Chapter Twenty Eight
Abe and the Eagles
I had not seen old Abe Pike for some weeks, having been on rinderpest guard on the Orange River, but on my return to the coast I rode over to Gum Tree Farm, where the lone blue-gum threw its pillar of cloud, in the blazing afternoon, across the doorway. Uncle Abe was lounging, as usual, by the doorway, looking listlessly at the sea.
“Well, oud baas! How goes it?”
“Is there no more cattle to kill?” he said, straightening his back and propping himself against the wall. “Think you’d be ashamed to look a beefsteak in the face after the way you been shooting them pore animiles!”
“The plague must be stamped out, Abe.”
“Oh, yes! I yeard that story before! It’s a good way to save a crittur’s life by shooting him! What beats me is why you don’t up and shoot all children sick with tyfust and grown people ailing with influenza! My gum! I’m ashamed of you!”
“Well, so long!”
“You ain’t goin’?”
“I think so; the work of shooting cattle is not pleasant, but it is less pleasant to be reminded of it.”
“Oh, go along! Put your horse in the shed and come right in. The place ain’t been the same since you’ve been away, sonny; ’sides, there’s been no one along for weeks, and I’m jes’ bu’sting with talk. You wouldn’t like to see old Abe die of untold yarns.”
So I off-saddled and knee-haltered the horse, for there was no oat-hay in the shed for him, and he had to get what picking he could from the old lands, yellow with charlock.
Abe made up the fire, and put on the kettle to boil, while from the larder he produced a slab of pork and a half-loaf – very black on the outside and very soft within.
“The last batch of baking,” he said, “was not up to the mark. The yeast gave out, and I were obliged to get a rise out of a handful of rub-rub berries. As for the pork, that came from a pig that was catched.”
“What sort of pig?”
“Well, sonny, it was this way. You know the eagles’ nest on the old yellow-wood in the big kloof? I got the pig out of there.”
“Oh, you did, did you? As far as I remember, the tree is a hundred feet high, and the nest quite sixty feet up. The pig climbed up, I presume?”
“You presoom morn’s good for you, sonny. Don’t suppose ’cos you bin to the Orange River you know everything. The pig didn’t climb up; he jes’ dropped in on passin’; paid a sort of flying visit. That nest’s as big as a cart wheel, and if you stand below and look up the trunk it shuts out the sky, while down below there’s bones enough, and of sorts, to build up the skelingtons of a entire museum. That pair of eagles used that nest going on for fifteen years, and each year when the young hatch out they kill off more dassies and cats and blue-boks than you could eat in a year.”
“You are welcome to the cats, Abe.”
“Yes, sir. Them eagles have buried, I reckon, as many as two thousand animiles in that leaf-mould cemingtary below the big tree. Well! Grub being skerce, I had a fancy to bury them young squabs of eagles, by way of satisfying my own yearning for food, and giving the ole hook-beaked pirates a hint that they hadn’t the sole right over the earth and air. Sonny, that’s a big tree, and it took me a fortnight to climb up.”
“That was quick!”
“I’ve seen quicker climbin’, but taking the size of the tree and the height of it – maybe, five hundred feet!”
“I thought the height to the nest was about sixty feet?”
“Have you clomb that tree?”
“No, Abe.”
“Well, I have; and if it’s not a mile high, it’s high enuf when you’re up aloft, with nothing to keep you from adding your bones to the pile below but an iron spike no bigger’n a nail. I camped out one day at the bottom of the tree, and it was mighty lonesome, when the wind came whisperin’ round the trees, and dark shadows peeped from behin’ the rocks, while up above the she-eagle would hiss at her mate. For about two days they took no heed of me, but the fifth day, when I was sprawling half-way up, with a looped rheim round the tree, the ole she-bird took a squint at me over the nest, and flopped down to the lowest bough, where she watched me under her brows drive in a three-inch nail. Two inches I druv it in, and when I lowered myself for another, she jes’ dropped down, clawing to the tree with her long hooked toes, and yanked that nail out.”
“Abe Pike!”
