Chapter M: B. Manwell (2)

"I cannot think why Lang-Jan is hurrying on so," said Constance at last, "unless he thinks it will be a very hot day again. The oxen gave out as we were coming down, and we had to outspan about five miles off."

"I _was_ cross," said a younger sister.

"You need not tell us that. We have not forgotten," laughed another.

"Well, I thought I could hear the sea, and I had been meaning to run down and have a bathe directly we stopped. It was enough to make one cross. And then that stupid old Kafir and Jan over the outspan money, and our none of us being able to find any change. I believe Jan was glad we couldn't pay."

"Jan resents having to pay outspan money: he will wriggle out of it if he can," said Constance.

We had gone the first three or four miles with plenty of noise, clack of whip and shout at team, but this gradually subsided, and with a warning to April, the leader, to have the oxen well in the middle of the road and to keep right on, Jan sank into such silence as was possible.

Constance rose, and began to fumble for her purse.

We heard a stealthy order to April to run, and the whip sounded again about one ox and another, while we were tipped about in all directions as the team suddenly put on a tremendous spurt.

In the dim light we could see the outlines of a hut close by the road, and a Kafir sprang out of the doorway towards us shouting for his money. Jan took no notice, but whipped and shouted and trotted along as if his were the only voice upraised.

"Stop, Jan, stop!" called Constance.

But Jan was suddenly deaf. The other man was not, however, and he ran along after us, followed by a string of undressed children, shouting and gesticulating wildly.

"Jan, I insist upon stopping," called Constance. "April, stop the oxen."

In spite of all the noise Jan was making, April could not fail to hear the indignant cry of his young mistress, and presently the wagon was halted. Jan hastily popped the whip into the wagon and turned back to confront his enemy.

"What do you mean by stopping a wagon in the road like this? Outspan money? We have not outspanned and are not going to on your starved old veldt."

"Jan, Jan, you know very well we are owing him two shillings from the last time we passed," said Constance.

The stranger Kafir tried to get to the wagon, but Jan barred the passage. He changed his tactics. "Come, let's fight for it," he cried, casting his hat and scarlet head-handkerchief into the karoo out of the way.

This offer was declined without thanks. "I shan't fight. The money is mine," protested the other, encouraged by finding his demand was allowed by the ladies.

"April, leave the oxen and come here," called Constance. "Give this money to him."

[Sidenote: Jan's Principles]

This was done at last, to Jan's grief. "Ah, Mees Constance! Why didn't you let me fight him? he was only a little thieving Fingo dog! I didn't outspan in sight of his old hut, and he must have come sneaking around and seen us, and never said he would have money till it was too late."

"Well, Jan, and why should our oxen eat up the grass and drink out of the dam without our paying?" asked Constance; but Jan only muttered, "Thief! Dog!" and got away from the scene of his defeat with speed.

"That was why we were obliged to start in the middle of the night: Jan wanted to slip by here before the wagon could be recognised," said Constance. Jan had made a stand for his principles, though his mistress's perverted sense of justice had prevented his being able to carry them out. By the time we stopped for breakfast he had quite recovered his spirits; and when he found he had got his party well away from the place without another hateful demand, he seemed to have forgotten his hard fate in the early morning. When we reached the town we lost sight of Jan and his wagon for a couple of days, and took up our abode at an hotel.

* * * * *

A change had taken place in our party when we collected for the second and longer part of our journey. Mr. Gilbert had gone home with some of the younger ones the day before, while his wife had stayed in town to take the rest of us to a ball.

We were all tired as we reached the wagon, with our minds running on the purchases we had made, and lingering regretfully on some we had not.

Lang-Jan and April hurried off to fetch the oxen as soon as we appeared; and Mrs. Gilbert began to go through the stores.

"Those two Kafirs have eaten up our butter!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I saw what was left when you came, and thought it might not be quite enough. It is lucky I did, and have bought some more, or we should have had none at all. I cannot let such a thing as their taking our provisions pass without notice.--Jan," she said, when he returned, "you have taken my butter."

"Oh, Meeses!" exclaimed Jan, as if such a thing was quite out of the question, "not me. It must ha' bin April."

"No, Meeses--not me, Jan," said April.

"It was both of you, I have no doubt," said Mrs. Gilbert severely.

"Oh, Meeses, April, April!" cried Jan, shaking his head.

"No, it was Jan," protested the leader, again.

Jan burst into a roar of laughter, like a naughty child owning up. "Oh! ja, Meeses! It was me. I looked at that tin of butter and then I said to April, 'I must have some of that lovely butter, whatever comes of it,' and then between us, it's all gone."

It seemed impossible to deal with the offence gravely after that. "I shall know I must not leave any in the wagon another time," said the mistress; and we scrambled into our places to be out of the way while the work of inspanning went on.

[Sidenote: A Fiery Day]

The morning turned into a fiery day. The air shimmered blindingly above the veldt, and the white road, inches deep in dust, trailed ahead like an endless serpent. We panted and gasped under the shelter of the tent; April abandoned his post and climbed up in the back compartment of the wagon, but Jan grew more and more lively.

He tightened his waist-belt and ran by the side of his team, encouraging them by voice and example.

