nd's uncle) cared nothing so long
as there was a horse to ride into the dorp on and some
money to buy whiskey with. And he drank so much and carried
on so wickedly that his wife died and his girls married
poor men and never went to stay with their father. So at
last he lived in the house, with only his son to help him
from being all alone.

"This son was Barend Voss, a great hulking fellow, with the
strength of a trek-ox, and never a word of good or bad to
throw away on any one. But his face was the face of a
violent man. He had blue eyes with no pleasantness about
them, but a sort of glitter, as though there were live
coals in his brain. He did not drink like his father; and
these two would sit together in the evenings, the one
bleared and stupid with liquor, and the other watching him
in silence across the table.

"They spoke seldom to one another; and it would often
happen that the father would speak to the son and get not a
word of answer--only that lowering ugly stare that had grown
to be a way with the boy.

"I think those two men must have grown to hate each other
in the evenings as they sat together; the younger one
despising and loathing his father, and the father hating
his son for so doing. I have often wondered how they never
came to blows--before they did, that is.

"One morning old Voss rode off to the dorp, and Barend
watched him from the door till he went out of sight in the
kloof. All the day he was away, and when he came back again
it was late in the night. Barend was sitting in his usual
place at the table scowling over his folded arms.

"Old Voss had not ridden off his liquor; and he staggered
into the house singing a dirty English song. He had a
bottle in his hands, and banged it down on the table in
front of his son.

"'Now, old sheep's head,' he shouted, 'have a drink and
drop those airs of yours.'

"Barend sat where he was, and said not a word--just watched
the other.

"'Come on,' shouted old Voss; 'I'm not going to drink
alone. If you won't take it pleasantly I'll make you take
it, and be damned to you!'

"Barend sat still, scowling always. I dare say a sober man
would have seen something in his eyes and let be. But old
Voss was blind to his danger, and shouted on.

"The younger man kept his horrid silence, and never moved,
till the father was goaded to a drunken rage.

"'If you won't drink,' he screamed, 'take that,' and he
flung a full cupful of the spirit right in the you