Their antipathy to one another was so marked, in fact, that "Gentleman Jim" refused to have his meals with Paulus and had built a small kitchen apart for himself, under one of the big willows. On this occasion Hansie did not feel pleased at "Jim's" appearance either, for it was one thing to teach the self-contained and reverent Sesuto, and quite another to instruct the flippant "Gentleman Jim." But Hansie did not know what to say and asked Jim to let her hear him read. He began laboriously, floundering hopelessly over the long words. "Fruits, meat _and_ repentance,"[3] he read with painful uncertainty, when Hansie interrupted him with a laugh: "That will do, Jim; you are wonderful, and you need not come again." * * * * * Other natives on the premises were of the shiftless, wandering type, changing hands continually, and many were the instances of their simplicity, not to say rank stupidity. On one occasion a "raw" Kaffir, on being ordered to take a heavily laden wheelbarrow from one part of the garden to the other, was found half an hour later, still in the same place, vainly trying to place the wheelbarrow on his head! I believe it was the same native who, when told to empty the contents of a waste-paper basket on a burning heap of rubbish in the garden, returned without the basket, and when asked what he had done with it, pointed, with an air of injured surprise, to its smouldering remains on the heap of rubbish. Indeed, the patience of the housewife was often sorely tried. A relative of Mrs. van Warmelo's coming into the kitchen one morning, found one of these new "hands" before the stove in a sea of hot water, desperately trying to fill a small kettle _by the spout_, from a large one! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: Myn en dyn.] [Footnote 3: "Fruits meet for repentance."] CHAPTER XXII THE SECRET RAILWAY TIME-TABLE Thank God for the early rains! After the long winter months, dry and dusty, terrific storms pass over the country, torrents of rain, lashing hailstones. The beautiful world is washed clean, and everywhere the moist brown earth gives promise of a plentiful supply of fresh young grass, which means food for the weary underfed horses on commando, and new life, new hopes to the men. Only the middle of August and already the first summer rains are falling! Thank God again! The cruel strain of anxious thought for our heroes in the field can be relaxed for a moment, and we turn our energies with redoubled vigour and strengthened faith to the task at our hand. Heaven knows that we shall require all the courage we possess to face the impending disasters, of which the shadows have already fallen on our hearts. * * * * * One morning the disconcerting news reached Harmony that Mrs. Naude's house had been surrounded by armed soldiers at break of day and that she had been taken away with her child, in a waggon, no one knew where.