He wore an old soft felt hat, with a perfectly abject brim, above his scarlet handkerchief, and every quarter of a mile he would take it off and put the ostrich feather that adorned one side straight up, and attempt to pinch the limp brim into shape.

In spite of his cheerful snatches of song, and his encouraging cries, the poor beasts showed more and more signs of distress, till at last Jan turned to Mrs. Gilbert and said, "The poor oxen is just done up. We must outspan till it gets cooler."

"What, outspan in this pitiless place, with not a house, or a tree, or water to be got at!" cried one of the girls.

"There is a water-hole down there," said Jan, pointing to a dip in the ground not far off.

"Yes," said Mrs. Gilbert, "I have been down there on horseback."

The wagon was drawn off the road, and the weary oxen let loose, while we stretched ourselves on the cartels, but found the heat too great to let us recover any of our lost sleep.

After a time some of us, thinking any change must be for the better, dragged ourselves out into the glare, and went to look at the pool of water. But though a few prickly pears and mimosa bushes grew around, it was not an inviting spot to rest in, and we laboured back across the scorching ground to the wagon, our only benefit being more thankfulness for its shelter.

April had gone off to see that the oxen did not wander too far. Jan lighted a fire, made coffee for us, and broiled some meat and green mealie cobs.

We felt better after our meal, though we had not been hungry for it. Then, to my surprise, Jan settled down to enjoy his share, as close to the fire as he could. I do not know if the burning scrub made a little motion in the air, or if Jan, by roasting one half of his body, felt the other cooler by contrast.

Presently I saw, coming slowly across the veldt, a white-haired Kafir, carrying a weakly lamb in his arms. He made straight for Jan and sat down beside him.

Constance, who was looking out too, roused herself and gave a little laugh. "Caught," she said, and I knew what she meant.

At first the palaver seemed amiable enough, and we saw Jan even go the length of making a present of grilled mutton--chiefly bone, but not all.

"An attempt at bribery," murmured Constance.

In about half an hour we heard the inevitable demand. One might have thought Jan had never heard of outspan money, instead of its being a familiar and heating subject with him. When at last the claim was made clear to him, he asked the name of the Baas, and expressed the greatest surprise that any man could be so mean as to ask for money, just because poor souls had to wait by the road till it got cool, when it was too hot even for the oxen to eat anything.

The explanation that the place was such a convenient distance from town, that if nothing was charged the Baas would have nothing left for his own flocks and herds, was badly received, as was also the reminder that if it was too hot for the oxen to eat much, they would drink all the same. The two argued for an hour, Jan emphatic and expostulating, the old Kafir calm, feeling both right and law were on his side.

[Sidenote: "We shan't Pay"]

At length, Jan surprised us by announcing, "We shan't pay. Your Baas won't expect money from me anyhow, if he does from other people."

"Why not?" exclaimed the other in surprise, for Jan spoke with conviction.

"My Baas' wife is cousin to your Baas' wife, so of course we're free on his veldt."

We laughed, but the collector remarked that he would go and inquire. So he marched up to the wagon, followed closely by Lang-Jan, in fear of treachery, and asked Mrs. Gilbert if it was true, and being informed that the ladies were related, he retired at once, and Jan triumphantly accompanied him back to the fire.

I thought Jan would be happy now the wicked had ceased from troubling, but the storm had its after-roll. He now expressed indignation that two shillings had been demanded. If such an iniquitous claim was made at all, one shilling was all that should be asked for.

They harried this point till the stranger asked Jan what odds it was to him--he did not pay the money.

"Don't I pay the money?" cried Jan. "Isn't it taken out of my very hand?"

"Oh, ja! But it comes out of the Baas' pocket."

"It comes out of my very hand," reiterated Jan, springing up; and fetching his whip, he gave three tremendous clacks with it, the signal to April, that could be heard a mile away in the still air, to bring back the oxen; and the baffled enemy picked up his lamb and retired from action.

Jan was jubilant, and cheerfully agreed to Mrs. Gilbert's suggestions as to the best camping-place for the night.

But I think his triumph was demoralising for him. As evening settled down and we were getting towards our resting-place, we passed by a rare thing--a long wooden fence; and we soon saw that Jan and April were freely helping themselves to the dry wood, and stowing it at the sides of the wagon to save themselves the trouble of collecting any later.

"Jan," called his mistress, "you must not steal that wood. The man it belongs to told the Baas he lost so much that he should put somebody to watch, and have any one who was caught taken before Mr. Huntly."

"April," shouted Jan, laughing, "look out for old Huntly. The Meeses says we must stop it."

Later, when we had outspanned for the night, and they had broiled our sausages, and made the coffee with chuckling anticipation of remainders, they made such a fire as scared Mrs. Gilbert, lest they should set the dry karoo around alight.

"Here, April, we must beat it down a bit. The Meeses is feared we shall set the moon afire," laughed Jan, laying about him with a will, as the flames leaped heavenward.

The next morning he had to cross a river, and pay toll at the bridge. Why Lang-Jan never objected to that, I do not know, but he came quite meekly for the money. His mistress had not the exact sum, and Jan was some time inside the toll-house, which was also a store.

On emerging, he shouted and whipped up his oxen, and off we lumbered.

