Part 40 (1/2)

”And was that Claverton, too?” tranquilly asked the owner of the patronymic in question. For Jessie Garrett, who had also been with Armitage and Gertie, now arrived on the scene--having lingered behind a little--similarly adorned.

”What a mischievous fellow he is!” cried Jim's wife, who had just come up. ”We ought to make him go without his dinner.”

”Or duck him--he deserves ducking,” put in Jessie Garrett. ”Mr Claverton; can't some of you duck him?”

”Too hot for any such violent exertion,” replied Claverton, nonchalantly, as he turned away, and sat down on the ground by the side of Lilian Strange, while old Garrett was heard to remark that ”young fellers would 'ave their fun.”

”Do you know, I'm a shocking bad waiter,” he observed. ”I invariably upset everything--cut over a wing of chicken into somebody's lap, or pour a tumbler full of liquid down their back, or shoot some one opposite bang in the eye with a soda-water cork.”

”But to-day you won't do any of these things,” laughed Lilian. ”And you seem to have taken care of me pretty well.”

”Have I? As a rule, on these occasions, I skulk in the background, and pretend not to know that people have begun to feed. Then, when they are well under weigh, some motherly soul spots me, and makes a descent upon me, singing out: 'Why, I declare, you haven't got anything. Do come and have some of this and of that, and so on;' and I find myself looked after as if I was the prodigal calf--prodigal son. I mean--same thing.

Thus the public back is saved from a baptism of soda-water, and I from making an a.s.s of myself, and every one's happy.”

”Don't be so utterly absurd,” said Lilian, laughing as if she could never stop.

”Here, I say, what's the joke over there, Claverton?” cried Armitage.

”Roll it down this end.”

”I was only telling Miss Strange about you tumbling into the puddle yonder, Jack,” answered he.

”Did he? When? How? Do tell us, Mr Claverton,” cried Gertie Wray.

”Oh, hang it, that's not fair,” growled he most concerned.

”Well, he and Hicks went fis.h.i.+ng here one Sunday. They were told that only naughty little boys went fis.h.i.+ng on Sunday; but anyhow they went, and so were bound to come to grief, and come to grief they did--at least one of them did. The other was spared that he might take warning by it.

Friend Jack, finding it slow, I suppose, lay down on that first flat rock and went to sleep, and--_presto_!--he found himself floundering in deep water.”

”You weren't there,” retorted Jack.

”_No_; else you would not have been here to-day, for I should have deserved well of the State by leaving you in the deep. But the story goes that Hicks was so immensely tickled by the circ.u.mstance as to be unable for some time to render any help to poor Jack, who in consequence was nearly drowned, for the rock is perpendicular, and high out of the water, as you see. My impression is, that Hicks, likewise, wae in the land of Nod; but if so, no historian was present to record the fact.”

There was a laugh all round at Armitage's expense, and amid the clatter of knives and forks, and the popping of corks, conversation and chaff waxed high.

”By the way, did any one go up to the cave?” asked Mr Brathwaite, suddenly.

”No, I think not,” replied Hicks. While others inquired: ”What cave?”

”Why, the cave up yonder. It's a regular Bushman's cave. A lot of them used to live there; but the Dutchmen, who owned the place just below, polished off the last of them. That was during the '46 war. Some of their bones are there still, I believe; but it's a long time since I've been into it.”

”That sounds interesting, but rather ghastly,” said Lilian. ”But why were they killed? Did they join the Kafirs in the war?”

”No. The Kafirs hated them almost more than the Boers did. But they're mischievous little devils, you see. One scratch of their poisoned arrows, and it was all up with you.”

”Where is the place?” asked Claverton.

”Just a little way down the bend, there,” pointing to the jutting wall of cliff. ”There's a path leading up to it--a sort of cattle track--you ought to go and look at it. And there are a lot of regular Bushman drawings in the rock, which are rather curious things if you haven't seen them before. Take Miss Strange up to see them, she might like to make sketches of them.”

For Lilian was an adept in the art of water-colour drawing, and had already portrayed much of the wild bush scenery in the neighbourhood, which had never before been reduced to paper.