Jess

On the following Monday, John, taking Jantje to drive him, departed in a rough Scotch cart, to which were harnessed two of the best horses at Mooifontein, to shoot buck at Hans...

“Captain Niel,” said Bessie Croft—for she was named Bessie—when they had painfully limped one hundred yards or so, “will you think me rude if I ask you a question?”

The day had been intensely hot, and our travellers sat in the shade of the cart overpowered and gasping. During the afternoon a faint breeze blew, but this had now died away, an...

At first Bessie was utterly prostrated by the blow that had fallen on her, but as time went on she revived a little, for hers was an elastic and a sanguine nature. Troubles sink...

On leaving the house Bessie and John took their way down the long avenue of blue gums. This avenue was old Silas Croft’s particular pride, since although it had only been plante...

John soon settled down into the routine of camp life in Pretoria, which, after one became accustomed to it, was not so disagreeable as might have been expected, and possessed, a...

The night was still and very dark. A soft cold rain, such as often falls in the Wakkerstroom and New Scotland districts of the Transvaal, and which more resembles a true north c...

She looked up. “A happy mind?” she said. “Who _can_ have a happy mind? Nobody who feels. Supposing,” she went on after a pause—“supposing one puts oneself and one’s own little i...

Meanwhile another little tragedy was being enacted at the back of the house. After the one-eyed witch-doctor Hendrik had knocked Silas Croft down and assisted in the pleasing op...

“Dear me, Bessie,” said old Silas Croft on the evening after he had started, “the house seems very dull without John”—a remark in which Bessie, who was weeping secretly in the c...

“Because I want you to understand that you and all the Englishmen in this country are in a very dangerous position. The war is coming, and whether it goes for you or against you...

The important domestic events described in the last chapter took place on December 7, 1880, and for the next twelve days or so everything went as happily at Mooifontein as thing...

The firing from the bank had ceased, and John, who still kept his head, being a rather phlegmatic specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race, knew that, for the moment at any rate, all da...

In due course John Niel recovered from his sprained ankle and the other injuries inflicted on him by the infuriated cock ostrich (it is, by the way, a humiliating thing to be kn...

After waiting a few minutes, Jess said “Good-night,” and went straight to Bessie’s room. Her sister had undressed, and was sitting on her bed, wrapped in a blue dressing-gown th...

Once he had turned the corner, John’s recovery was rapid. Naturally of a vigorous constitution, when the artery had reunited, he soon made up for the great loss of blood which h...

“Ah, _Oom_ Croft’s!” said the Boer as he took the pass, “you are likely to meet a burying party there,” but at the time Jess did not understand what he meant. He eyed the pass s...

In front of the door of “The Palatial” was a garden-bed filled with weeds and flowers mixed up together like the good and evil in the heart of a man, and to the right-hand side...

The four greys were fresh horses, in good condition and with a light load behind them, so, notwithstanding the bad state of the tracks which they call roads in South Africa, Joh...

For three or four minutes more Jess and Jantje whispered together, after which the Hottentot rose and crept away to find out what was passing among the Boers below, and watch wh...

Completely overcome by this last remark, Hans collapsed like a jelly-fish out of water, and reflected in his worthless old heart that Frank Muller was indeed “a devil of a man.”...

The study of the conflicting elements which go to make up a character like that of Frank Muller, however fascinating it might prove, is not one which can be attempted in detail...

John and Jess had finished their meal, and were about to leave the table, when suddenly the door opened, and who should appear at it but Frank Muller himself! Mistake was imposs...

Jess was not very happy at Pretoria previous to the unexpected outbreak of hostilities. Most people who have made a great moral effort, and after some severe mental struggle hav...

For a few weeks after John Niel’s adventure at the shooting-party no event of any importance occurred at Mooifontein. Day followed day in charming monotony, for, whatever “gay w...

Shortly after the old Boer had gone, John went into the yard of the hotel to see to the inspanning of the Cape cart, where his attention was at once arrested by the sight of a r...

John Niel woke early the next morning, feeling as sore and stiff as though he had been well beaten and then wrapped up tight in horse-girths. He made shift, however, to dress hi...

About half-past ten on the morning following her interview with Hans Coetzee, Jess was at “The Palatial” as usual, and John was just finishing packing the cart with such few goo...

Half an hour passed in silence, which was broken only by the footsteps of the sentries as they tramped, or rather loitered, up and down, or by the occasional fall of some calcin...

“To see Jane Neville!” said Bessie, opening her blue eyes wide. “Why, it was only last month you said that you did not care about Jane Neville now, because she had grown so vulg...

After Jess had been set free by the Boers outside Hans Coetzee’s place, John was sharply ordered to dismount and off-saddle his horse. This he did with the best grace that he co...

When, at the approach of Frank Muller, John Niel left Bessie on the verandah, he had taken his gun, and, having whistled to the pointer dog Pontac, he mounted his shooting pony...

The day had been very hot even for the Transvaal, where the days still know how to be hot in the autumn, although the neck of the summer is broken—especially when the thundersto...

When the rain ceased and the moon began to shine, Jess was still fleeing like a wild thing across the plain on the top of the mountain. She felt no sense of exhaustion now or ev...

Jess and her companion stood in awed silence and gazed at the blackening and distorted corpses of the thunder-blasted Boers. Then they passed by them to the tree which grew some...

that I am nothing but your sister-in-law. If you will not remember it, then I shall ride away and leave you to go your road and I will go mine.”