and dancing, they never thought a day too long.
Fred's "little love affair," as Chisholm somewhat irreverently styledit, flourished apace. In fact he was engaged to Miss Varde, and theengagement received the sanction of her parents.
"What a pity it is," said Captain Varde, one day, "that I cannot find amatch for you, Mr O'Grahame."
"You are very kind, I am sure, to think of me," said Chisholm.
"Yes," continued Varde, "for then, you know, there would be no moreoccasion for you to leave Russia."
"Ah! but," said Chisholm, "I have that young dog, Frank, to show theworld to. He is in my charge and in Fred's. After we have done theneedful by him, we may return--Fred is bound to--and then there is nosaying what might happen."
One day, when our friends came out to have their usual run beforebreakfast, they found the ground all white with snow. This would havewarned them, if nothing else had, that Christmas was on ahead; but theyalso found the moudjiks busy at work getting ready the sledges, andpreparations going on everywhere for a long journey.
The morning arrives, and the sledges are brought round, and soon filledwith as happy a party, probably, as ever set out on a long drearymid-winter journey in the wilds of Russia. Crack go the whips; thehorses toss their saucy heads and manes in the air; then, with a braveplunge, forward they flee, and, with a cheer from the servants leftbehind, and a shout from onlooking moudjiks, they are off. Paddy, inthe song of "The Groves of Blarney," talks about "the complatest thingin nature being a coach-and-six or a feather bed;" had he ridden in aRussian travelling-sledge, I daresay he would have considered it a sortof combination of the two. Conversation is easy, as there is norattling of vile wheels; the air is bracing, and the scenery charming,though hills and dales, and the great still forests themselves, arerobed in a garment of snow. At noon they stop for rest and refreshment,then mount and go on again; but in the evening they reach a town of someimportance, and here they stop for the night. Onward again next day,and onward the next; and at noon of the fourth the country gets wilder;there is hardly a house to be seen; there are giant trees in the wide,wild forests they traverse, and giant hills on the horizon. Suddenly,at a bend of the road, a great lake--frozen hard, and partiallysnow-clad--makes its appearance; and not far from its banks, thoughalmost hidden by trees, a lordly mansion, from many of the chimneys ofwhich blue smoke is curling upwards, against the white of a hill thatalmost overhangs it.
Captain Varde hails the second sledge, and points laughingly towardsthis mansion, and they know they are nearing the home of his people.Half an hour afterwards, everybody is dismounting from the sledges,greetings are being exchanged, and steaming horses led away to theirstables by smiling retainers.
I am not going to describe the life our heroes led at this mansion,which might well be termed a castle; nor even to tell you of the manyadventures--some of them wild enough--they had among the hills and inthe forests around.
One evening the sledge containing Captain Varde and Chisholm got behindthe others, and they were attacked by a pack of hungry wolves in fineform. They had had a good day among the boars--our friends, I mean, notthe wolves--and one was towing astern. This particular "piggie" thewolves thought would make them an excellent supper; although, for thatmatter, being, as they are, hippophagists, they would not have objectedto a bite of horse-flesh. The sun was declining in the west, as thesledge tore along through the forest; they had still many versts toride, and attacked in flank and rear by such a number of these unwelcomeguests--for the woods seemed alive with them--the danger was one not tobe made light of. Happily for them, their horses were hardy and fleet;they had good guns, and plenty of ammunition, so the slaughter wasimmense. Kept at bay for a time, the wolves, being reinforced, ralliedand pressed the sledgemen closely. Chisholm thought of cutting the boaradrift, but Varde wouldn't hear of it.
"Nay, my boy, nay," he cried, "we will never strike our colours whilewe've a single cartridge left unfired."
Chisholm laughed, and peppered away, and with such good effect, that erethe sun had quite gone down, the enemy drew off and left them, and theysoon after regained their companions.
There was much more of this kind of thing; suffice it to say that theyspent a Christmas of never-to-be-forgotten happiness, and left at lastwith the heartfelt farewells of their kind entertainers ringing in theirears, and promises that, if Providence spared them, this visit wouldcertainly not be their last.
