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We watched the people as they went about. In about an hour the Hottentots came out, and we perceived that they were yoking the oxen to the waggon; they yoked twelve pair, and then the Hottentot driver got in and drove off towards Cape Town. Soon after that, another Hottentot drove the cows up the valley to feed; and then a Dutch woman came out of the house with two children, and fed the poultry.
Out of the welter I saw young Bushman's horse on the pathway coming towards me. "C Battery's all right," he shouted to me, and a minute later I heard him explaining to the colonel. "C Battery's over now, sir. It has been touch-and-go. Some Horse Artillery in front had a waggon hit, and that caused a stoppage; and there were a lot of other waggons in front as well.
"Yes, I am ready to pay for our board and lodging, but I could not tell in the dark whether or not this was a house of entertainment." "I guess it's the finest hotel you'll find between the Ohio and Harrodsburg," answered the man. "All right," said my father; "I'll see my wife and child, as well as our goods, safe inside; then we'll take the horses and waggon round to the stables."
By and bye a team and a jolting waggon swept into sight, and Mrs. Hastings rose when the man who drove it pulled his horses up. "It's Sproatly; I wonder what has brought him here," she said, and as the man who sprang down walked towards the house she gazed at him almost incredulously. "He's quite smart," she added.
He flicked them with the whip, and they went across the track at a gallop, hurling great clods of mud left and right, while the group of loungers who still stood about the station raised a shout. "Got any little pictures with nice motters on them?" asked one, and another flung a piece of information after the jolting waggon.
By assiduous attendance at night-schools I learnt to read and write. This enabled me to take a better berth in Black Waggon Street, where I earned enough to take lessons in drawing from the reduced widow of a once prosperous fogger. But ah! so eager was I to learn, that I did not notice how my mother was fading, wasting, dying slowly.
Mosquitoes, too, flying about in swarms, added their quota to our discomfort. The poor canary had a hard time of it, for in spite of all our care the cage repeatedly filled with water, which I had to empty over the side of the waggon. Luckily, the cats kept quiet, and no one was anxious to know whose feet were in the box of plants!
Benita fell asleep upon her saddle, and was awakened once by a hyena howling quite close to them, and once by her horse falling to its knees. "What is the time?" she said at last. Her father struck a match and looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock; they had been fifteen hours away from the waggon and without food. At intervals Mr. Clifford, who had remounted, fired his rifle.
There was a light waggon kept for the old people to drive about in, the box of which rested on the axles. The seat, however, was secured to wooden springs, which made it somewhat more comfortable to ride in. A specimen of this kind of carriage was shown by the York Pioneers at the Industrial Exhibition in this city.
Not only in summer but in cold winter, and not only romantic things but plain matter-of-fact things, as a waggon freshly painted red beside the wright's shop, stand out as if wet with colour and delicately pencilled at the edges. It must be out of doors; nothing indoors looks like this.
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