Will you promise ?" "Of course I will; I would do a great deal more than that if you asked me to, Jess," he answered tenderly, for now that she was going away he felt curiously drawn towards her, and was anxious to show it.
"Never mind me," she said, with an impatient little movement.

"Bessie is sweet enough and lovely enough to be looked after for her own sake, I should think." Before he could say any more, in came Bessie herself, saying that the driver was waiting, and they went out to see her sister off.
"Don't forget your promise," Jess whispered to him, bending down as he helped her into the cart, so low that her lips almost touched him, and her breath rested for a second on his cheek like the ghost of a kiss.
In another moment the sisters had embraced each other, tenderly enough; the driver had sounded once more on his awful bugle, and away went the cart at full gallop, bearing with it Jess, two other passengers, and her Majesty's mails.

John and Bessie stood for a moment watching its mad career, as it fled splashing and banging down the straggling street towards the wide plains beyond; then they turned to enter the inn again and prepare for their homeward drive.

At that moment, an old Boer, named Hans Coetzee, with whom John was already slightly acquainted, came up, and, extending an enormously big and thick hand, bid them "_Gooden daag._" Hans Coetzee was a very favourable specimen of the better sort of Boer, and really came more or less up to the ideal picture that is so often drawn of that "simple pastoral people." He was a very large, stout man, with a fine open face and a pair of kindly eyes.

John, looking at him, guessed that he could not weigh less than seventeen stone, and that estimate was well within the mark.
"How are you, Captain ?" he said in English, for he could talk English well, "and how do you like the Transvaal ?--must not call it South African Republic now, you know, for that's treason," and his eye twinkled merrily.
"I like it very much, _Meinheer_," said John.
"Ah, yes, it's a beautiful veldt, especially about here--no horse sickness, no 'blue tongue,'[*] and a good strong grass for the cattle.
And you must find yourself very snug at _Oom_ Croft's there; it's the nicest place in the district, with the ostriches and all.