Chapter II: The Symbol of the Spurned

Some five years after, Julian Borne came up to Rosebery by the early train. He awoke at dawn and threw up the window. He was traveling in a sleeping compartment deluxe. He had appearances to keep up now.

The sun had tilted up a golden arc and the withered landscape took a lavish glory.

Julian's eyes fell on some shabby thatched roofs that the blaze was brightening. 'Mount Pleasant Mission!' he said to himself. 'and to think I wasted three good years of my life there. Three bob a day with rations and no drinks. Good Lord!' He filled his pipe as the poverty-stricken homestead passed out of sight. 'Yet it wasn't all waste,' he went on. 'I got to know the country and its questions. I got to know how to manage men.' He laughed a little to himself complacently. 'No, I couldn't manage Hunter. They told me last week he was nearly dead with blackwater. I wonder if he's dead by now. Not one head of cattle to bless himself with, I'll bet, and no banking account ever opened in his name. He was quite unmanageable.'

'Ah! But I managed some of them. What about the Canon Superintendent?' A white-haired vision, creasy-chinned and rosy, passed before his eyes. 'Toad!' he muttered and kicked the foot-warmer. 'Even so,' he growled. 'Butter for the clergy, palm-oil for the laity, big stick for the incorruptible!' His face grew hard as he thought over some contemplated applications. His face was little changed in five years save for the wrinkles about the eyes.

The train drew up at the platform. Julian found a good many acquaintances as he passed along it. But he was not disposed to make himself too cheap. Some got a wintry nod, others a summer smile. One high official who represented big interests got two minutes' talk and a drink. Then Julian jumped into his mule-cart, and drove away. He reflected with satisfaction on the quantity and quality of the greetings that morning. Meanwhile his Cape-boy coachman whipped up the mules and took him along the main street in style.

Julian had not been in Rosebery for six months now. He had made great strides in those months the most momentous of his life. From being a coming man he had reached the summit of arrival. He had arrived without a doubt. His company's shares had risen super-excellently. He had made a big coup at the end of last year. The fullness of time had now brought to him the prospect of another. As he whirled on into Suburbia, he fell to considering relative prosperities. He set names to the houses he was passing. No, he wouldn't change with any one of their owners. Not one stood better just now. Not one was more the man of the moment. He could give points and a beating to how many!

He drove through a gate and up a drive. He was at home again. His house had been enlarged and re-decorated since he was last there. It looked solidly prosperous. Its second floor shouted 'money' in a country where most houses could boast no first floor. Its critics might have called its colors harrowing and its architecture the reverse of inspired, but Julian cared not a jot for that sort of up-in-the-air criticism. He sat down to breakfast with a thankful heart, and made himself quite amiable to Tommy Bates.

Tommy Bates was five years older than Julian, and had acted as his Secretary these two years past. He had small eyes set in a rather big pasty face. His goatee beard was trim, but scarcely pleasing.

Julian got through his letters at breakfast and after, breakfast with Tommy's help. Amongst the letters was one from Mount Pleasant Mission enclosing a card. 'Hunter's mad,' said Julian crossly. He tore up the envelope viciously, but he did not tear up the card it contained. He placed that in his pocket-book carefully. Tommy looked at him in interrogation, but Julian was not communicative.

After they had discussed a business letter or two, and had a drink together, Julian started for the Club. He made himself agreeable to one or two, and got a deal of pleasure out of snubbing another. Then he gathered some important news from a business acquaintance. It was great news. He wanted time to think over it. He sent off two or three wires to labor agents and one to a Native Commissioner.

He must have boys at any cost, and quickly, to develop certain properties. He

"... turned an easy wheel That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel."

Then he interviewed an agent in an office, and did some very delicate work indeed in the drafting of a prospectus. He had earned a drink by then. His brain interested him he was inclined to self-analysis of a sort its chiaroscuro of limelight effects and faint nuances indicated rather than expressed. It was good to be alive to-day, and to pull as many strings as he was pulling.