When we came to a hill, and our pace was sufficiently slackened for speech, Mrs. Gilbert called to him, "Jan, where is my change?"

"Oh, Meeses!" exclaimed Jan, quite unabashed; "I took the change in tobacco!"

[Sidenote: Many girls long for an opportunity to "do something." That was Claudia's way. And, after all, there _was_ an opportunity. Where?]

Claudia's Place

BY

A. R. BUCKLAND

"What I feel," said Claudia Haberton, sitting up with a movement of indignation, "is the miserable lack of purpose in one's life."

"Nothing to do?" said Mary Windsor.

"To do! Yes, of a kind; common, insignificant work about which it is impossible to feel any enthusiasm."

"'The trivial round'?"

"Trivial enough. A thousand could do it as well or better than I can. I want more--to feel that I am in my place, and doing the very thing for which I am fitted."

"Sure your liver is all right?"

"There you go; just like the others. One can't express a wish to be of more use in the world without people muttering about discontent, and telling you you are out of sorts."

"Well, I had better go before I say worse." And Mary went.

Perhaps it was as well; for Claudia's aspirations were so often expressed in terms like these that she began to bore her friends. One, in a moment of exasperation, had advised her to go out as a nursery governess. "You would," she said, "have a wonderful opportunity of showing what is in you, and if you really succeed, you might make at least one mother happy." But Claudia put the idea aside with scorn.

Another said it all came of being surrounded with comfort, and that if Claudia had been poorer, she would have been troubled with no such yearnings; the actual anxieties of life would have filled the vacuum. That, too, brought a cloud over their friendship. And the problem remained unsolved.

Mr. Haberton, immersed in affairs, had little time to consider his daughter's whims. Mrs. Haberton, long an invalid, was too much occupied in battling with her own ailments, and bearing the pain which was her daily lot, to feel acute sympathy with Claudia's woes.

"My dear," she said one day, when her daughter had been more than commonly eloquent upon the want of purpose in her life, "why don't you think of some occupation?"

"But what occupation?" said Claudia. "Here I am at home, with everything around me, and no wants to supply----"

"That is something," put in Mrs. Haberton.

"Oh, yes, people always tell you that; but after all, wouldn't it be better to have life to face, and to----"

"Poor dear!" said Mrs. Haberton, stroking her daughter's cheek with a thin hand.

"Please don't, mamma," said Claudia; "you know how I dislike being petted like a child."

"My dear," said Mrs. Haberton, "I feel my pain again; do give me my medicine."

She had asked for it a quarter of an hour before, but Claudia had forgotten so trivial a matter in the statement of her own woes. Now she looked keenly at her mother to see if this request was but an attempt to create a diversion. But the drawn look was sufficient. She hastily measured out the medicine, and as hastily left the room saying, "I will send Pinsett to you at once."

Pinsett was Mrs. Haberton's maid, who was speedily upon the spot to deal with the invalid.

But Claudia had withdrawn to her own room, where she was soon deep in a pamphlet upon the social position of Woman, her true Rights in the World, and the noble opportunities for Serving Mankind outside the home.

[Sidenote: Wanted--a Career]

"Ah," said Claudia to herself, "if I could only find some occupation which would give a purpose to existence--something which would make me really useful!"

After all, was there any reason why she should not? There was Eroica Baldwin, who had become a hospital nurse, and wore the neatest possible costume with quite inimitable grace. It might be worth while asking her a few questions. It was true she had never much cared for Eroica; she was so tall and strong, so absurdly healthy, and so intolerant of one's aspirations. Still, her experience might be of use.

There was Babette Irving--a foolish name, but it was her parents' fault; they had apparently thought she would always remain an infant in arms. Her father had married again, and Babette was keeping house with another woman of talent.

Babette had taken to the pen. Her very youth at first pleaded for her with editors, and she got some work. Then more came; but never quite enough. Now she wrote stories for children and for the "young person," conducted a "Children's Column" in a weekly paper, supplied "Answers to Correspondents" upon a startling variety of absurd questions, and just contrived to live thereby.

Babette's friend had been reared in the lap of luxury until a woeful year in the City made her father a bankrupt, and sent her to earn her living as a teacher of singing. They ought to have some advice to give.

Then there was Sarah Griffin--"plain Sarah," as some of the unkind had chosen to call her at school. She was one of nine girls, and when her father died suddenly, and was found to have made but poor provision for his family, she had been thankful to find a place in a shop where an association of ladies endeavoured to get a sale for the work of "distressed gentlewomen."

She also ought to know something of the world. Perhaps, she, too, could offer some suggestion as to how the life of a poor aimless thing like Claudia Haberton might be animated by a purpose.

But they all lived in London, the very place, as Claudia felt, where women of spirit and of "views" should be. If she could but have a few hours of chat with each! And, after all, no doubt, this could be arranged. It was but a little time since Aunt Jane and Aunt Ruth had asked when she was going to cheer them with another visit. Might not their invitation give her just the opportunity she sought?