“Yes, sir; she jes’ grabbed hole of it, give it a wrench, and out it come. Then she fetched a yell loud enough almost to split the tree, and went off. Nex’ mornin’, believe me, there was that nail, and five others, outside the door! Them eagles had fetched them up to give notice it was no good. They’re mighty strong in the beak, is eagles,” said Abe, pouring out the coffee.
“But truth is stronger, eh?”
“That’s so, sonny; you take hole o’ that, and it’ll do you a heap of good. That day I druv in them nails deeper, and they held good, by reason that the ole she-bird had got lockjaw, and sot up there nursin’ her beak, with her red eyes glowing like coals. About the fifth day I were near up, when the ole man dropped a coney’s head, and by luck it took me over the head. Well, you’d hardly believe me when I tell you, that no sooner the ole girl seen this than she gave a hiss, and began scraping out of the nest all the rubbish, bones, and skin, and feathers, and sich. Whew! I tell you I had to scuttle and leave off. Well, next day she were looking out for me, and soon’s I got up dropped a full-grown blue-bok – ker-blung – and if I had not been prepared, would ha’ sent me tumbling. I climbed down, an’ roasted that there bit of venison while the two of them watched. Of course, after that meal I went home, and next mornin’, when I opened the door, blow me! if there weren’t a rock rabbit, fat as butter, jes’ outside. I ate him and stopped at home. Next mornin’ there was a brace of partridges, so I ate ’em, and stayed quiet. Next morning a big hare, an’ I ate him and stayed at home. So on till the eleventh mornin’, when there was only a black cat, with the musk of him smellin’ most awful. Of course, I wasn’t eating any such vermin, but I thought the eagles meant well, and I wasn’t blaming them. I buried that crittur two feet deep, and went hungry to bed. Next mornin’ I was outer the door before I was awake, expecting to fin’ a plump lamb, or maybe a kid or a turkey, but there was nothing, sir, but the smell of that stink eat hanging around most dreadful. Sonny, the feelings of them two eagles had been hurt. They took it as a slight that I hadn’t eaten that skunk, so I sot off to the kloof to explain matters. When I got there the ole he was sailing above the tree, with his claws tucked up, and his head on one side. When he seed me he jes’ fetched a screech like a railway engine divin’ into a tunnel, and then he settled on the tree, where, bymby, he were joined by the ole she. They jest sot there and looked, making no sign to drop anything, so I begun to climb; but they took no notice, and bymby I come to the end of the nails, and the nearest bough was six feet away. I had to give it up that day, leaving them two birds all ruffled up and mighty cold and standoffish. It was hard next mornin’ to find nothing outside the door, and I seed there was nothing left but to finish the job, and catch them young squabs. I went off to the kloof, bitter against the ingratitood of them stingy birds, which were ready to let a human bein’ starve when they had a larder jes’ stuffed with hares and things – and my hares, too! Them birds was waiting for me – throwing their beaks back and screaming like mad, while the squabs in the nest squealed till my head split. They had sense enuf to see I were angry, and they sot up that racket to starve me off; but a hungry man don’t stop to listen to speeches when his dinner is callin’ out loud for him, so I went up with my mouth full of nails. Very soon I were over the bough, and the screeching and squealing were terrible to listen to.”
“Didn’t the eagles attack you?”
“No, sonny! They were jest helpless with laughing!”
“Laughing?”
“When I threw my leg over the bough, I got the hammer ready to strike, but I seed them shakin’ all over, till some of the wing feathers dropped out, and tears were running down their beaks and droppin’ off the sharp point of the hook. It was not fear – you never seed a eagle afraid – he couldn’t be if he tried – an’ I seed at once they were laughin’ fit to die. I sot there in a tremble at the unnatural circumstance, and then began to climb till I could look into the nest. Sonny, d’you know what they were laughing at.”
“The pig in the nest.”
“Who told you?”
“Oh, I just guessed.”
“Well, I’m blessed! Ghoisters! You never seed a pig in a nest up a tree seven hundred feet high?”
“Not that I remember, Abe.”