CHAPTER TEN.
PART IV--THE WILDS OF AFRICA.
OFF TO THE CAPE--AMONG THE ROCK RABBITS--A WILD RIDE--LOST ON THEPLAINS.
"Isn't it a glorious morning," said Chisholm, coming on deck and joininghis friends Frank and Fred, who were reclining in their lounge chairs,books in hand, under the awning reading, or pretending to read. AndChisholm himself looked glorious, glorious in the strength and beauty ofhis young manhood. He was dressed in white from top to toe, with sunhat and low cut collar, which showed his brown and shapely neck toperfection. His face was weather-beaten, that was the least that couldbe said of it, and loosely dressed as he was, you seemed to see the playof every muscle in his manly form, as he moved; and, when he waved hisarms almost rejoicingly in the balmy but bracing breeze, that fanned thesunny sea, he looked as lithe and graceful as a young tiger.
"A glorious morning," he said again.
"Beautiful," said Fred, gazing languidly around him.
"You seem in fine form," said Frank, smiling.
"Just had a salt water bath. The other fellows in my cabin had soda andbrandy. I feel fresher now than they do."
The ship was a steamer, _Druid_, but she was staggering along under apower of canvas and, bar accident, two more days would see them safe inCape Town.
Fred Freeman had been very loth and sorry to leave his friends inRussia, for reasons well known to the reader. Frank, for reasons of asimilar nature, had been just as anxious to get back to dear old Wales,to enjoy, so he said, six weeks' hunting. But Chisholm had looked athim with a right merry twinkle in his blue eyes as he replied,--
"Nay, boy, nay, the next hunting you'll do will be at the Cape. Ipromised your father to take you right round the world, and I told someone else that some one else wouldn't see you again for three years atthe very least. So there!"
Here is an extract from Chisholm's diary, written three months after:--
"The Cape hills in sight at last. But I shouldn't say _at last_,because our passage has been everything one could wish. Fred and Frankare both a bit low, leastways they don't talk enough, perhaps theythink. Wonder if it is their late lotus-eating life that is tellingupon their constitutions, or is it merely that they're in love. Alittle bit of both, perhaps. But they'll wake up ere long without adoubt."
Chisholm was perfectly correct in his surmises, both Fred and Frank didwake up, and as soon as the roaring of the steam from the funnel, andthe rattling of the anchor chains, convinced them that the voyage wasindeed at an end, they threw aside their hooks, pulled themselvestogether, and entered heart and soul into the excitement of shore going.
A whole week was to be spent at Cape Town, and it was the best andsweetest time of all the year they could have chosen to visit the place.In the town itself and the suburbs the gardens were gorgeous in theirfloral beauty, and all the wild romantic hills around were crimson andwhite with geraniums, and the rarest and loveliest of heaths and wildflowers. Roaming among the mountains was pleasant even by day, for thesub-tropical heat of the sun was tempered by the pleasant breeze thatblew inland from the ocean. Although they never went abroad for aramble without taking their guns along with them, of sport, properlyso-called, there was but little. They managed to make several good bagsof rock rabbits, nevertheless. These funny little creatures are as muchlike rats as rabbits, but they are delicious eating. It was quite halfa day's journey to reach their haunts, over the hills and through thestunted bush, and across broad uplands where little else save a kind ofhard, tough grass grew, and walking among which was dangerous, owing tot
he number of deadly snakes that slept or crept among it. Beyond thisthere would be more bush, in which bright-winged but songless birdsflitted noiselessly about, then the rocks or cliffs where dwelt theconeys.
There is one trait in the character of a rock rabbit which breeds it adeal of harm, and that is curiosity. They like to know all they canlearn about any one who honours them with a domiciliary visit. Nosooner had our heroes appeared at the foot of the chaos of boulderswhich formed the cliff, than one rock rabbit mounted a stone to see whatthey looked like. I suppose he meant to go back and report to hiscomrades, but Frank's gun spoiled his good intention, and he cametumbling down to meet them. The crack of the fowling-piece brought adozen at least of his relations out, to see what on earth the matterwas, and many of them, not content with the advantage