Claudia reflected. She had not in the past cared much for her aunts' household. The elderly maiden ladies were "the dearest creatures," she told herself; but they were not interesting. Aunt Jane was always engaged in knitting with red wool, any fragments of attention which could be given from that task being devoted to Molossus, the toy terrier, who almost dwelt in her lap. Aunt Ruth was equally devoted in the matter of embroidery, and in the watchful eye she kept upon the movements of Scipio, a Persian cat of lofty lineage and austere mien.

Their other interests were few, and were mainly centred upon their pensioners amongst the poor. Their friends were of their own generation. Thus in the past Claudia had not felt any eager yearning for the house in St. John's Wood, where the sisters dwelt at peace. But it was otherwise now, because Claudia had new designs upon London.

She confided to her mother her readiness to accept the recent invitation.

"Go, my dear, by all means," said the invalid; "I am sure you must want a change, especially after so many weeks of looking after me."

"Pinsett," said Claudia, salving her own conscience, "is so very careful and efficient."

"And so good," added Mrs. Haberton; "you may be sure I shall be safe in her hands."

For the moment Claudia was sensible of a little pang. Ought she to be so readily dispensed with? Were her services a quantity which could be neglected?

But, after all, this was nothing. She did not neglect her mother; that was out of the question.

[Sidenote: Up to Town]

So it was agreed that Claudia should go. Aunt Jane wrote a letter expressing her joy at the prospect, and Aunt Ruth added a postscript which was as long as the letter, confirming all that her sister had said.

So Claudia went up to town, and was received with open arms by her aunts.

* * * * *

The placid household at St. John's Wood was all the brighter for Claudia's presence; but she could not suffer herself to remain for more than a day or two in the light of an ordinary visitor.

"I came this time, you know," she early explained to Aunt Jane, "on a voyage of exploration."

"Of what, my dear?" said Aunt Jane, to whom great London was still a fearsome place, full of grievous peril.

"Of exploration, you know. I am going to look up a few old friends, and see how they live. They are working women, who----"

"But," said Aunt Jane, "do you think you ought to go amongst the poor alone?"

"Oh, they aren't poor in that sense, auntie; they are just single women, old acquaintances of mine--schoolfellows indeed--who have to work for their living. I want to see them again, and find out how they get on, whether they have found their place in life, and are happy."

Aunt Jane was not wholly satisfied; but Claudia was not in her teens, nor was she a stranger to London. So the scheme was passed, and all the more readily because Claudia explained that she did not mean to make her calls at random.

Her first voyage was to the flat in which Babette Irving and her friend lived. It was in Bloomsbury, and not in a pile of new buildings. In old-fashioned phraseology, Miss Irving and her friend would have been said to have taken "unfurnished apartments," into which they had moved their own possessions. It was a dull house in a dull side street.

Babette said that Lord Macaulay in his younger days was a familiar figure in their region, since Zachary Macaulay had lived in a house hard by. That was interesting, but did not compensate for the dinginess of the surroundings.

Babette herself looked older.

"Worry, my dear, worry," was the only explanation she offered of the fact. It seemed ample.

Her room was not decked out with all the prettiness Claudia, with a remembrance of other days, had looked for. Babette seemed to make the floor her waste-paper basket; and there was a shocking contempt for appearance in the way books and papers littered chairs and tables. Nor did Babette talk with enthusiasm of her work.

"Enjoy it?" she said, in answer to a question. "I sometimes wish I might never see pen, ink, and paper again. That is why I am overdone. But I am ashamed to say it; for I magnify my office as a working woman, and am thankful to be independent."

"But I thought literary people had such a pleasure in their gift," said Claudia.

"Very likely--those eminent persons who tell the interviewers they never write more than five hundred words a day. But I am only a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, so to speak."

"But the thought of being useful!"

"Yes, and the thought----but here is Susie."

Susie was the friend who taught singing. Claudia thought she had never seen a woman look more exhausted; but Claudia knew so little of life.

"You have had a long day, my dear," said Babette, as Susie threw herself into a chair; "it is your journey to the poles, isn't it?"

"To the poles?" said Claudia.

"Yes; this is the day she has to be at a Hampstead school from 9.30 till 12.30, and at a Balham school from 2.30 till 4. It's rather a drive to do it, since they are as far as the poles asunder."

"Still," said Claudia, "railway travelling must rest you."

"Not very much," said Susie, "when you travel third class and the trains are crowded."

"But it must be so nice to feel that you are really filling a useful position in the world."

"I don't know that I am," said Susie, rather wearily. "A good many of my pupils have no ear, and had far better be employed at something else."

"But your art!"

"I am afraid few of them think much about that, and what I have to do is to see that the parents are well enough pleased to keep their girls on at singing. I do my best for them; but one gets tired."

[Sidenote: Another Surprise]

Claudia did not reply. This seemed a sadly mercenary view of work, and a little shocked her. But then Claudia had not to earn her own living.

Claudia's inquiries of Sarah Griffin were scarcely more cheerful. Sarah was at the shop from 8.30 until 7, and was unable, therefore, to see her friend during the day. Aunt Jane and Aunt Ruth insisted that Sarah should spend the evening at St. John's Wood, and promised that she should leave early in the morning.

She came. Again Claudia marvelled at the change in her friend. Already she seemed ten years older than her age; her clothes, if neat, cried aloud of a narrow purse. She had lost a good deal of the brightness which once marked her, and had gathered instead a patient, worn look which had a pathos of its own.

