"You vagabonds se Engelschman!" said Tant Sannie, looking straight at him.

This was a near approach to plain English; but the man contemplated the
block abstractedly, wholly unconscious that any antagonism was being
displayed toward him.

"You might not be a Scotchman or anything of that kind, might you?"
suggested the German. "It is the English that she hates."

"My dear friend," said the stranger, "I am Irish every inch of me--father
Irish, mother Irish. I've not a drop of English blood in my veins."

"And you might not be married, might you?" persisted the German. "If you
had a wife and children, now? Dutch people do not like those who are not
married."

"Ah," said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block, "I have a dear wife
and three sweet little children--two lovely girls and a noble boy."

This information having been conveyed to the Boer-woman, she, after some
further conversation, appeared slightly mollified; but remained firm to her
conviction that the man's designs were evil.

"For, dear Lord!" she cried; "all Englishmen are ugly; but was there ever
such a red-rag-nosed thing with broken boots and crooked eyes before? Take
him to your room," she cried to the German; "but all the sin he does I lay
at your door."

The German having told him how matters were arranged, the stranger made a