The covenant - James A. Michener [327]
'Mijnheer van Doorn'the schoolmaster spoke as if he were sixteen and Tjaart seventy'I have the great honor of asking whether I might have the hand of your daughter Minna . . .'
When Minna heard these fateful words and saw the pitiful man that spoke them she might have broken into a sob had not her mother anticipated such a scene and grabbed her daughter's wrist furiously, as if to say, You cannot.
'I am older,' Nel continued, 'and have no farm . . .'
'But you're a good man,' Jakoba said, and she pushed her daughter forward.
'Theunis,' Tjaart said, 'we welcome you into our family.'
'Oh!' the schoolmaster gasped. Recovering his composure, he said, 'Can we all ride to Graaff-Reinet for the wedding?'
'Not in these troubled times,' Tjaart said. 'But you can start the marriage, and whenever a dominee comes this way . . .'
'I could not,' the devout little man protested, unable to imagine living with a woman before vows had been solemnized. 'I must pray on this.'
'Go ahead,' Tjaart said, eager to have his daughter married. 'But I've noticed that whenever men pray on this subject, the answer's always yes. Do you want Minna to ride with you to Bronk's?'
'I must pray.'
It was Minna who answered that particular prayer. 'You heard what Wilhelmina did when she married Lodevicus. She rode one hundred miles.
The school's nine miles. I'm riding with you.' Tjaart van Doorn had found a son-in-law.
In December 1834 it seemed as if all of Tjaart's uncertainties were laid to rest. Theunis and Minna returned to help run the farm, and the English government began to show common sense in running the country. But almost immediately trouble resumed, for the Xhosa launched a series of forays deep into Boer country, and all commandos were summoned to Grahamstown to strengthen the English regular troops and their civilian helpers like Saltwood. 'We're dealing not with hundreds of Xhosa warriors,' the commanding officer said, 'but thousands. An invasion of our colony is under way.'
After fourteen rugged days in the saddle, Tjaart's men were given a week's furlough; they were farmers, not soldiers, and their first responsibility lay in ensuring the safety of their homestead and flocks. As the tired men rode back to Grahamstown, a place Tjaart had grown to love for its hospitality, Saltwood spoke seriously: 'Piet Retief is talking about pulling out of here and emigrating north. If that good man leaves, it's obvious to me you'll all go. I think that's a mistake. You and I have proved that Boers and Englishmen can live together.'
'Your laws go against the Bible.'
'Against the Old Bible, not the New.'
'It's the Old that counts.'
'Be that as it may, if you ever decide to go north, I'd be very interested in your farm. It's the best in this area.' 'I'd not care to sell.'
'Then why did you buy that new wagon?'
Tjaart reflected on this. He refused to concede that he had acquired the wagon in order to emigrate, even though his wife had been counseling this for some time. 'I bought it because a farmer needs good tools,' he had told his sons. But gradually he admitted that he might also have done so because there was in the air a desire for life unimpeded by English law and custom. Perhaps Jakoba had been right. Perhaps they should go north and form a new nation.
But such thoughts fled from him when he and De Groot came over the last hill to De Kraal, for from its summit they looked down on a scene of devastation: all parts of the barn that were not of stone were burned away; the wooden shed attached to the house was burned; and in the space between barn and house stood what had been the new wagon, all parts charred and shattered.
'Great God!' Tjaart shouted, spurring his horse to find what might have happened to his family. 'De Groot!' he cried from the ashes. 'They've all been killed.'
But a search of the ruins uncovered no bodies, and now Tjaart feared that his family had been take captive. A wide-ranging search for spoor finally disclosed a trail leading to a faraway glen, and there they found Theunis Nel, the women, the children and