Sarah did not announce her poverty, but under the sympathetic hands of Aunt Ruth and Aunt Jane she in time poured out the history of her daily life.

She was thankful to be in work, even though it was poorly paid. When first in search of occupation, she had spent three weary weeks in going from one house of business to another. In some she was treated courteously, in a few kindly, in many coarsely, in some insultingly. But that was nothing; Sarah knew of girls, far more tenderly reared than she had been, whose experiences had been even sadder.

But Claudia hoped that now Sarah really was at work she was comfortable.

Sarah smiled a little wintry smile. Yes, she was comfortable, and very thankful to be at work.

Aunt Jane with many apologies wanted more detail.

Then it appeared that Sarah was living on 15s. a week. She lived at a home for young women in business; she fed chiefly on bread and butter. Her clothes depended upon occasional gifts from friends.

Claudia began to condemn the world for its hardness.

"But I am not clever," said Sarah; "I can do nothing in particular, and there are so many of us wanting work."

"And do all these people really need it?"

"Yes; and we all think it hard when girls come and, for the mere pleasure of doing something, take such work at a lower wage than those can take who must live."

"But look at me," said Claudia; "I don't want the money, but I want the occupation; I want to feel I have some definite duties, and some place of my own in the world."

Sarah looked a little puzzled. Then she said, "Perhaps Mrs. Warwick could help you."

"Who is Mrs. Warwick?"

"Mrs. Warwick is the presiding genius of a ladies' club to which some of my friends go. I daresay one of them will be very glad to take us there."

So they agreed to go. Claudia felt, it must be owned, a little disappointed at what she had heard from her friends, but was inclined to believe that between the old life at home and the drudgery for the bare means of existence there still lay many things which she could do. She revolved the subject in the course of a morning walk on the day they were to visit the club, and returned to the shelter of her aunts' home with something of her old confidence restored.

Despite their goodness--Claudia could not question that--how poor, she thought, looked their simple ways! Aunt Jane sat, as aforetime, at one side of the fireplace, Aunt Ruth at the other. Aunt Jane was knitting with red wool, as she had always knitted since Claudia had known her. Aunt Ruth, with an equal devotion to habit, was working her way through a piece of embroidery. Molossus, the toy terrier, was asleep in Aunt Jane's lap; Scipio reposed luxuriously at Aunt Ruth's feet.

[Sidenote: Mild Excitement]

It was a peaceful scene; yet it had its mild excitements. The two aunts began at once to explain.

"We are so glad you are come in," said Aunt Jane.

"Because old Rooker has been," said Aunt Ruth.

"And with such good news! He has heard from his boy----"

"His boy, you know, who ran away," continued Aunt Ruth.

"He is coming home in a month or two, just to see his father, and is then going back again----"

"Back again to America, you know----"

"Where he is doing well----"

"And he sends his father five pounds----"

"And now the old man says he will not need our half-a-crown a week any longer----"

"So we can give it to old Mrs. Wimple, his neighbour----"

"A great sufferer, you know, and oh, so patient."

"Really!" said Claudia, a little confused by this antiphonal kind of narrative.

"Yes," continued Aunt Jane, "and I see a letter has come in for you--from home, I think. So this has been quite an eventful morning."

Claudia took the letter and went up to her own room, reflecting a little ungratefully upon the contentment which reigned below.

She opened her letter. It was, she saw, from her mother, written, apparently, at two or three sittings, for the last sheet contained a most voluminous postscript. She read the opening page of salutation, and then laid it down to prepare for luncheon. Musing as she went about her room, time slipped away, and the gong was rumbling out its call before she was quite ready to go down.

She hurried away, and the letter was left unfinished. It caught her eye in the afternoon; but again Claudia was hurried, and resolved that it could very well wait until she returned at night.

The club was amusing. Mrs. Warwick, its leading spirit, pleasantly mingled a certain motherly sympathy with an unconventional habit of manner and speech. There was an address or lecture during the evening by a middle-aged woman of great fluency, who rather astounded Claudia by the freest possible assumption, and by the most sweeping criticism of the established order of things as it affected women. The general conversation of the members seemed, however, no less frivolous, though much less restrained, than she had heard in drawing-rooms at home.

She parted from Sarah Griffin at the door of the club, and drove to St. John's Wood in a hansom. The repose of the house had not been stirred in her absence. Aunt Jane, Aunt Ruth, Molossus, and Scipio, all were in their accustomed places.

"And here is another letter for you, my dear," said Aunt Jane. "I hope the other brought good news?"

Claudia blushed a healthy, honest, old-fashioned blush. She had forgotten that letter. Its opening page or so had alone been glanced at.

Aunt Jane looked astonished at the confession, but with her placid good-nature added: "Of course, my dear, it was the little excitement of this evening."

"So natural to young heads," said Aunt Ruth, with a shake of her curls.

But Claudia was ashamed of herself, and ran upstairs for the first letter.

[Sidenote: Startling News]

A hasty glance showed her that, whilst it began in ordinary gossip, the long postscript dealt with a more serious subject. Mr. Haberton was ill; he had driven home late at night from a distance, and had taken a chill. Mrs. Haberton hoped it would pass off; Claudia was not to feel alarmed; Pinsett had again proved herself invaluable, and between them they could nurse the patient comfortably.