“Gum! Yes, sir; there were a pig in that nest. Them birds, sonny, had kept me off till their squabs could fly, and then they played that joke on me. I chucked the pig out, and when I got down he were as dead as bacon. Come to think of it, sonny, it were a kind thought of them eagles to put it up there, and it makes me smile every time to think of the way them birds laughed till they shook their feathers out.”
The old man fixed his abstracted gaze on a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“I hope to train ’em next year,” he said, “to keep me in venison and lard. Going? Well, so long!”
“So long, Abe!”
Chapter Twenty Nine
Abe’s Billy Goat
Our Poison Club was in a flourishing condition. During the past year the members had killed off 1,500 red cats, wild dogs, jackals, seven leopards, and 500 baboons. This represented a good round sum – each tail being equivalent to a five-shilling demand on the exchequer of the country – and the chairman had called a meeting to distribute the awards.
“I have pleasure in announcing, gentlemen,” he said, “that Mr Si Amos is the champion poisoner – having placed to his credit 300 cat tails, seventy-five jackal tails, fifty-four baboon tails, and one leopard tail. In addition to the dues which are rightly his, he is entitled to the silver medal presented by the club.”
“Well done, Si! Step up!”
Silas pulled his lank figure together, hitched up his trousers, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and lumbered up the narrow passage.
“Give him pizen!” said someone in a loud voice, whereat there were cries of “Shame!”
Silas paused, balanced himself uncertainly on one leg, and searched the audience.
“It’s that Abe,” he said. “What he says don’t amount to nothin’.”
“Mr Pike,” expostulated the chairman; “I’m astonished at you.”
“Look here, Jim Hockey,” said Abe, rising up from a back seat, and pointing his pipe-stem at the chairman; “I don’t keer if you give that thing there a whole string o’ silver buttons – and Lord knows he wants ’em, to keep himself from falling to pieces – but I tell you, you’re opsettin’ the laws of nature goin’ about killing the animiles off the face of the yearth. It’s not the mean, sneaking way you’ve got inter of dropping pizen pills all over the place that riles me so much as the killin’ of ’em off by the thousan’ without takin’ any thought of what’s coming. Take baboons – ”
“Are we here, Mr Chairman, to listen to a speech from Mr Pike, or are we not?” asked one member, who was credited with having opened a market in jackals’ tails.
“Take baboons,” said Abe, pointing his pipe-stem insultingly at his interrupter. “I allow they’re mean, I allow they eat your mealies, steal your fruit, kill a sheep or two, and frighten your wives; but if it warn’t for the baboons there’d be a scorpion under every stone and a centipede in every ole stump. The baboons eat them vermin. Take cats – if it warn’t for cats the lands would be swarmin’ with mice. If it warn’t for the jackals there’d be a hare in every grass clump.”
“If it warn’t for Abe Pike,” said Silas, with a look of disgust, “there’d be a durn sight less jaw.”
“Hear, hear!”
“Year away,” said Abe, “and listen to this. When you’re done killin’ all these critturs, the scorpions, an’ the centipedes, an’ the rats, an’ the snakes, an’ the spiders’ll swarm all over you. What yer got ter do is to set Nature ag’in Nature. The wild buck can look after hisself; teach the tame goat and the sheep to do the same.”
“The laws of Nature, Abe, have covered your lands with weeds.”
“Yes; and reduced his mangy live stock to one goat,” added Si.
“Laugh! yer yeller-eyed, big-footed, long-legged, two-headed, freckled-faced duffers – laugh! – but I bet you that ole goat’ll knock the stuffin’ out of your club, and purtect hisself ag’in any wild crittur, from a stink-cat to a tiger.”
“You’re jawing,” said Si; “otherwise I’d hold you to your bounce.”
Abe took from his pocket a skin purse, tightly bound with a long thong, unwound this, emptied out into his yellow hand, which shook with excitement, two bright sovereigns.
“That ain’t any wild cat tail money,” he said; “it’s the saving of sixty years’ hard work – and I stake that.”
“What’s the wager?” asked the chairman.
