'You step down, Master, will you, please?' urged Jakob; 'the "Baas " might take offence if I should knock at the door.'

I got out of the cart, and made for the front door.

Before I reached it, it opened, and a farmer of the ordinary description came forward, his hat drawn far on to his eyes, and the broad brim turned down.

'Good evening to you!' I said in my pleasantest voice. It was five o'clock, and almost dark.

'Who are you?' was the reply, sharply given.

'Good evening, Mr. Du Plessis,' I insisted.

'I don't know you,' was the gruff retort.

'My name is Dittele; I am the headmaster of the Government school at—'

'You are telling lies,' came the reply.

'Thank you,' I said; 'what do you mean, Mr. Du Plessis ? ' 'You are a minister of the Dutch Church.'

'I am not,' I insisted. 'I am a schoolmaster, and, as you see, have been overtaken by this rain, and do not know what to do.'

'You will have to drive on,' said the man.

'I cannot,' said I.

'You can't stay here,' rejoined he. 'I don't take just any. body into my house.'

'Do you mean to say, Mr. Du Plessis, that there is no chance of our spending the night here?' I inquired anxiously.

'None whatever. There is a farm an hour further where they may take you in,' was the cruel answer.

Straightening myself up in front of him, and looking him full in the face, I said, realising all I should have to meet if he actually did send me away :

'Oom, now listen to me. I am not a clergyman, as I have told you; I am a schoolmaster. My boy and I are wet, and cold, and miserable. Our horses are tired, and cannot carry us any further. Will you take the responsibility of sending me away, and having me perhaps come to grief in this mist?'

There was a twitch in his eye as I was speaking. He was wavering, and I was gaining ground.

'I will pay for my board and that of the Kaffir,' I added, 'for the horses' food and stabling-pay just what you demand.'

I had conquered. The man was yielding. Never taking my eyes off his, I concluded:

'Afrikanders are renowned for their hospitality. I heard that in my own country, far away.'

'Are you a foreigner? You speak my language.'

'I am a foreigner all the same.'

'Assure me again that you are not an Afrikander minister.' 'I am not, I assure you.'

There was a sudden change in the man's features. They relaxed. His expression softened. Looking over my head, he called out to Jakob:

'I say, boy, you can outspan. Push the cart into the wagon house, and put up there for the night. Your horses must go into the kraal, I am sorry to say; my stable is full.'

'Thank you, Baas,' sounded Jakob's relieved reply. I am no stranger here. I was here once before, Baas, and will make myself at home. Is Jan, the bastard, still with you ?'

'Yes, you will find him in the stable, cutting forage.'

Turning round, and opening the door which his great body had barricaded while we were having our altercation, Mr. Du Plessis said to me:

'Come in, Meester, come in. We have stood here long enough.'

I followed him into the house, the front door leading into an oblong apartment, twenty feet deep by fourteen wide, which served as reception, sitting, and dining room. It had a window on either side of the front door, and a fanlight above it. Out of this room five doors led into other apartments; one on the righthand side wall to Mr. Du Plessis' bedroom, and another to that of the grandmother, who shared hers with two grown-up daughters. Opposite the former there was a bedroom for the other daughters, of whom there were seven altogether, and opposite the latter there was a spare room. Straight across, in the back wall, a double glass door gave admittance to the kitchen.

The room in which we were contained a large oblong table, on six legs, filling up the entire centre; solid straight-backed oak chairs with cane bottoms were arranged along the spaces between the many doors. Beneath the windows, which were rather high from the floor, there stood on the right-hand side a little table covered with smoking utensils, and on the left an harmonium, without which (it is called a seraphine') no African home is considered complete.

The room was empty when we entered it.

'Shake hands with me now,' said Mr. Du Plessis, touching me on the shoulder; 'I could not do it before. One doesn't know nowadays what rabble one gets into one's house at times. We have to be exceedingly careful.'

6

'I grant that,' I replied. But what great objection have you to taking in a Dutch minister ?'

'If you are a schoolmaster in this country,' the farmer answered, 'you must be aware that there are two Dutch churches. I belong to the smaller one, the "Reformed Church." We are a small body compared with the other, and all our ministers I know. But of the other Church, I have made up my mind I shall never take a minister into this house as long as I live. Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.'

So saying, he seated himself at the side table, offering me a chair next him.

'Now, Meester,' he continued, 'tell me a little about yourself. I like to know the people I receive into my house.

married man?'

'Yes, I am.'