Claudia hastened to the second letter. Her fears were justified. Her father was worse; pneumonia had set in; the doctor was anxious; they were trying to secure a trained nurse; perhaps Claudia would like to return as soon as she got the letter.

"When did this come?" asked Claudia eagerly.

"A very few moments after you left," said Aunt Jane. "Of course, if you had been here, you might just have caught the eight o'clock train--very late, my dear, for you to go by, but with your father so ill----" And Aunt Jane wiped a tear away.

Claudia also wept.

"Can nothing be done to-night?" she presently cried. "_Must_ I wait till to-morrow? He may be----" But she did not like to finish the sentence.

Aunt Ruth had risen to the occasion; she was already adjusting her spectacles with trembling hands in order to explore the _A B C Timetable_. A very brief examination of the book showed that Claudia could not get home that night. They could only wait until morning.

Claudia spent a sleepless night. She had come up to London to find a mission in life. The first great sorrow had fallen upon her home in her absence, and by an inexcusable preoccupation she had perhaps made it impossible to reach home before her father's death.

She knew that pneumonia often claimed its victims swiftly; she might reach home too late.

Her father had been good to her in his own rather stern way. He was not a small, weak, or peevish character. To have helped him in sickness would have seemed a pleasant duty even to Claudia, who had contrived to overlook her mother's frail health. And others were serving him--that weak mother; Pinsett, too; and perhaps a hired nurse. It was unbearable.

"My dear," said Aunt Jane, as Claudia wept aloud, "we are in our heavenly Father's hands; let us ask Him to keep your dear father at least until you see him."

So those two old maids with difficulty adjusted their stiff knees to kneeling, and, as Aunt Jane lifted her quavering voice in a few sentences of simple prayer, she laid a trembling hand protectingly on Claudia.

Would that night never go? Its hours to Claudia seemed weeks. The shock of an impending loss would of itself have been hard enough to bear; but to remember that by her own indifference to home she had perhaps missed seeing her father again alive--that was worse than all.

And then, as she thought of the sick-room, she remembered her mother. How had she contrived for years not to see that in the daily care of that patient woman there lay the first call for a dutiful daughter?

It was noble to work; and there _was_ a work for every one to do.

But why had she foolishly gone afield to look for occupation and a place in life, when an obvious duty and a post she alone could best fill lay at home? If God would only give her time to amend!

It was a limp, tear-stained, and humbled Claudia who reached home by the first train the next morning.

Her father was alive--that was granted to her. Her mother had borne up bravely, but the struggle was obvious.

A nurse was in possession of the sick-chamber, and Claudia could only look on where often she fain would have been the chief worker.

But the room for amendment was provided. Mr. Haberton recovered very slowly, and was warned always to use the utmost care. Mrs. Haberton, when the worst of her husband's illness was over, showed signs of collapse herself.

[Sidenote: A New Ministry]

Claudia gave herself up to a new ministry. Her mother no longer called for Pinsett; Mr. Haberton found an admirable successor to his trained nurse.

Claudia had found her place, and in gratitude to God resolved to give the fullest obedience to the ancient precept: "If any have children . . . let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents."

[Sidenote: Women explorers have been the helpers of men, and spurred them on towards their goals. Some such workers are here recalled.]

Famous Women Pioneers

BY

FRANK ELIAS

A great deal has been said and written about the men who, in times past, opened up vast tracts of the unknown, and, by so doing, prepared new homes for their countrymen from England. Park and Livingstone, Raleigh and Flinders--the names of these and many more are remembered with gratitude wherever the English tongue is spoken.

Less often perhaps do we remember that there have been not only strong-willed and adventurous men but brave and enduring women who have gone where scarcely any white folks went before them, and who, while doing so, bore without complaint hardships no less severe than those endured by male pioneers.

To the shores of Cape Cod there came, on November 11, 1620, a little leaky ship, torn by North Atlantic gales and with sides shattered by North Atlantic rollers. Standing shivering upon her decks stood groups of men and women, plainly not sailor-folk, worn by a long voyage, and waiting to step upon a shore of which they knew no more than that it was inhabited by unmerciful savages and overlaid by dense forests. The first must be conciliated, and the second, to some extent at least, cleared away before there could be any hope of settlement.

What pictures of happy homes in the Old Country, with their green little gardens and honeysuckle creepers, rose up in the memory of those delicate women as they eyed the bleak, unfriendly shore! Yet, though the cold bit them and the unknown yawned before, they did not flinch, but waited for the solemn moment of landing.

[Sidenote: The "Mayflower"]

Perhaps a little of what they did that day they knew. Yet could they, we wonder, have realised that in quitting England with their husbands and fathers in order, with them, to worship God according to the manner bidden by their conscience, they were giving themselves a name glorious among women? Or that, because of them and theirs, the name of the little tattered, battered ship they were soon to leave, after weary months of danger from winds and seas, was to live as long as history. Thousands of great ships have gone out from England since the day on which the "Mayflower" sailed from Plymouth, yet which of them had a name like hers?

