Swallow

"Then be off and sit in it and smoke till I come to call you," I replied, and away they walked shamefacedly enough, Ralph first, and Jan following him.

At twelve o'clock I went for them, and found them both seated on the waggon-chest smoking like chimneys, and saying nothing.

"Come, Ralph," I said, "it is quite time for you to be married," and he came, looking very pale, and walking unsteadily as though he had been drinking, while after him, as usual, marched Jan, still pulling at the pipe which he had forgotten to take out of his mouth.

Somehow I do not recollect much of the details of that wedding; they seem to have slipped my mind, or perhaps they are buried beneath the memories of all that followed hard upon it. I remember Suzanne standing before the little table, behind which was the predicant with his book. She wore a white dress that fitted her very well, but had no veil upon her head after the English fashion, which even Boer girls follow nowadays, only in her hand she carried a bunch of rare white flowers that Sihamba had gathered for her in a hidden kloof where they grew. Her face was somewhat pale, or looked so in the dim room, but her lips showed red like coral, and her dark eyes glowed and shone as she turned them upon the lover at her side, the fair-haired, grey-eyed, handsome English lad, whose noble blood told its tale in every feature and movement, yes, and even in his voice, the man whom she had saved from death to be her life-mate.

A few whispered words, the changing of a ring, and one long kiss, and these two, Ralph Kenzie and Suzanne Botmar, were husband and wife in the eyes of God and man. Ah! me, I am glad to think of it, for in the end, of all the many marriages that I have known, this proved the very best and happiest.

Now I thought that it was done with, for they had knelt down and the predicant had blessed them; but not so, for the good man must have his word, and a long word it was. On and on he preached about the duties of husbands and wives, and many other matters, till at last, as I expected, he came to the children. Now I could bear it no longer.

"That is enough, reverend Sir," I said, "for surely it is scarcely needful to talk of children to people who have not been married five minutes."

That pricked the bladder of his discourse, which soon came to an end, whereon I called to the Kaffirs to bring in dinner.