“That my ole goat proves to this yer club that Nature provides a way outside of pizening by holding his own ag’inst anything on two feet or four feet, ’cept a elephant or a steam roller.”
“The club takes the bet,” said the chairman, in a solemn voice and a winking eye.
“Well; jes’ take keer o’ that money until your nex’ meeting, when I’ll turn up with the ole Kapater. So long!”
“You’ll lose that money, Abe,” I said following him as he slouched away.
“It’s a heap of money,” he said; “a glittering pile that I been saving up for my ole age.”
“Call the bet off, Abe.”
“You think the ole man’s a blasteratious ijiot, sonny? Well, well! maybe. Let him stand at that till nex’ meeting.”
In three months the meeting was called, and due notice served on Mr Abe Pike and his goat. It was a full house that met in the drowsy afternoon in the big shed on Mr Hockey’s farm, and the discussion turned at once on the disposal of Abe’s money – the general opinion being that it should be given back.
“I object,” said Si Amos, who had brought with him a huge and hideous half-breed between a boar-hound and a mongrel. “That ole man’s been throwing slurs on this club, and it’s my opinion he ought to pay for it. Anyhow, I’ll ‘psa’ my dog on to his goat.”
Last of all, Abe Pike himself entered the shed, wearing an expression of profound despondency.
“Anyone got a pipe of tobacco?” he said, looking around gloomily.
There was no tobacco hospitably forthcoming, everyone being too disgusted at the thought that all the fun was off.
Abe leant wearily against the wall. “Time was,” he said, “when a man would hand you his tobacco bag as he said ‘Good-morning.’ There’s a natural meanness in pizening animiles, and it’s jes’ oozing out of yer.”
“Where’s your goat, you old humbug?”
“Gentlemen, I’m very sorry, but that goat’s woke up with a most awful temper, and I jes’ drop in t’ ask you voetsack all the dogs outer the place ’fore I bring him in.”
“Yah!” said Si Amos; “I knew he’d back down. It was part of the bet that dogs was to be brought.”
“That’s so,” said Mr Hockey.
“You won’t turn out your dogs?”
“No sir! But this yer dog’ll eat your goat, and I give you fair warning!” said Si, stirring the big mongrel with his toe.
Abe looked round, gave me a wink, and went out.
When he reappeared he was leading one of the biggest goats – a great blue “Kapater,” with a long beard, massive horns, and a boss of leather and brass over his forehead.
“Well I’m jiggered!” said one member, getting behind the table.
Someone – I don’t know who the rash individual was – said “psa,” and the big mongrel stood up, showing his teeth and growling in his throat.
Abe smiled sadly, let go his hold of the goat, pinched his ear, and then the great rout of the Poison Club began. The goat walked briskly up to the dog, reared up, brought his head down, and sent the mongrel smash under the table, where he remained whimpering; then in a brace, at a whistle from his master, the unnatural billy cleared the shed with the effectiveness of a battering ram. At the outset the strong man of the country tried to seize him by the horns, but he evaded the grasp and shot his massive enemy over a form; and when the others fled, he butted them from behind so that each man flew out headlong, helping to swell the struggling pile at the doorway. After this feat he amused himself by reducing the table and chairs to splinters, then he came to the door and stood scratching his ear with his left hind foot, while chewing the remains of the minute book.
“Fetch me a gun,” yelled Si Amos, with his hand pressed to his waistcoat.
“What will you take for that thunderstorm, Abe?” asked Mr Hockey, tenderly feeling his elbow.
“You don’t want to buy him so’s you can shoot him?”
“No; I want him as a watch dog.”
“Well, seeing’s how it’s you, you can have him for a pair of blankets and a bag of meal.”
“It’s a swap, Abe. What do you call him?”
“I calls him ‘Peaceful William.’ I s’pose the club admits it’s lost the bet; ’cos, if not, William will purceed to further business.”
“The bet’s yours, Abe. Take the money, for Heaven’s sake!”
“All right, then; I’ll kraal the goat for you.”
The goat was penned up, and Abe loaded his meal on to his horse and went off.