Tried as the "Mayflower" women were, their trials were only beginning. Even while they waited for their husbands to find a place of settlement, one of their number, wife of William Bradford--a man later to be their governor--fell overboard and was drowned. When they did at last land they had to face, not only the terrors of a North American winter, but sickness brought on by the hard work and poor food following the effects of overcrowding on the voyage.

Soon the death-rate in this small village amounted to as much as two to three persons a day. Wolves howled at night, Indians crept out to spy from behind trees, cruel winds shook their frail wooden houses and froze the dwellers in them, but the courage of the women pioneers of New England never faltered, and when, one by one, they died, worn out by hardship, they had done their noble part in building an altar to Him whom, in their own land, they had not been permitted to serve as they would.

For many years the task of helping to found settlements was the only work done by women in the way of opening up new territory. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries most of our discoveries were still those of the mariner, who could scarcely take his wife to sea. But in the nineteenth came the rise of foreign missions, as well as the acknowledgment of the need of inland exploration, and in this work the explorer's wife often shared in the risks and adventures of her husband.

When Robert Moffat began his missionary labours in South Africa in 1816, he had not only to preach the gospel to what were often bloodthirsty savages, but he had to plunge into the unknown. Three years later he married Mary Smith, who was henceforth to be his companion in all his journeys, and to face, with a courage not less than his own, the tropical heat, the poisonous insects, the savage beasts, the fierce natives of a territory untrod by the white man, and who had to do all this in a day before medicine had discovered cures for jungle-sickness and poisons, before invention had improved methods of travel, and before knowledge had been able to prepare maps or to write guides.

It was the daughter of Mary Moffat who became the wife of the greatest of all explorers, David Livingstone, and who like her mother, was to set her foot where no white men or women had stood before.

Their first home was at Mabotsa, about two hundred miles from what is now the city of Pretoria. But soon Livingstone began the series of journeys which was to make his name famous. With his wife he travelled in a roomy wagon, drawn by bullocks at a rate of about two miles an hour. But they often suffered intensely from the heat and the scarcity of water. Then the mosquitoes were always troublesome, and frequently even the slow progress they were making would be interrupted by the death of one of the bullocks, killed by the deadly tsetse. At other times they would halt before a dense bunch of trees, and would have to stop until a clearing had been cut through.

Such was the life of Mrs. Livingstone during her first years in Africa. For a time, following this, she lived in England with her children, and had there to endure sufferings greater than any she had shared with her husband, for during most of her time at home Livingstone was cut off from the world in the middle of Africa. When he reached the coast once more she went back to him, unable to endure the separation longer.

But, soon after landing, her health gave way. At the end of April her condition was hopeless; she lay upon "a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a soft mattress," and thus, her husband beside her, she died in the heart of the great continent for which she and those most dear to her had spent themselves.

[Sidenote: Lady Baker]

An even greater African explorer than Mrs. Livingstone was Lady Baker, wife of Sir Samuel Baker. She was a Hungarian, and married Baker in 1860, when he had already done some colonisation work by settling a number of Englishmen in Ceylon. In the year following their marriage, the Bakers went to Egypt, determined to clear up that greatest of all mysteries to African explorers--the secret of the Nile sources. Arrived at Khartoum, they fitted out an expedition and set off up the river with twenty-nine camels.

One day, as they pushed on slowly in that silent, burning land, they heard that white men were approaching; and sure enough, there soon appeared before them the figures of Speke and Grant, two well-known explorers who had gone out a year before and whom many feared to have been lost. These men had found the source of the Nile in the Victoria Nyanza. But they told the Bakers a wonderful story of how they had heard rumours from time to time of the existence of another lake into which the Nile was said to flow.

The minds of Baker and his wife were fired to emulation. Parting from their newly-met countrymen, they pressed onwards and southwards. They had to go a long distance out of their way to avoid the slave-traders who were determined to wreck their plans if they could.

"We have heard a good deal recently of lady travellers in Africa," said the _Times_ a long time afterwards, "but their work has been mere child's play compared with the trials which Lady Baker had to undergo in forcing her way into a region absolutely unknown and bristling with dangers of every kind."

But after encountering many adventures, the determined traveller and his brave wife at last reached the top of a slope from which, on looking down, they saw a vast inland ocean. No eye of white man had ever beheld this lake before, and to Lady Baker, not less than to her husband, belongs the glory of the discovery of the lake which all the world knows to-day as the Albert Nyanza.

"Thus," to quote an earlier passage in the same _Times_ article, "amid many hardships and at the frequent risk of death at the hands of Arab slavers and hostile chiefs, Baker and his wife forged one of the most important links in the course of one of the world's most famous rivers."

After many further difficulties, the explorers found their way back to the coast, and thence to England. But their fame had gone before them, and everywhere they were welcomed. And though it was Baker who was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Geographical Society, all must have felt that the honour belonged, not less, to his courageous wife.

[Sidenote: Mary Kingsley]

It may be said that Lady Baker was not alone in her journeys. On the other hand, Mary Kingsley, another woman African traveller, led her own expeditions. Moreover, her travelling was often done through territory reeking with disease. At the age of twenty-nine she explored the Congo River, and visited Old Calabar, and in 1894 ascended the mountain of Mungo Mah Lobeh. After her return to England she lectured upon her adventures. One more journey, this time not of exploration, was she to make to the great African continent. In 1900 she volunteered as a nurse during the war, and went out to the Cape. Here she was employed to nurse sick Boer prisoners. But her work was done. Enteric fever struck her down and, before long, the traveller had set out upon her last journey.

