uch as David had never heard of
before, that there came to them another boy, a wee rascal that
shattered all the cobwebs of twenty-five years, and gave Christina
something better to think of than the footsteps of time.

Frikkie had been glorious enough in his time, and was glorious enough
still, for the matter of that; but this was a creature with
exceptional points, which neither David nor Christina--nor, to do him
justice, Frikkie--could possibly overlook. Frikkie had a voice like a
bell, and whiskers like the father of a family, and stood six foot
two in his naked feet, and lacked no excellence that a sturdy
bachelor should possess. But the other, who was born to the name of
Paul, lamented his arrival with a vociferous note of disappointment
in the world that was indescribably endearing; had a head clothed in
down like the intimate garments of an ostrich chick, and was small
enough for David to put in his pocket. He brought a new horizon with
him and imposed it on his parents; he was, in brief, a thing to make
a deacon of a Jew peddler.

Thereafter, life for David and Christina was no longer a single
phenomenon, but a series of developments. It was like sailing in
agreeably rough water. No pensive mood could survive the sight of
mighty Frikkie gambolling like a young bull in the company of Paul;
nor could quiet hours impart a melancholy while the welkin rang with
the voice of the kleintje bullying the adoring Kafirs. Where before
life had glided, now it steeplechased, taking its days bull-headed,
and Paul grew to the age of four as a bamboo grows, in leaps.

Then Frikkie, the huge, the hairy, the heavy-footed, the man who
prided himself on his ability to make circumstances, discovered, in a
revealing flash, that he was, after all, a poor creature, and that
the brightest being on earth was Katje Voss, whose people had settled
about thirty miles off--next door, as it were. Katje held views not
entirely dissimilar, but she consented to marry him, and the big
youth walked on air. Katje was a dumpy Boer girl, with a face all
cream and roses, and a figure that gave promise of much fat
hereafter. Christina had imagined other things, but the ideal is a
rickety structure, and she yielded; while David had never considered
such an emergency, and consented heartily. Behind Frikkie's back he
talked of grandchildren, and was exceedingly happy.

Then his dream-fabric tumbled about his ears.

Frikkie had ridden off to worship