The club watched the old man out of sight, each member absently rubbing himself, and all of them remarkably silent.
“Oh! – ’ell,” said someone, in a tone of unmistakable dismay.
We all, as one man, faced round to the kraal, and then we simultaneously skurried up to the barn roof. From this position of safety we saw Peaceful William, in a shower of dust, carefully demolish the walls of the pen and the poles that supported the thatched roof, and we fearfully gazed down upon him as he walked steadily round and round the barn, stopping at intervals to rear against the wall, to eye us threateningly. I don’t know when he left, but he was not there next morning, when, at the break of day, Abe’s voice greeted us.
“I thought I’d tell you Peaceful Billy is at my place; and he’s there when you care to fetch him. Fine sunrise, ain’t it? Nice place to see it from. Nature’s better than pizen if you take her early.”
There was a strange gurgling sound of suppressed laughter.
“I say!” It was Abe again.
“Well?”
“Goat fat ’s mighty good for bruises! So long!”
“Darn you and your goat!” growled the chairman. “Boys, I vote we descend to business.”
We descended, and while we ate our breakfast the women of the house giggled till they almost choked.
Chapter Thirty
A Kaffir’s Play
The red Kaffir is a man with a good deal of character, which he does his best to destroy. The pure kraal Kaffir, who lounges negligently in his red blanket or squats on his loins by the fire at night, telling interminable stories about nothing in particular, has many points which mark him from the “town boy” – the spoiled child of civilisation, who treads tenderly in his hard “Blucher” boots, and covers his corduroy trousers with bright patches of other material; who has to support his weary frame against every pillar and post and corner he comes across, and who is generally shiftless, saucy, and squalid.
The kraal Kaffir is lean, long, and tough, dignified in his movements, courteous to his friends, given over to long spells of silence broken by fits of noisy eloquence, his sullen, solemn face seldom lit up by a smile, and his black smoke-stained eyes smouldering always with an unquenchable fire, that flames out when he meets a Fingo on the highway, or when the fire-water runs through his veins at the beer-drinking.
The red Kaffir is a warrior. He is also a lawyer. I am not certain whether he most prefers to settle a dispute by argument or by the kerrie, but I think his idea of greatest happiness would be a long disputation extending over a week, to be rounded off with the clashing of kerries. Some people, who have seen the wide smile on the face of a West Coast negro, accept that all-pervading grin as the main feature of the entire black race, and argue from it that all blacks are good-tempered children, prone to every impulse. That is not true of the Kaffir. He is of the Bantu stock, which includes the Zulu and the Basuto, whose chief sentiment is stern pride of race, whose ruling expression is one of sullen reserve, and whose national impulse is to fight. They were cradled somewhere in the valley of the Nile, the hot nursery of fierce races; their remote ancestors swept South, destroying as they went, and the southernest fringe are Amaxosa of the Cape frontier, the men who have waged five separate wars with the red-coats of England and the sure-shooting border settlers. Pringle has, in these lines, given a vivid picture of the Kaffir:
“Lo! where the fierce Kaffir
Crouches by the kloof’s dark side,
Watching the settlers’ flocks afar —
Impatient waiting till the evening star
Guides him to his prey.”
Under the fierce ordeal of war the Kaffir thrived. His limbs were free and straight, his step springy, his eyes far-seeing, his nostrils could sniff the taint in the air, his deep melodious voice could boom the war-cry or the message across the wide valleys. As a man of peace he looks squalid in his broken clothes; he moves stiffly in his boots; he sings hymns in a queer, high note, with great melancholy but little meaning; goes reeling home from dirty canteens, and is a hopelessly casual labourer. He is the victim of civilisation, of strange laws, and in the confusion of many counsellors his only hope is the goal which has been offered to the already civilised labourer of a more favoured race – three acres and several cows, with a title of his own. There lies his salvation. If he could get his title to a plot of land sufficient for his wants, he may retain some of those characteristics which made conquerors of his warrior ancestors, if not he will go under in the struggle in a pair of uncomfortable boots, with a bottle of brandy in his hands, and strange oaths of civilised man on his lips.