He did not stop at one drink; over the second, the expert made a proposition to him. It dazzled him, but he would not give an answer just then. To-morrow morning would do.

After that he lunched at the Club with Sir Charles Guestling who was just back from England, and had brought a younger brother out with him to see the country. It would have been a pleasanter lunch without that brother, Julian thought at the time. The brother said nothing offensive, indeed he hardly opened his mouth, but his eyes embarrassed Julian strangely. He had curious blue-grey eyes that contrasted with his black hair, and he would fix Julian with these eyes just as he and Sir Charles were deep in shares and options and the scarcity of labor. Perhaps it was that Julian was overwrought with anxieties of success. The eyes seemed to him clairvoyant, he imagined that they saw more than they ought to see, when they looked him over, as he made some highly technical statement. It was extraordinary that a conventional man about town like Sir Charles should have such a brother.

After lunch Julian relaxed.

He gave himself the indulgence of a call on Mrs. Puce.

He had put her husband on to a good thing or two a year ago now. They had been great friends, he and the wife.

To-day he was a little anxious as to how she would receive him. Things had altered since they last met. 'He had got engaged a business-like engagement.

But she was very gracious in her welcome. Moreover she was more decorous this afternoon than he remembered her a few months back. He told her about his contemplated coup.

'I'll consult planchette for you,' said she. 'Yes, and I'll let you know to-night.'

She was a pretty woman with rather too high a color. But she grew pale enough now.

'I forgot, though, it's against my principles,' she said. 'I've given up lots of things. I'm much more particular.' Something roused Julian. He spoke masterfully.

'Just this once,' he said, 'Let me know to-night. I may know of something gilt-edged that I won't keep to myself if I hear to-night without fail. No, I won't be refused. I want proof of good-will.'

It was a sunny afternoon, with none of that southeast wind which is the bane of our winter. Julian told his coachman to drive him up to his new farm. The homestead was about five miles out of town in the Mount Pleasant direction.

Julian drew out the draft of the prospectus, and began to work hard at its revision. They had stopped at the house ere he thrust pencil and paper into his pocket. He stepped out of El Dorado let himself down, not without a jar, on to more humdrum earth.

The farm-house was an iron shanty newly hammered together. The bailiff a full-bearded Colonial stood in the front doorway. Julian gave him a perfunctory handshake. He talked farming business to him quickly. He was tired, and eager to be through with it.

They were almost through with it in half an hour. They smoked their pipes and had coffee on the stoep together.

'About that Mission Church,' said the Bailiff, 'You know the notice is just up that you gave them last year. The boy that used to teach there is gone, and the kraal's moving. The building still stands empty. They don't use it now.'

Julian frowned.

'Let's have a look at it,' he said. 'We can drive round that way when Bob's inspanned. Meanwhile let's have a drink.'

The Church was very small wattle and daub. It had done three years' service.

'No value,' pronounced Julian. He was rather angry with such a mere shed for wasting his valuable time.

'That grass wants burning,' he muttered. 'If you set a light to it and the Church catches, I shouldn't think there'll be any harm done.'

'Right,' said the bailiff. Julian stepped inside the building.

'Nothing left,' he said. 'Nothing but this box. You'd better keep it. They can have it if they send for it.'

'What's inside?'

There were some red and black candlesticks and vases packed away in the box works of art in their way, but that way was not Julian's.

'Cheap and nasty,' was his comment. 'Ah! What's that?'

'It was on the Communion Table,' said the bailiff.

Julian took up a clay cross and regarded it curiously.

'A cross with a snake on it!' he exclaimed.

'One of the boys said it meant the Brazen Serpent,' said the bailiff.

'Holy Moses!' laughed Julian. 'Well I'm going to jump this, it's quite a curiosity. You may give the boy five bob from me if he asks what we've done with it.'

'Right,' said the bailiff, and went off with the box to the cart.

Julian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination. 'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness,' he murmured to himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How well I remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a flowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that day more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ all over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread on with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it would be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for my eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these fine days. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather a nuisance, if I believed in the Worm.'