Galahad, her
blue austere gaze seeming to search beyond the noble mountain tops of
her own pictures for some Holy Grail she would never find. No
complicated music was hers, just grand, simple things like Handel's
"Largo," Van Biene's "Broken Melody," "Ave Maria," or some of Squire's
sweet airs.

Sometimes at night they went out and climbed upon a huge rock that
stood in the apricot orchard. It was big enough to build a house on,
and called by Clive her Counsel Rock, because there she took counsel
with the stars when things went wrong with the farm. Lying flat on
their backs they could feel the warmth of the day still in the stone as
they gazed at the purple and silver panoply of heaven spread above
them, and Clive would commune with blue-rayed Sirius and his dark
companion; the Gemini, those radiant twins; Orion's belt in the centre
sky preciously gemmed with celestial diamonds; Canopus, a calm, pale
yellow star, the largest in our universe; Mars, gleaming red as a
madman's eye; Venus springing from the horizon, the Pleiades slinking
below it. The "galloping star" she claimed as her own on account of
its presumed horsiness.

"It's a funny thing," she said. "My mother and father were gentle,
bookish creatures with no understanding of animals. Even if a pony had
to be bought for us children, every male thing of the family--uncles,
nephews, tenth cousins--was summoned from every corner of England for
his advice and experience. Yet these unsophisticated beings have a
daughter like me--born into the world a full-blown horse-dealer! To
say nothing of mules. You can believe me or believe me not," she added
bragfully, "but there is _no one_ in this land of swindles who knows
more about mules than I do."

They chose to believe her, especially after hearing her haggling and
bartering with some of the itinerant dealers who visited the farm from
time to time.

"I don't know vy ve can't do pizness today! I got no profit in
anyting. I just been here for a friend"--thus the dealer.

"Ah! I know who your friend is," Clive would jeer from the stoep.
"You keep him under your own hat. But don't come here expecting to
swop a beautiful mule that cost me 20 pounds for that skew-eyed crock
that will go thin as a rake after three weeks on the sour veld, a 10
pound note thrown in, and taking me for a fool into the bargain. Your
horse is worth 15 pounds, and not a bean more."

"I also must lif!"--the whine of the Jew.

"