The names we have mentioned have been those of famous travellers--women whose work is part of the history of discovery. But there are hundreds of courageous women to-day, not perhaps engaged in exploration, but who, nevertheless, are living in remote stations in the heart of Africa, in the midst of the Australian "never-never," in the lonely islands of the Pacific--women whose husbands, whose fathers, whose brothers are carrying on the work of Empire, or the greater work of the gospel.

Often one of these women is the only white person of her sex for hundreds of miles. Perhaps she is the first who has ever set foot in the region wherein she lives. Yet her courage does not fail. When, as sometimes she does, she writes a book describing her adventures, it is sure to be full of high spirits and amusing descriptions of the primitive methods of cooking and housekeeping to which she must submit. The other side of the picture, the loneliness, the intense heat or cold, the mosquitoes or other pests, the compulsion, through absence of assistance, to do what at home could be done by a servant--all this is absent.

Women may have changed, but certainly woman in the difficult places of the Empire, whether she be missionary, squatter, or consul's wife, has lost nothing in courage, in perseverance, in cheerful or even smiling submission to hard conditions.

[Sidenote: A rural story this--of adventurous youngsters and a pathetic figure that won their sympathy.]

Poor Jane's Brother

BY

MARIE F. SALTON

Ever since the twins could remember Poor Jane had lived in the village. In fact, she had lived there all her life, though one could not expect the twins to remember that, for they were very young indeed, and Poor Jane was quite old.

Poor Jane did not dress like other folks. Her boots were so large and sloppy that her feet seemed to shake about in them, and she shuffled along the ground when she walked. These boots could never have been cleaned since Jane had had them, and the twins firmly believed that they always had been that queer dust-colour, until one day Nan told them that when they were quite new they were black and shiny like ordinary boots.

Poor Jane always wore a brown, muddy, gingham skirt, frayed and tattered, and the torn pieces hung like a frill from her knees to the tops of her dust-coloured boots. Over her chest she wore a dark-grey woollen cross-over, and on her head was a dirty shawl, which hung down her back, and was pinned across her breast. Little straw-like wisps of straight brown hair stuck out from under the shawl over her forehead and ears. Her face was dried up and shrivelled, and her cheek-bones were so sharp that they tried to prick through the skin.

Poor Jane did not often wash, so her wrinkles, and what Dumpty called her "laughing lines," were marked quite black with dirt. Her lips were not rosy and fresh like mummie's or Dumpty's, but they were of a purple-grey colour, and when she opened her mouth, instead of a row of pearly white teeth showing, there was only one very large yellow tooth, which looked as if it could not stay much longer in the gum.

The twins always thought that she must live on milk, as babies do before they have any teeth, but to their amazement they heard that last Christmas, at the Old People's Tea, Poor Jane had eaten two plates of salt beef.

"Do you think she sucked it?" Dumpty asked her brother that evening when nurse was safely out of the way. Humpty asked daddy the next day at lunch how old people managed to eat when they had only one tooth.

[Sidenote: Humpty's Experiment]

Daddy said they "chewed," and showed Humpty how it was done, and there was a scene that afternoon in the nursery at tea, when Humpty practised "chewing" his bread and honey. And in the end Dumpty went down alone to the drawing-room for games that evening, with this message from Nan: "Master Humphrey has behaved badly at the tea-table, and been sent to bed."

But although the children met Poor Jane every time that they went into the village they had never once spoken to her. That was because she was not one of nurse's friends, like old Mrs. Jenks, whom Barbara, the twins' elder sister, visited every week with flowers or fruit or other good things. Nan considered that Poor Jane was too dirty for one of her friends.

Poor Jane was so interesting because she had so much to say to herself, and, as daddy said, "gibbered like a monkey" when she walked alone.

All day long she would wander up and down the village street, and when the children came out of school and the boys began to tease, she would curl her long black-nailed fingers--which were so like birds' claws--at her persecutors, and would run towards them as if she meant to scratch out their eyes.

Early last spring the twins met with their first real adventure. They had had lots of little adventures before, such as the time when Humpty fell into the pond at his cousins' and was nearly drowned, and when Dumpty had a tooth drawn, and because she was brave and did not make a fuss, daddy and mummie each presented her with a shilling, and even the dentist gave her a penny and a ride in his chair.

But this time it was a real adventure because every one--twins included--was frightened.

The twins had just recovered from bad colds in their heads, which they had passed on to all the grown-ups in the house, and a cold in the head makes grown-ups particularly cross, so the twins found.

Mum came up to the nursery with a very hoarse voice and streaming eyes, but when she saw Nan she forgot about her own cold, and said that Nan must go to bed at once, and have something warm to drink, and put a nice hot-water bottle between the sheets. For a long time Nan said that nothing would make her go to bed, but at last mum, who is very sweet, and of whom Nan is really quite afraid, persuaded her to lie down, and herself brought up a dose of quinine.