If anything should come of this matter, and Sir Anson considered that he had failed in his responsibility, he would unhesitatingly forego any remuneration; but his anxiety rested on higher grounds than pecuniary loss. He had a great liking for his charge, and for his charge’s father, and, worse still perhaps, his reliability would stand impugned. Now, it was precisely for reliability that Harley Greenoak enjoyed a reputation little short of infallible, and of this he himself was aware, and, though secretly, was intensely proud.
He wondered if Hesketh – sly old fox – had brought about the situation with deliberate design, in order to do a good turn to his kinsfolk. It might well have been – and one could hardly blame him if it were so. Instinctively Greenoak realised that it would be useless for him to interfere at this stage. He had tried it at an earlier one, though “interfere” is too strong a word for the easy, natural, tactful way in which he had suggested they should move somewhere else. His charge, equally and naturally, but quite good-humouredly, had scouted the idea. Hesketh would be hurt, he had declared. He was no end of a jolly old chap, and he, Dick, wouldn’t offend him for the world. And then Haakdoornfontein was no end of a jolly place, with a different shoot, by Jingo, for every day in the year. And Greenoak had laughed drily, as he reflected that his charge’s enthusiasm for that form of sport had flagged perceptibly of late. But like a wise man and a tactful one he had known better than to push the suggestion further. Things must just take their course, he decided. A matter of this kind was a delicate one, and one in which the man most concerned must judge for himself. At any rate, it was clean outside his own province.
“These young ’uns, you know, will have their heads,” now went on old Hesketh, puffing out smoke. “I suppose we took our doses of foolishness, Greenoak, when we were at their time. Though, I dunno about me. It was just ‘yes or no’ with the old woman, ‘take it or leave it.’ She took it, and managed the place. I don’t know, either, that things haven’t been quieter – well, since I’ve managed it myself,” he added drily.
There lay the summing up of a lifetime; a hard, lonely, matter-of-fact, out-of-the-world lifetime. Greenoak nodded. He was not going to make any comment on the situation. He was not going to ruffle his old friend’s susceptibilities by any suggestion that Dick’s father might object, more or less strongly, to the said situation and its logical outcome. Old Hesketh’s social creed was simplicity itself: “Black’s black and white’s white, and one white man’s as good as another, and no better.” This Greenoak knew.
Again he wondered whether Hesketh had brought about the situation with a purpose. Hesketh was a mine of natural shrewdness, and here was scope for it. Dick Selmes had spent some three weeks on this wild and remote place, roughing it as he had probably never dreamed of roughing it, his sole companions one old and one elderly man – Greenoak was modest, you see. Then, enter a bright, pretty, taking girl, who makes the rough places, as by magic, smooth, imports the refinement to which his charge has been accustomed, with one sweep of the wand, and whose personality is in itself a supplement to the sunshine. No contrast could be more strongly marked. Assuredly if Hesketh had of his own intuition brought off such a dramatic stroke, why, Hesketh was more of a genius than the acquaintance of that rugged old recluse would have given him credit for being. But this reflection did not tend to lighten Harley Greenoak’s private disquietude.
Chapter Seven.
Good News
“When are you going to shoot another back for us, Mr Selmes?” Hazel Brandon was saying. “As officer in charge of the Commissariat Department, it’s my duty to tell you that if you don’t we shall have to begin on mutton, and it’s your especial mission to keep us in game. So – when are you?”
“When you come and help me do it.”
“Help you? Yes – like the other evening when we went to voor-ly for a bush-buck over Slaang Draai, and you talked so much that although we sat there till it was dark none came out. Now what sort of ‘help’ is that?”
He looked down into the bright, teasing face, and thought he had seldom – or was it ever? – looked upon any sight which delighted him more.
“Well, you helped me to talk anyhow,” he said. “Now didn’t you?”
One form of sport was to gain a point overlooking this or that bushy kloof about an hour before sundown and sit still, waiting till the bush-bucks began to move. Thus a shot was to be obtained when one showed upon an open space. Dick Selmes, who had become a very fair rifle shot, had bagged several this way. The occasion to which the girl had referred was one on which he had persuaded her to accompany him – with the remit described.
“Never mind,” he went on, without waiting for her answer. “It was no end jolly all the same. Wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I seem to remember it became no end cold,” she laughed. “But you’re trying to get away from the point. You must go and shoot a buck for me this afternoon. Why, you hardly ever hunt now. You’re getting quite lazy.”
It was a coincidence that her uncle should be making substantially the same remark about a quarter of a mile away.
“Lazy! I like that. How about all those jolly rides we’ve been having? Lazy!”
“Well, I didn’t mean it in its strictly literal sense,” she answered. “Yes, I have enjoyed those rides.”
Hazel had been about a fortnight at Haakdoornfontein, and during that time she and Dick Selmes had become very friendly indeed. It was the old story – youth, mutual attraction and propinquity, and but for the fact that she was the stronger minded of the two, and adhered to a rigid resolution not to neglect her self-imposed household duties, it is probable that their elders would have seen very little of her or of either of them.
“You know, it was quite a surprise to me to find you and Mr Greenoak here,” she went on. “You know Uncle Eph by this time. Well, he never writes a word that he isn’t obliged to; so when mother sent a boy with a note to say I was coming, he just returned for answer ‘Glad to see her.’ That and no more.”
“By Jove!” cried Dick. “And you didn’t know we were here.”
“Not an atom. I expected to find him alone, as usual. He never has people here.”
“We ought to be flattered then. Greenoak thinks your uncle got him here on purpose to try and clear up that Slaang Kloof mystery. But that’s ancient history now, and he doesn’t seem to want us to go. He objected, quite strongly for him, when I suggested moving on.”
“Did he? He has taken quite a fancy to you. I never knew him so gracious to any man under about fifty before. He’s usually grim.”
“I think him a dear old chap,” said Dick, decisively. “Such a character too. Well, I’m jolly glad he didn’t take me at my word,” with a meaning look at the sweet sparkling face beside him; which look the owner of the said face chose utterly to ignore. But from the foregoing dialogue it is obvious that Harley Greenoak’s suspicions as to his host’s complicity in any possible complications with regard to his charge were without foundation in fact.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if Mr Greenoak was right, and that Uncle Eph did get him up here to clear up the mystery,” said Hazel. “Though none of you – not even you – will ever tell me what that mystery is,” she added reproachfully. “Well, never mind. I’m not going to press you to. I believe I’ll ask Kleinbooi though.”
Whereby it will be seen that Harley Greenoak’s advice to the other two concerned, to keep silence as to the nature of the Slaang Kloof mystery, had been rigidly adhered to.
Dick laughed. “You might as well ask that tree.”
“Does he know?”
“I don’t suppose he knows, but if he guesses he’d sooner hang himself than let on a word.”
“Do you know, Mr Greenoak has a reputation for clearing up mysteries. There was that