Aletta: A Tale of the Boer Invasion

This brought them down to serious matters and the fate of Adrian.

“Poor chap,” Colvin was saying. “Honestly, I don’t bear him the slightest ill-feeling. I suppose I did come between you and him, dearest, and if that is not enough to justify him in hating me worse than Satan, will you tell me what is?”

Aletta pressed his arm lovingly and for a moment said nothing. Then:

“That is so like you, Colvin,” she said. “You are generosity itself, my darling. Yes, we can afford to think kindly of poor Adrian now. But, oh Colvin – what if you find afterwards that I am not able to make you happy? Remember, I did not know who you were. I thought you were here among us to settle for life and farm.”

“Would it have made any difference if you had known, Lady Kershaw?” he asked quizzically, slipping an arm round her, and looking down into her eyes.

“Not in my loving you,” she answered. “But remember, I am only a Boer girl, after all.”

“Only a what? Only the bravest, truest, sweetest, most refined and lovable specimen of womanhood I ever encountered in a tolerably wide experience. Only – ”

“Kwaak – kwaak – kwaa! Kwaak – kwaak – kwaa!”

Shrilling forth his harsh call, an old cock koorhaan sprang upward from the thorn bushes on the opposite river bank, and went circling away over the ostrich camps, yelling up half a dozen others in his flight. The eyes of these two people met, and both broke into a hearty laugh.

“Why, I believe that’s the same old joker I spared when we were here together that day, Aletta,” said Colvin, turning to watch the disappearing bird.

“Yes, it must be, for we are on the same spot. Colvin, my darling, our happiness first came to us on this very spot where we are standing. Do you remember? And now that we stand here again, it is complete for ever. Is it not?”

“For ever,” he answered, a grateful solemnity in his voice.

And here, reader, we will leave them.

The End

notes

1

“You d – d Englishman! Be quiet. I’ll knock your head off just now.”

2

“Our freedom’s flag Give now its praise, ‘Four colours’ hold in renown; It waves above the Republic. No force, intrigue, no politics Of Kafir, Briton, Jingo clique, Shall e’er that flag again haul down.”

3

From the letters Z.A.R.P. (Zuid Afrikaansche Republieke Politie – South African Republic’s Police). The joke has passed into a recognised popular term.