'I am glad to hear it. Any family?'

'We have four children.'

Are you a

'Is that all? I have thirteen living. How old are you?'
I am thirty-four.'

'Indeed! and I am thirty-six. You must have married late in life.'

'No, rather young, I think. I was twenty-three.'

'Twenty-three, thirty-four, eleven years, four children,' he calculated musingly; that's very different from me. Let me tell you about myself,' he went on, more directly addressing me. 'I was married first when I was sixteen, lost my wife at the age of eighteen, and took my second a year later. She is still alive and has had fourteen children, two of whom are dead. You will see her by-and-by.'

'You see,' said I, for the sake of making some remark on the queer tale I had just heard, you see, the habits of different nations are different.'

'That's it exactly,' he replied eagerly, as if I had hit on the right thing. We are the successors of the patriarchs, God's people, following in the steps of Abraham and Jacob. We rear cattle and rear children, and God blesses us in both. I know that other nations live differently, and I do not admire them for it.'

I began to understand why Jakob's former master had called this man a 'queer soul.'

'What countryman are you?' he continued.

I am from the borders of Holland and Germany,' I said, 'and as far as language is concerned, belong to either nation. But I am classed as a Hollander.'

'A Hollander, you say?' he exclaimed;

truth?'

'I am,' said I.

are you telling the

'Why, mother will be glad! You know, my mother lives with us, and she is a direct descendant of a Hollander.

sea-captain and her grandfather.'

He was a

'I shall be glad to speak to the old lady,' I forced myself to reply.

You will, will you?' he asked, and, rising from his chair, he added, 'I must go and tell her at once.'

I was glad when the man went, glad to have a lull in the stream of words to which I had been listening. His loquaciousness was wearisome. Besides, a moment's reflection was very welcome to me.

Was this, I thought, the secret of these people's quaint lives, of their out-of-the-way habits, of the misunderstanding between them and Europeans? Did they consider themselves the People of God par excellence? I had read how the early Voortrekkers, when escaping from what they pleased to call the English yoke, about the years 1835-38, had travelled north towards Canaan, and that when they arrived at a certain tributary of the Limpopo or Crocodile River, they had called it the 'Nile,' believing themselves to be in the proximity of the Holy Land. But I had taken these reports as having originated with a few fanatics, who were elated by long-continued excitement, and not wholly responsible for what they related. Besides, whatever there might have been of that nature in the ancestors, I believed the Afrikander people had sobered down to the ordinary level of common-sense folk. But here was a man who had behaved shabbily towards a stranger from no other motive than an antagonistic feeling towards all those whom he did not, with himself, classify as the 'People of God.' The thought was novel to me. I resolved that I should talk to him again.

'Master!' I heard Jakob calling on the stoep in a subdued tone of voice.

'What is it?' I inquired.

'Master, do you know what the old fellow has just done? He has loosed his own cart-horses from the stall, and driven them out in the kraal for the night, and has put ours in their places. A good thing too; I thought the animals wouldn't live till morning. It's frightful out. He is in the kitchen now, talking. Good night, Master. I've made myself a cosy corner in the wagon-house, and have had a nice hot supper in the kitchen. Good night.'

'Good night,' I replied.

He had scarcely gone when my host came back, followed by a young woman.

'This is my eldest daughter, Meester,' he said by way of introduction, as yet unmarried, but she won't have long to wait; her intended is finishing his house.'

The girl shook hands, and seated herself on one of the chairs along the wall, opposite ours. She had said nothing, nor did she intend to say anything. She sat there like a statue, her eyes fixed on me.

'Where is your pipe?' said the farmer.

'I have none,' I replied; 'I do not smoke.'

'Not smoke, and a Hollander? You are unlike any of your nation whom I have met.'

'It does not agree with me,' I replied, excusing myself.

'It does with me, I am glad to say,' was his answer; and filling his pipe, and holding a lighted match to it, he puffed away, all the time looking at me over his left arm, and drawing forth clouds of that smoke which helps to make African homes what they are.

Presently he moved his chair up to mine, and, lowering his face with one side turned up, peered curiously into my spectacles. 'Why do you wear those things?' he interrogated.

'To see better,' I said curtly.

'You are not old.'

'No, I am not; but my sight isn't good.'

'I don't think that ought to be. People ought not to wear out before their time,' he said insolently.

I began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

'I wanted to ask you,' I said, by way of changing the subject, 'I wanted to ask you about this name, "People of God." Whom does it mean?'