homestead itself; but beside him stood the stranger, and on him all eyes
were fixed. Ever and anon the newcomer cast a glance over his pendulous
red nose to the spot where the Boer-woman stood, and smiled faintly.

"I'm not a child," cried the Boer-woman, in low Cape Dutch, "and I wasn't
born yesterday. No, by the Lord, no! You can't take me in! My mother
didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye and I see the whole thing.
I'll have no tramps sleeping on my farm," cried Tant Sannie blowing. "No,
by the devil, no! not though he had sixty-times-six red noses."

There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not a tramp,
but a highly respectable individual, whose horse had died by an accident
three days before.

"Don't tell me," cried the Boer-woman; "the man isn't born that can take me
in. If he'd had money, wouldn't he have bought a horse? Men who walk are
thieves, liars, murderers, Rome's priests, seducers! I see the devil in
his nose!" cried Tant Sannie shaking her fist at him; "and to come walking
into the house of this Boer's child and shaking hands as though he came on
horseback! Oh, no, no!"

The stranger took off his hat, a tall, battered chimneypot, and disclosed a
bald head, at the back of which was a little fringe of curled white hair,
and he bowed to Tant Sannie.

"What does she remark, my friend?" he inquired, turning his crosswise-
looking eyes on the old German.

The German rubbed his old hands and hesitated.