Perceval Gibbon

“ He was like a man who is brewing an unpleasant joke.
"'Ah, Mrs. du Plessis,' he said, 'your man will have been working very hard.'
"'You know what brick-moulding is, then?' I said.
"He grinned. 'A little,' he said; 'yes, a little. There's few jobs I haven't put a hand to in my time. Work's a fine thing, when a man knows how to work.'
"'You are very right,' agreed Kornel.
"'This is good coffee,' said John Pagan, as he stirred his cup. 'In fact, it's better than the bricks.'
"'A better hand was at work on it,' said Kornel. ”

“ I had not yet turned out ten bricks when he saw me, and paused in his melancholy work.
"'Stop that!' he cried, and scrambled out of the spruit to where I stood. 'I suppose,' he went on, 'you would like your father to know that I had suffered you to work for me like a Kafir.'
"'Kornel!' I cried in horror.
"But he was white on the cheek-bones and breathing hard, and I could not soften him.
"'Rich man's daughter or poor man's wife,' he said, 'you are white, and must keep your station. It is my business to sell myself, not yours. ”

“ We were married forthwith, of course—no later than the next day,—and the day after that I rode with my man to the plot beside the dorp spruit to see our home that had to be. That was a great day for me; and to be going in gentle companionship with Kornel across the staring veld and along the empty road was a most wonderful thing, and its flavor is still a relish to my memory. I knew that he feared what we were to see—the littleness and mean poverty of it, after the spaciousness of the farm ”

“ That we were preserved and kept clear of disaster was due only to the toil of Kornel and my own anxious care for the spending of the money. I found out that a wife who is strong has a great trade to drive in upholding her house; and I, at any rate, was proficient in maintaining cleanliness, in buying and making food, and preserving to my home the atmosphere of happiness and welcome that anchors a man to his own place. ”

“ Kornel gave him soda-water with whiskey in it, and thereafter there were other things to eat—nearly thirty shillings' worth. After that they sat and smoked, and drank the strong coffee I made for them, and passed the whiskey bottle to and fro between them. All the while Kornel babbled amiably of foolish things, sunsets, and Shakespeare and the ways of women, till I caught myself wondering whether indeed he relished the change from the wide clean veld of the farm to this squalid habitation of toil. ”

“ Do you think that a person of sense has no feelings? When I was a girl I was nearly as big a fool as some others I could name, and got more out of it, in happiness and experience, than ever they will."
"Tell us about it," suggested Katje.
"I am telling you," snapped the old lady. "Don't interrupt. Sit down. Don't fidget; nor giggle. There.
"When I was a girl," she began at last, "my father's farm was at Windhoek, and beyond the nek to the south, an easy two hours from our beacons, there lived one Kornel du Plessis. ”

“ He accused Kornel of having trespassed in the night and stolen the bricks of the Kafirs. No man, he said, could have made so many by himself, and then he began to call names. I shuddered and put my hands before my face, and took them down again in time to see Kornel's fist fly up and out, and the great Kafir reel back from a vicious blow in the face. ”

“ It was tender, and the flesh was seasoned to just the right flavor by the stuff I stewed with it—certain herbs, Katje, and a hint of a whiff of garlic. Garlic is a thing you must not play with: like sin, you can never undo it, whatever forgiveness you win. ”

“ Yet he toiled ceaselessly, attacking the job with a kind of light-hearted desperation that made nothing of its hardships, bringing to it a tough and unconquerable joy in the mere effort, which drove him ever like a spur. ”

“ Then he went out to the mud again to make ready for Thursday.
"So it was we lived for a time that was shorter than it seemed, building on the mud of our shaky fortunes a pride that our poverty could not overturn. Kornel had a saying that seemed irreligious but very true. 'There are ministers and farmers and lawyers who are rich,' he would observe, 'but there's no money in work,' I have since been won to believe that there is a flaw in the argument, but for us it was true, and bitterly true. We were never on the right side of ten shillings; we were never out of sight of the thin brink of want. ”

“ Kornel did little to aid me in that—for the most part he was seeking work in the town; and even when he was at home I drove him sharply from the labor that was mine, and mine alone. The yellow people were very curious about it all, and would stand and watch me through the door till Kornel sjamboked them away; and even then some of their fat talkative women would come round with offers of help and friendship. But though we were fallen to poverty, we had not come so low as that ”

“ There they are. Go and count them, if you like, and then you can come to me at my house where the Vrouw du Plessis (which was me) will give us some coffee.'
"I was watching, you may be sure, and again I saw the wintry red swell above the white whisker, and I clenched my hands in wrath and contempt at the creature's littleness. I was sure he would have liked to sweep my man's courtesy aside, and certainly the politeness had a prick in it. He was rich, and old, and fat, with a consequence in his mien and an air that hinted he was used to deference, and Kornel was but a muddy brick-moulder. ”

“ He was talking nonsense in a slow drawl, and as they picked their way from the road to the house my father looked up to him in a kind of wonder.
"'The evenings are pleasant here,' Kornel was saying. 'We have a little time to ourselves then, for people have learned at last not to trouble us much. One sees the sun go down yonder across the hills, and it is very pretty, Now, on the farm, nobody ever knew how handsome the sunset is. We were like Kafirs on the farm ”