“Yes,” said Abe; “the Kaffir can use two things better’n a white man, easy – his tongue and his stick. I seed a Kaffir onct get the better of a fencing master.
“I were sitting in the schoolyard, away up in town, where a sergeant from the barracks were showing the big boys how to use a singlestick. There were a Kaffir, leaning his chin on the top of the gate, looking on, with no more life in his face than a chip of mahogany.
“Bymby the sergeant he spotted the Kaffir, and he sed, sed he, ‘Now, you boys; I’ll jes’ show you what singlestick play is,’ and he called to the Kaffir to come in.
“Well, the black feller, he came in – very slow, pulling his blanket up to his chin, and looking like a young horse all ready to bolt in a minnit. The end of his long kerrie peeped out below his blanket, and the sergeant touched it with his ash stick, then stood on guard.
“‘You keep your eye on my wrist-play, boys,’ sed the sergeant, swellin’ out his chest till the brass buttons nearly popped off. ‘You keep your eye on me,’ he sed, ‘and you’ll see how I get over his guard every time.’
“The Kaffir he jes’ stood there, looking solum, and the sergeant poked him in the stomjack.
“‘Yinnie!’ sed the Kaffir, backing off an’ snappin’ fire from his eyes. You see he didn’t know what the sergeant were about, and though he wern’t fool enough to strike a rooibaaitje in the town, his dander got up at that poke.
“‘Do you want to fight this chap?’ sed I.
“‘I want to show these boys what real wrist-play is,’ sed the sergeant, making an under-cut with his stick; ‘and this Kaffir will do well as a block. Tell him to put up his kerrie.’
“I jes’ tole the Kaffir, and had a quiet larf. To think of anyone bein’ sich a simple ijiot as to play at sticks with a Kaffir. I tole the ‘boy,’ and he said, ‘Yoh!’ in surprise. Then a sort of smile flickered about his mouth, and his black eyes began to shine. He let slip the blanket offen his shoulders, and caught it on his left arm. Then he took his kerrie by the end, and held it out the full length of his arm, with his head forrard and his toes apart, and back so that he leant forward. You know the fighting kerrie, about five feet long, and tough as steel.
“The sergeant – he smiled – threw forrard his right foot, balanced hisself on his left, crooked his elbow, and pointed his stick slanting.
“‘You see, boys,’ he sed; ‘you must stand naturally, with your body nicely balanced, ready to advance or retreat. Look at me, and look at the Kaffir,’ he said. ‘He stands on his toes, and if he lost his balance he would fall on his face. Watch me get over his guard.’
“‘Ready!’ he sed, and they begun.
“Well the boys watched, I tell you. There were a grunting, a clatter and a whirlwind of sticks – outer which whizzed chips of ash and bits of the basket-hilt. They didn’t see nuffing of the sergeant’s wrist-play, I tell you. No, sir, all they seed was that whirling of sticks like the spokes of a wheel, and bymby outer the dust come the sergeant.
“He didn’t look the same man. His face were red an’ angry, his basket-hilt was all smashed in, his knuckles were raw, and there were no more’n but a foot left of his stick.
“The Kaffir stood there, solum as a judge, with jes’ a touch of fire in his eyes. There were not so much as a mark on his smooth skin, as he slipped the blanket over his shoulder, and waited for more.
“The sergeant fished up sixpence, and gave it to the boy, without a word.
“‘You’d better go,’ I sed.
“‘Yoh,’ sed the Kaffir, looking at the sixpence; ‘is he done? Let him take another stick; we were but playing, and no one’s head is broken.’
“‘You go,’ I said; and he went, looking mighty troubled.
“I tell you what, sonny; the Queen should take a thousand of these yer red Kaffirs, and make soldiers of ’em for service in a hot country. Not here, of course, but away off in Injia. It’s a pity to waste ’em, and they’d do more good scouting than drinkin’ Cape brandy, lifting cattle, and loafin’ around. A black battalion of Kaffirs and Zulus would be no small pumpkins, an’ they could be officered by Colonials who know the language.”