The covenant - James A. Michener [339]
'You're not to preach. You're not a predikant.'
'We were burying a poor old man.'
'Bury him. And keep your mouth shut.'
'But, Mijnheer Bronk'
'Tjaart, tell this simpleton to obey the rules.'
And when two young people from another party wanted to marry and came to Nel soliciting his assistance, he was willing to comply, but again Bronk intruded: 'Bedamned, I've warned you five times against posing as a predikant.'
'But these young people want to start their new life'
'Let them wait till a real minister comes along.' And he was so adamant that the couple had to depart, their union unsanctified. But when Bronk was not spying, Theunis rode after the pair and told them, 'God wants his children to marry and multiply. I name you man and wife, and when a true predikant does arrive, ask him to bless your marriage properly.' When one did come after three years, he was able to baptize two children also.
Where was this exodus heading? No one worried. The families were more concerned with leaving English rule than with their destination: some proposed to cut east across the Drakensberg Mountains, which had hemmed Shaka's empire. Others, like Tjaart van Doorn , were determined to head north, cross the Vaal River and settle in remote valleys.
But where in the north? One of Tjaart's earliest memories was of the tales told about his grandfather Adriaan, who had gone into that northland with a Hottentot named Dikkop and a tame hyena named Swarts: 'He said he grew frightened at the Limpopo River and turned back, and found a lake which he called Vrijmeer, and on its bank he buried Dikkop.' Tjaart believed he was destined to reach that lake.
But regardless of whether a Voortrekker elected Natal as his destination or the unexplored north, all trails converged at the foot of a mountain with a fanciful name, Thaba Nchu. The Voortrekkers called it Ta-ban '-choo, and so many wanderers found rest here that for some years it formed a major settlement.
It was here that they met the first major black tribe north of the Orange River. In the first days of their trek they had encountered small groups of blacks and a few Coloureds, but at Thaba Nchu, there was a tribe of five thousand who welcomed them as allies against a mortal enemy to the north: Mzilikazi, Great Bull Elephant of the Matabele, one of the architects of Mfecane.
On 13 June 1836 wagons of the Van Doorn party rolled into Thaba Nchu, where five or six hundred earlier arrivals were waiting for their leaders to reach some decision, and they rested there, and there was time for new friendships to develop. Especially active was young Paulus de Groot, who ran with boys twice his age and wrestled with them, too. He talked little, was savagely protective of his rights, and seemed to prefer the companionship of Tjaart van Doorn above that of his own father, and this was understandable, for the lad showed signs of growing into the kind of man Tjaart was: solid, cautious, devout. When young Paulus said his prayers his large squarish face glowed with religious fervor, for it seemed to him that God was listening.
Despite this natural inclination toward devotion, Paulus disliked Theunis Nel, the self-appointed representative of religion, for the boy sensed the ridicule in which the sick-comforter was held. One morning, when Tjaart suggested that Paulus start learning his letters from Theunis, the effect of Tjaart's sponsorship was destroyed when Minna came out of her tent screaming at her husband, calling him disrespectful names and conveying to the boy the community's reaction to the cockeyed fellow. No man could discipline a strong-minded boy like Paulus de Groot if he could not first discipline his own wife.
Tjaart, hoping to see this promising lad grow into a leader of men, took it upon himself to teach the alphabet and instruct in numbers, and one morning he was seated on a log drilling the boy when