24 
Land Sc Water 
March 7, 19 18 
{CoMiinu*d from page S2.) 
iSmumDled somemine about Jncle's age. and his memory 
wandering, but Albert wis not to be satisfied, and he whispered: 
" How do you tliink the old bov made his money ? 
I could offer no satisfactory explanation, and we dropped 
the subject. But a month or so later our interests were all 
set more vividly agog h\ I'ncle's behaviour, for he suddenly 
expressed his detennination not merely to entertain us as 
usual but to help us in a more substantial way. He bought 
and stocked a new shop for .Mbert. He set Richard up in 
business and gave Christopher a partnership m it. He paid 
Will's passage out to C;mada and gave him two hundred 
pounds to start on. (I believe Will had already been trying 
to borrow money from him. with what result I do not know.) 
He offered me some light secretarial work to do for hjiii in 
my spare time, for which he agreed to pay me sixty pounds 
a year. As for the girls, he bought them a life annuity 
bringing them in fifty pounds a year. 
I need hardly sav that this new development created 
considerable joy and sensation in our family, and our interest 
in and respect for Uncle Herbert became intense. I felt very 
keen'to start on my " light secretarial duties," and at the back 
of my mind was the thought that now I should have an oppor- 
tunity to get some little insight into Uncle's affairs. But 
in this I was disappointed. He only asked me to go on two 
evenings a week, and then it was to help check certain expenses 
in connection with the household, and also to begin 
to inaugurate a library for him. I made no further progress 
of an intimate nature at all. The next step of progression 
in this direction, indeed, was made by Albert, somewhat 
under cover of the old adage, in vino verilas. For on the 
night after Albert's new shop was opened we all supped at 
Uncle's, and Albert, I'm afraid, got a little drunk. He was, 
in any case, very excited and garrulous, and he and Chris- 
topher and I met in the smoke-room late in the evening 
and Albert was very mysterious. I would like to reproduce 
what he said in his own words. He shut the door carefully 
and tiptoed across the room. 
" Look here, boys," he said. " The old man beats me. 
There's something about all this I don't like." 
" Don't be a fool," I remarked. " What's the trouble ?" 
Albert walked restlessly up and down the room, then he 
said : 
" I've been watching all the evening. He gets worse. 
1 begin to feel frightened by him at moments. To-night 
when they were all fooling about, I happened to stroll through 
the conservatory, and suddenly I comes across Uncle. He 
was sitting all alone, his elbows on his knees, staring into 
space. ' 'UUo, Uncle !' I says. He starts and trembles 
like, and then he says, ' 'Ullo, Albert, my boy.' I says, ' You 
feeling all right. Uncle ?' and he splutters about and says, 
■ Yes, yes, I'm all right. 'Ow d'yer think your business'll 
go, Albert ?' he says. I felt in a queer sort of defiant mood — I'd 
had nearly half a bottle of port — and suddenly I says straight 
out, ' What sort of place is Africa, Uncle ?' His little eyes 
blazed at me for a moment, and I thought he was going to 
lose his temper-. Then he stops and gives a sort of whimper, 
and sinks down again on his knees. He made a funny noise 
as if he was going to cry. Then he says in that husky voice, 
' Efrica ? . . . Efrica ? . . . Oh, Efrica's a funny place, Albert. 
It's big. . . ' He stretched out his little arms, and sat there 
as though he was dreamin'. Then he continues, ' In the 
cities it's struggle, and struggle, and struggle. . .one man 'gainst 
another, no mercy, no quarter. . .' And suddenly he caught 
hold of my arm, and he says, ' You can't 'elp it, can yer, 
Albert, if one man gets on, and another man goes under?' 
I didn't know what to say, and he seems to shrink away 
from me, and he stops and he stares, and stares, and stares, 
and then he says in a kind of whisper. ' Then you get out on 
the plains. . .and it's all silent. . .and your away up in the karoo, 
and there's just the great stone sldbs. . .and nothing but 
yer solitude, and yer thoughts, and the moon above. And 
it's all so still.' Then he stops again, and suddenly raises 
his little arm and points, Christ ! for all the world asthough 
he was pointin' at somethiij' 'appenin' out there on the karoo." 
Christopher rose from his seat, and walked to the window. 
He was looking pale. 
" Don't be a fool, Albert," he said. " What does it 
matter ? Ain't 'e done you all right ? Ain't he set you up 
in the greengrocery ?" 
