And it is only natural, after he has had a bucksail on top of him, that he should come out with his hair rather ruffled, and that his face should be pale.
That night, when we outspanned next to the Groen River, it was very pleasant. We all gathered round the camp-fire and roasted meat and cooked crushed mealies. We sang songs and told ghost stories. And I wondered what Frans du Toit – the honest youth whom Minnie had discarded in Zeerust – would have thought if he could see Minnie Brand and Koos Fichardt, sitting unashamedly in each other’s arms, for all the world to see their love, while the light of the camp-fire cast a rich glow over the thrill that was on their faces.
And although I knew how wonderful were the passing moments for those two, yet somehow, somehow, because I had seen so much of the world, I also felt sorry for them.
The next day we did not trek.
The Groen River was in flood from the heavy rains, and Oupa van Tonder, who had lived a long time in the Cape and was well versed in the ways of rivers, and knew how to swim, even, told us that it would not be safe to cross the drift for another twenty-four hours. Accordingly, we decided to remain camped out where we were until next morning.
At first Koos Fichardt was much disturbed by this news, explaining how necessary it was for him to get into the Bechuanaland Protectorate by a certain day. After a while, however, he seemed to grow more reconciled to the necessity of waiting until the river had gone down.
But I noticed that he frequently gazed out over the veld in the direction from which we had come. He gazed out rather anxiously, I thought.
Some of the men went shooting. Others remained at their wagons, doing odd jobs to the yokes or the trek-chains. Koos Fichardt made himself useful in various little ways, amongst other things, helping Minnie with the cooking. They laughed and romped a good deal.
Night came, and the occupants of the five wagons again gathered round the blazing fire. In some ways, that night was even grander than the one before. The songs we sang were more rousing. The stories we told seemed to have more power in them.
There was much excitement the following morning by the time the wagons were ready to go through the drift. And the excitement did not lie only in the bustle of inspanning the oxen.
For when we crossed the river it was without Koos Fichardt, and there was a slow look in Minnie’s eyes.
The wagons creaked and splashed into the water, and we saw Koos Fichardt for the last time, sitting on his horse, with a horseman in uniform on each side of him. And when he took off his hat in farewell he had to use both hands, because of the cuffs that held his wrists together.
But always what I will remember is that slow look in Minnie’s eyes. It was a kind of satisfaction, almost, at the thought that all the things that came to the girl she saw in the picture had now come to her, too.
The Music Maker
Of course, I know about history – Oom Schalk Lourens said – it’s the stuff children learn in school. Only the other day, at Thys Lemmer’s post office, Thys’s little son Stoffel started reading out of his history book about a man called Vasco da Gama, who visited the Cape. At once Dirk Snyman started telling young Stoffel about the time when he himself visited the Cape, but young Stoffel didn’t take much notice of him. So Dirk Snyman said that that showed you.
Anyway, Dirk Snyman said that what he wanted to tell young Stoffel was that the last time he went down to the Cape a kaffir came and sat down right next to him in a tram. What was more, Dirk Snyman said, was that people seemed to think nothing of it.
Yes, it’s a queer thing about wanting to get into history.
Take the case of Manie Kruger, for instance.
Manie Kruger was one of the best farmers in the Marico. He knew just how much peach brandy to pour out for the tax-collector to make sure that he would nod dreamily at everything Manie said. And at a time of drought Manie Kruger could run to the Government for help much quicker than any man I ever knew.
Then one day Manie Kruger read an article in the Kerkbode about a musician who said that he knew more about music than Napoleon did. After that – having first read another article to find out who Napoleon was – Manie Kruger was a changed man. He could talk of nothing but his place in history and of his musical career.
Of course, everybody knew that no man in the Marico could be counted in the same class with Manie Kruger when it came to playing the concertina.
No Bushveld dance was complete without Manie Kruger’s concertina. When he played a vastrap you couldn’t keep your feet still. But after he had decided to become the sort of musician that gets into history books, it was strange the way that Manie Kruger altered. For one thing, he said he would never again play at a dance. We all felt sad about that. It was not easy to think of the Bushveld dances of the future. There would be the peach brandy in the kitchen; in the voorkamer the feet of the dancers would go through the steps of the schottische and the polka and the waltz and the mazurka, but on the riempies bench in the corner, where the musicians sat, there would be no Manie Kruger.
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