act, the freeing of the slaves, and because we will not kill out all the
Kaffirs with whom they chance to quarrel, or to trek from the Colony.
For my part I think it will be the latter, for, as you have heard, some
parties have already gone; and, unless I am mistaken, many more mean to
follow, Marais and Retief and that plotter, Pereira, among them. Let
them go; I say, the sooner the better, for I have no doubt that the
English flag will follow them in due course."

"I hope that they won't," I answered with a nervous laugh; "at any rate,
until I have won back my mare." (I had left her in Retief's care as
stakeholder, until the match should be shot off.)

For the rest of that two and a half hours' trek my father, looking very
dignified and patriotic, declaimed to me loudly about the bad behaviour
of the Boers, who hated and traduced missionaries, loathed and
abominated British rule and permanent officials, loved slavery and
killed Kaffirs whenever they got the chance. I listened to him
politely, for it was not wise to cross my parent when he was in that
humour. Also, having mixed a great deal with the Dutch, I knew that
there was another side to the question, namely, that the missionaries
sometimes traduced them (as, in fact, they did), and that British rule,
or rather, party government, played strange tricks with the interests of
distant dependencies. That permanent officials and im-permanent ones
too--such as governors full of a little brief authority--often
misrepresented and oppressed them. That Kaffirs, encouraged by the
variegated policy of these party governments and their servants,
frequently stole their stock; and if they found a chance, murdered them
with their women and children, as they had tried to do at Maraisfontein;
though there, it is true, they had some provocation. That British
virtue had liberated the slaves without paying their owners a fair price