A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his
captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across
his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.
"Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were
born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country,
England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that
so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal
would belong to England. Did you ever hear that, khaki--eh?"
"Oh no, Sir," said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of D
Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had
thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for
intoning it.
"_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen." He spat aside
and cleared his throat. "Because of that little promise, my father he
moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm--a little place of twenty or
thirty thousand acres, don't--you--know."
The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
squire's, and Copper found himself saying: "I ought to. I've 'elped burn
some."
"Yes, you'll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store."
"Ho! Shopkeeper was he?"
"The kind you call "Sir" and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik.
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