guests, whose numbers would soon be largely increased. To a Dutch country wedding guests start up in numbers astonishing to one who has merely ridden through the plains of sparsely-inhabited karoo.
