threeinches long. Your mother will provide it, and place it on your table.And here is the young man coming," he added; "I hear his horse's stepsoutside."
Thyrza fled to her room, resolved, at all events, not to encounter herswain before supper-time. Meeting George and Redgy an hour or twoafterwards, she confided to them her troubles, and implored them at allevents to keep her unwelcome suitor engaged until she was obliged tomeet him at supper.
"See him while a bit of candle is burning!" exclaimed Margetts, to whomthe custom seemed as _outre_ as it had to Thyrza. "Why don't you take abit of candle as thin as a crown-piece? You'd soon have done with himthen."
"Ah, I thought of that," said Thyrza; "but they won't allow it. Mymother has looked up a piece of candle long enough for an hour and ahalfs interview and laid it on my dressing-table. I must take that withme; and however I am to endure an hour and a half of it I cannot think."
"Well, you must make the best of it," said Redgy. "George, I think youhad better take her out for a walk till supper-time. I'll go in andentertain the enamoured gentleman, if he requires entertainment."
On entering the parlour, however, it did not appear that the _soupirant_for Thyrza's favour either expected or desired any entertainment. Hehad duly arrived, looking very stiff and solemn in his new leather andbuckram suit, and, after shaking hands with everybody all round, hadseated himself in the corner, where he had remained ever since withoutspeaking a word to any one. So he continued the entire afternoon andevening, until the supper-hour arrived, and he took his place at thetable with the others, but carefully keeping the whole length andbreadth of the table between himself and the object of his affection.Not a syllable did he utter during the meal; and Thyrza had come tobelieve that he had changed his mind and did not intend to address her,when suddenly, a few minutes before the party broke up for the night, hemoved across the room and whispered in her ear, though loud enough forevery one to hear, "I say, we'll sit up to-night!"
The dispersion of the party delivered Thyrza from the necessity ofreplying, and presently every one had retired to his chamber, exceptingRudolf Kransberg, who remained in the parlour, which was now pitch dark,and George and Redgy, who lingered in the passage.
"I say, George," said Margetts, "shouldn't you like to see thecourtship?"
"Well," answered Rivers with a smile, "I must say I should. But ofcourse that is impossible."
"No, it is not," rejoined the other. "Look here: the big dresser runsright through the wall, and there is a cupboard behind that communicateswith it, through the cracks in the door you can see everything thatpasses."
"Wouldn't Thyrza dislike it?" suggested George.
"No. I'll be bound she would be as much amused as we are. It isn't asthough she cared a straw for him."
"Well, that is not unlikely," rejoined Rivers. "Come along then. Imust own I am curious to see it."
"Creep in here," said Margetts, opening a door in the wall, "and mindyou don't make any noise. There are some holes in the dresser throughwhich we shall be able to see."
Almost as he spoke, the door of the parlour opened, and Thyrza was seenstanding on the threshold, with the bit of candle in one hand and amatch-box in the other. She proceeded to light the former, and placedit in an empty candlestick on the table, and then seated herself--not,as her swain had probably hoped, on the large heavy, wooden-legged sofawhich ran along one side of the table, but in the large arm-chair,usually occupied by her mother.
Rudolf, though somewhat disappointed at the position thus taken up,glanced, nevertheless, with approbation at the bit of candle provided,which, in his view of the matter, intimated that the lady was notdisposed to abridge the length of the interview. He seated himself in achair, as near as he could contrive to his inamorata, and lookedadmiringly at her.
"I say," he said, after a silence of some ten minutes or so,--"I say, Ithink you are very nice. I admire you greatly."
"You are very obliging," said Thyrza demurely.
There was another pause, after which Rudolf spoke again.
"I say, I mean to come over here very often to see you."
"Indeed?" replied Thyrza with a glance at the candle. Alas! not aquarter of it had yet been expended.
"You don't dislike me, do you, Miss Rivers?" inquired her suitor, aftera third and still longer interval.
"I don't know why I should," was the answer.
Deriving some confidence, apparently, from this extremely guardedexpression of opinion, Rudolf made a further venture.
"I should like to give you a kiss," he said.
Not meeting with any response, and proceeding perhaps on that mostdelusive of all proverbs, that silence gives consent, he rose from hisplace and leaned over her chair, out of which she started with veryevident alarm. Believing this to be only feigned reluctance, he pressedforward to urge his entreaty, when suddenly there came a loud explosion.The candle flew all to pieces out of the socket, scattering the tallowin all directions, and the room was left in complete darkness. Georgeand Margetts could hear Thyrza making her escape through the door, whilethe unlucky lover, wiping the grease from his clothes, made his way tothe stable, and rode off as fast as his horse could carry him.
"Redgy, you villain!" exclaimed George, after they had retreated totheir room and given vent to their laughter,--"Redgy, you villain, thatwas your doing!"
"It was the plug of gunpowder, not I," pleaded Redgy. "Mrs Riversoughtn't to have left the candle all that time on Thyrza'sdressing-table."
"Did Thyrza know anything of the trick?" asked George.
"On my honour, she did not."
"Well, it is a good job we are going to-morrow, or there might be aserious row about this."
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
It was a Sunday evening late in December, about nine months after thedeparture of George Rivers and his friend from Umtongo. George, whowore a suit of clerical black, had just returned from a long ride toSpielman's Vley, where he had passed the day. He was now a deacon,having been ordained by the Bishop of Praetoria a month or twopreviously. The weather was delicious, but very warm, and George wasglad to sit down by his friend's side in a charming little summer-housewhich they had built under the shade of a tall eucalyptus planted by MrRogers when he first came to the Transvaal, forty years before.
"Well, George, what sort of a congregation had you?" inquired Margetts;"and how did you get on with your sermon?"
"I had a very good congregation," was the reply. "The farmer who boughtSpielman's Vley of my stepfather is an Englishman, an emigrant from aBerkshire village. He and his wife and grown-up children were allthere, and so were nearly all the farm-servants whom he had brought withhim. He told me very earnestly how it delighted him to hear the Churchservice. It was like a voice from Old England, he said, and he couldn'ttell me how glad they all were that a clergyman would come over fromUmvalosa every alternate Sunday now, instead of once a month."
"And I daresay, when he was in Berkshire, he didn't think much of theChurch service," suggested Margetts.
"No, he often didn't go, he told me, and cared very little for it whenhe did. And it was the same with his labourers. They seldom miss theservice here. Well, it is to be hoped that they will not come toneglect it again, now it is once more within their reach."
"But how about the `natives' service'?" asked Redgy. "Could you get onwith that?"
"I am afraid I made a good many blunders," said Rivers, "especially inthe sermon. However, nothing but practice will set that right."
"You think an interpreter doesn't answer?"
"No, I am pretty sure it doesn't. You know what Lambert told us abouthis interpreter, when he first went to preach to the Kaffirs in theKnysna."
"No, I didn't hear the story."
"Lambert said he was puzzled how to address them, when it occurred tohim that `Children of the Forest' was a title that would be sure to taketheir fancy, and he accordingly began his discourse to them in that way.He thought he had done it rather well,
until one of his friends, whohad heard him, and who was a good Kaffir scholar, told him that theinterpreter had rendered his `Children of the Forest' as `Little men ofbig sticks.' That story determined me never, anyhow, to employ aninterpreter."
Redgy laughed. "I think you are right," he said, "and your Kaffircertainly improves. By-the-bye, did you see Hardy? His house is onlyseven or eight miles off from Spielman's Vley, and I am told he alwaysgoes over when there is service there."
"I believe he does, but he was not there to-day. Mr