Albert looked wildly round, and licked the end of a cigarette 
which had gone out. 
" I don't see that there's anything we can do," I remarked 
unconvincingly. 
Albert wiped his brow. 
" No," he argued. " It ain't our business. It's onlv that 
sometimes I.. ." 
He did not finish his remark, and we three brothers looked 
at each other furtively. 
Tlien began one of those curious telepathic experiences 
which play so great a part in the lives of all of us. I have 
complained that none of my brothers or sisters showed any 
leaning towards education or mental advancement of any 
sort, but I have not perhaps insisted that in spite of this it 
was one of our boasts that we were an honest family. Even 
Will, in spite of his recklessness and certain vicious traits, 
had always played the game. Albert, and Richard, and 
Christopher had been perilously poor, but I do not believe 
that they would have ever acted in a deliberately dishonest 
or mean fashion. I don't think I would myself, although I 
had had perhaps rather less temptation. And in spite of 
our variety of disposition and trade, we were a fairly united 
family. We understood each other. 
And tiie advent of Uncle Herbert and his peculiar behaviour 
reacted upon us unfavourably. With the accession of this 
unexpected wealth and security we became suspicious of each 
other. Moreover, when we brothers met together after the 
evening I have just described, we looked at each other half 
knowingly, and the slogan : " It ain't no business of mine," 
became charged with the acid of mutual recrimination. As 
far as possible we avoided any intimate discussion, and 
kept the conversation on a detached plane. We were riotsusly 
merry, unduly affectionate, and according to all the rules of 
the game, undeniably guilty. 
What was Uncle staring at ? I would sometimes wake up 
in the night, and begin feverishly visualising all sorts of 
strange and untoward episodes. What were these haunting 
fears at the back of his mind ? Why was he' so silent' on the 
primal facts of his position ? And I knew that in their indi- 
vidual ways all my brothers and sisters were undergoing a 
similar period of trial. I could tell by their eyes. 
And the naked truth kept jogging our elbows— that this 
money from which we were benefiting, that brought us so 
much pleasure and comfort, had been acquired in some 
dishonest way, or even over the corpse of some tragic 
episode. 
He spent nearly all his time in the garden, dividing it up 
into little circles, and oblongs, and triangles of geranium beds, 
and at the bottom he had a rock garden, and fruit trees on 
the south wall. He seemed to know a lot about it. 
In the winter he stayed indoors, and became frailer and 
more pathetic in his manner, and more dependent upon our 
society. It is difficult to know how much he followed the 
effects of his liberality. He developed a manner of asking 
one excitedly all about one's affairs, and then not listening 
to the reply. If he had observecl things closely he would 
have noted that in nearly every case his patronage had had 
unfortunate results. Richard and Christopher quarrelled, 
and dissolved their partnership. Albert's business failed. 
Nancy's husband threw up his work, and led a frankly 
depraved life on the strength of his wife's settled income. 
An adventurer named Ben Cotton married my sister Louie 
obviously because she had a little money. Laura quarrelled 
with her husband, the Baptist, and on the strength of her 
new independence left him, and the poor man hanged himself 
a few months later. 
To all these stories of misadventure and trouble Uncle 
Herbert listened- with a great show of profuse sympathy, but 
it was patent that their real significance did not get through 
to him. Always he acted lavishly and impulsively. He set 
Albert up in business again. He started both Christopher 
and Richard independently. He gave the girls more money, 
and sent a preposterous wreath to the Baptist's funeral. He 
did not seem to mind what he did for us, provided we con- 
tinued to laugh and jest around his generous board. 
It is curious that this cataclysm in our Uves affected Albert 
more than any of us. Perhaps because he was in his way 
more temperamental. He began to lose a grip on his busi- 
ness, and to drink. 
He came to me one night in a very excited state. It 
appeared that on the previous evening he had come home 
late, and had been drinking. One of the children annoyed 
him, a boy named Andrew, and Albert had struck him on the 
head harder than he had meant to. There had very nearly 
been a tragedy. His wife had been very upset, and threat- 
ened to leave him. 
Albert cried in a maudlin fashion, and said he was very 
unhappy. He wished Uncle Herbert had never turned up. 
And then he recalled the night in the conservatory, when 
Uncle Herbert had talked about Africa. 
"I believe there was dirty work," said Albert. "I believe 
he did some one down. He kihed him out there on the 
karoo, and robbed him of his money." 
[To be continued.) 
