The Dutch
driver, too, anxious to show the mettle of his coarse-limbed steeds,
persisted in dashing over the hummocky ground at a break-neck pace,
while Guy balanced himself with difficulty on the narrow seat,
hanging on to his portmanteau for dear life among the jerks and
jolts, till his ringers were numbed with cold and exposure.
They held out against it all, before the pelting rain, till man
and beast were well-nigh exhausted. At last, about three-quarters
of the way to Fauresmith, on the bleak bare hill-tops, sleety snow
began to fall in big flakes, and the barking of a dog to be heard
in the distance. The Boer driver pricked up his ears at the sound.
"That must a house be," he remarked in his Dutch pigeon-English to
Guy; and Guy felt in his soul that the most miserable and filthy of
Kaffir huts would just then be a welcome sight to his weary eyes.
He would have given a sovereign, indeed, from the scanty store he
possessed, for a night's lodging in a convenient dog-kennel. He
was agreeably surprised, therefore, to find it was a comfortable
farmhouse, where the lights in the casement beamed forth a cheery
welcome on the wet and draggled wayfarers from real glass windows.
The farmer within received them hospitably.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314