The covenant - James A. Michener [367]
'To where?'
'Back up on the plateau.' From the tent, young Paulus cried, 'Hooray! We'll go back and hunt lions.'
The more Balthazar talked, the more sense he made, and by the time Aletta got out of bed, the two men had convinced themselves that they must start quickly toward the mountains; Natal was not for them. But when Aletta heard the decision she began to pout and said that she did not intend to help carry this wagon back up those hills. 'No necessity,' Bronk assured her. There's a good trail now. General Pretorius crossed the peaks in three days.'
'Why didn't we use it?' she said. 'It wasn't known then.'
For a three-day period it looked as if Aletta might leave Tjaart; she was not legally married to him yet, and there were other men in the new settlements who needed wives. It was her strong desire to remain here with the other women and not climb back to the highveld where her life would be lonely and short. But then an American missionarya gawky young Baptist from Indianawandered into the settlements, and the hunger of the Voortrekkers for a predikant manifested itself. Tjaart joined a committee of five which interrogated the young man to see if he might be willing to perfect his Dutch and transfer his allegiance to the Dutch Reformed Church.
'I am not too good at languages,' he said in English.
'Did you attend seminary?' Tjaart asked in Dutch. 'Yes.'
'And were you approved?'
'Yes.'
'Then you can learn.'
'But you ought to have a Dutch minister.'
'That's right,' Tjaart said, 'but the Dutch ministers have outlawed us,' and he showed the young man the latest copy of the Cape Town newspaper, The South African Commercial Advertiser, in which spokesmen for the church reiterated the charge that the Voortrekkers were fugitives acting in disobedience to organized society, that they were no doubt spiritual degenerates and should be shunned by all good people.
'Of course it would be better if we had Dutch predikants,' Tjaart summarized, 'but what we want to know is can you accept our doctrines?'
'Well,' the young fellow said brightly, 'seems to me that the Dutch Reformed Church is pretty much what we in America call Lutherans.'
'Nothing of the kind!' Tjaart roared. 'That's Martin Luther. We're John Calvin.'
'Aren't they the same?'
'Good God!' Tjaart grumbled, and he took no further part in the interrogation, but when the other four had completed their questioning, it became apparent that here was a true man of God, called to the frontier from a vast distance, one who would grace any community. Without consulting Tjaart, they made him a definite offer, and he finally accepted.
But it was Tjaart who gave him his first two commissions: 'Will you perform a marriage?'
'I would be proud to do so, Mr. van Doorn.'
'I'm never a mister,' Tjaart growled, whereupon the young minister said, 'But you are a man of strong calling, and that I like.'
The two men walked to Tjaart's wagon, where Aletta was summoned, and when she heard that this strange fellow was a minister she turned pale, for during the past several nights she had been secretly meeting a young man whose love-making she fancied, and she had been about to inform Tjaart of her new preference. He, seeing her paleness, surmised what the situation might be, for he had met with her when she was married to another and he knew her irresponsibility; but he also knew that moving to the north without a wife would be impossible, and he was still captivated by her beauty. So he reached out, grasped her harshly by the wrist, and pulled her before the new predikant.
'Marry us,' he said, and there in the Natal sunlight the new clergyman performed his first ritual, knowing well that it was somehow faulty and that this was not a good union.
His second rite was a strange one. Tjaart, with the approval of some of his neighbors, asked the