piece of underhand villainy that shocked Sean and, he professed, killed
his belief in the essential decency of mankind. Michael had visited
each of the new growers along the valley, men who had followed Sean's
lead in the planting of wattle, and after swearing them to secrecy had
offered them shares in the Company. They were enthusiastic and with
Michael at the head they visited Lion Kop in formal deputation.
The meeting was conducted with so much verbal thunder and lightning
thrown about that the Great God Thor might have been in the Chair. At
the end Sean, who had teased the idea all the months since Michael had
approached him and who was now as enthusiastic as any of them, allowed
himself to be persuaded.
He spoke for seventy per cent of the shares and the balance was
allotted to the other growers. A Board of Directors, with Sean as
Chairman, was elected and the Accountant was instructed to proceed with
the registration of The Ladyburg Wattle Cooperative Ltd. For the first
time Sean exercised his majority vote to crush the misgivings of the
other shareholders and appoint Michael Courtney as Plant Engineer.
Then, with an older director to act as a steadying influence, Michael
was put aboard the next Union Castle mail ship for England, a letter of
authority in his pocket and Sean's warnings and words of wisdom in his
head. Remembering himself at the age of twenty-three, Sean decided it
necessary to point out to Michael that he was being sent to London to
buy machinery and increase his knowledge of it, not to populate the
British Isles nor to tour their hostelries and gaming establishments.
There was swift reaction from Jackson at Natal Wattle, who regretted
that the contracts between the Valley growers and his company would not
be renewed-and that owing to heavy demands from elsewhere he could no
longer supply seed or saplings. But Sean's seed beds were now well
enough established to meet the needs of the whole valley-and, with
luck, their plant would be in production by the beginning of the next
cutting season.
Before Michael and his chaperon returned flushed with the success of
their mission, Sean had another visitor. Jan Paulus Leroux, weary of
the three-year argument he and Sean had conducted with the aid of the
postal authority, arrived at Ladyburg and expressed his intention of
staying until Sean agreed to head the Natal branch of the South African
Party and to contest the Ladyburg seat at the next Legislative Assembly
elections. Two weeks later, after he and Sean had hunted and killed a
number of guinea-fowl, pheasant and bush buck; had consumed huge
quantities of coffee and more moderate quantities of brandy; had talked
each other hoarse and had closed the last gap between them, Jan Paulus
left on the Johannesburg train with the parting words: 'Toe Maar! It
is settled then.'
The South African Party's platform was a Federation of the Cape, the
Transvaal, the Orange Free State and Natal, under government
responsible to Whitehall. It was opposed by extreme English and Dutch
opinion-the jingoes who shouted
'God Save the King,' and the Republicans who wanted the Almighty to
treat the King differently.
After meeting with the men on the list Jan Paulus had given him, Sean
