"I’m afraid I’ll have to risk that, Mr Retief, when the time comes."

Chrissie secretly approved the I-don’t-give-a-damn-for-you-and-your-old-Mauser way in which he said it. That was something to say to old Nick Retief all the same! She turned on her father now expostulating:

"Foy toch, Poppa! It is not his fault, then. He has to do what the Government tells him, but!"

"I’m not going to have the stink-engines on my land," repeated Nick.

"Well," said Braddon pleasantly. "Let’s leave it at that. I’m camped out on Diepner’s land now beyond the river but we may get orders to start the bridge any time—​and then the rails on this side—​I only want you to be reasonable, Mr Retief, and realise that it isn’t our fault."

Nick rolled a blood-suffused eye on him.

"You start on my land, that’s all," he said with heavy significance.

A minute later, he let out a terrific roar that shook the rafters of the verandah above him and was addressed to the native who had recently arrived with the sheep and cows.

"What is the matter with you, you base-born son of a baboon, that you put your master’s scabby, leprous sheep into my calves' kraal when I told you they were to go into that one down by the sluit?"

Following this furious inquiry he arose and betook himself to the kraal, leaving Chrissie and Braddon together.

"Will you drink coffee?" she asked.

"Thank you, I’d like some very much."

She opened the door and went to fetch the beakers and rusks out on the stoep table. Braddon immediately bestirred himself to her assistance, proving himself still further unlike her several swains, for among the more ignorant class of Boers it is the affair of the women to wait upon men as upon the lords of the earth.

Afterwards, the two sat down by the table and waited for the old man. Braddon made polite conversation. He felt no embarrassment, but neither did he feel much interest. He had met Dutch girls before and they had not "gone to his head" or to his heart either. Their complexions were invariably good, but as conversationalists they were draggy.

"It must be dull for you living out here," he remarked pleasantly.

"Oh, no," she answered smiling, "there is plenty of work to do on the farm."

He liked that spirit and understood it.

"I know. When one is working time flies, doesn’t it? But there are occasional dull hours in the evenings I find."

"What do you do then?" she asked.

"Oh, study a bit and read the newspaper when I have one, and write home sometimes—​and think a lot."

"What do you think about?" pursued Chrissie.

"Oh, I don’t know—​work, and my people at home, there’s always something."

He examined her with a shade more interest. She was not so draggy after all, this Dutch girl. Certainly he had known them duller.

"What do you think about?" he asked with a quizzical smile.

"I think about the people who come to the farm," said Chrissie simply.