A Supplementary Chapter
I have been asked by one whose opinion I value to try and tell the public a little more about my father, that is, about the man himself, apart from his work. My mother draws her own portrait unconsciously in her letters, my father does not.
The task would not be an easy one, and I should probably fail for want of skill; though I may be able to give a few indications from which others so disposed may make a portrait for themselves.
The shy and somewhat silent Scotch lad who, nearly seventy years ago, stood trembling in Mr. Roby’s study as a candidate for the missionary enterprise must have carried something unusual in his appearance: to judge from the eagerness of the good Manchester minister that the directors in London should at least see him for themselves, before rejecting him finally. He was confident that, if the young gardener could only stand before them, they would be convinced that here at least was a man, not polished by collegiate training, but having in him the real grit which would stand the wear and tear of missionary life. Probably Mr. Roby was right: for to those who knew Robert Moffat in middle and in after life, there was a something in manner or appearance which carried weight and gave him an advantage to start with in dealing with his fellowmen.
It was this that caused one of his own sons, who had been parted from him as a child and had not seen him for eleven years, and was expecting not at all to see him at that moment, to start with surprise and to point him out to others, as he appeared in a crowd at the ship’s side; yet seeing in him only a man remarkable among many other men, and not in the least just then knowing who he was.
Looking back to my own childhood, I see him as he was then, a man in the prime of fife and in the fulness of his strength. During the four years which followed his return from England in
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1843 I saw more of him in his own home life than I have done at any other period. Even then he was beginning to settle down to the long grapple with the translation of the Old Testament, a work which became afterwards every year more absorbing and agonizing in its hold upon his energies. But during those years there were still intermissions, not of work, but of that kind of work. At that period it was my occasional privilege, and a high privilege it was regarded, to be his companion, or rather his satellite, in some of his itinerating journeys. Not that there was much of companionship in the sense of conversation: it was enough to be with him and to feel that I had the honour of being with him. His mind at such times was often full of heavy thoughts about the infant Christian communities he was visiting; matters about which he could not talk to a child. I never got tired of being with him, and if he was tired of me, well, he did not betray it.
Occasionally in our progress with the slow ox waggon from village to village, many miles apart, a herd of springboks might come in view. In a moment the ardour of younger days would rekindle, and seizing a rifle, he would spring from the waggon, and could be seen with swift and bounding step scouring the plain and showing that there was still the skill and spirit of the hunter.
No element of my boyish reverence was more fixed than the sense of his courage. Physical fear he knew not, or if at any time he felt it, his sense of dignity crushed it down. In some of the tremendous thunderstorms of Bechwanaland, when ordinary pursuits were discarded and men gathered together and sat in awed silence, there seemed to him to be a positive fascination in watching the sublime spectacle. He would choose some spot where, without being drenched, he could watch to full advantage the whole scene: the black whirling clouds torn to rags, the intense glare of the lightning, and the concentrated darkness which followed it for a few seconds, at once with a roar of thunder like the noise of ten thousand cannon. I have caught sight of his face at such times lighted up with a solemn ecstasy; and then he would come in and say: “Eh, Mary! it makes me think of what we shall see on ’ that day.’”
I remember well on our return from one of his visitation journeys, a flooded river barred our way. Reluctant to lose another day from pressing duties on the station, at the earliest practicable moment he gave the order to start A crowd of natives accompanied us to the ford to give assistance if needed. The stream was narrow, but dangerously swift. Our oxen, unaccustomed to deep water, swung round, carrying their leader with them. Team and waggon were on the point of being swept away; the water was rushing in under our seat. I looked up in his face as I sat by his side. With a cheery smile he said, “Jack! look after those things.” By the time I had managed to secure our floating gear, which was in danger of being washed out of the waggon, a score of strong swimmers had sprung into the river, and we and our waggon were landed on the bank.
Another life-long impression was that produced by his reverence for holy things. No man relished a joke more than he — there was a good deal of fun hidden away under that long beard; but woe to the man who thought to approach the ark of God in a jesting spirit. The Word of the Lord was too real and too great for triviality. Even when I was alone with him on the journeys spoken of, no meal was commenced without a reverent doffing of the Scotch bonnet, his usual headdress in those days, and the solemn blessing; and our morning and evening worship were never missed or hurried.
His disposition was to think well of men and to believe what they said. He hated nothing so much as deceit. It was the one thing he could not forgive. He trusted men implicitly, and I think this accounts for the fact that the Bechwana, a people that carried the art of lying to perfection, seldom lied to him. They knew it was the one thing that would make him angry.
Speaking of anger, it was a rare thing in him: and never cherished. On our return fom England in 1843 e were a large party, with three or four waggons. One night we outspanned in the dark, not knowing that we were on forbidden ground — within the limits of a farm, but a half-mile short of the homestead. In the early morning a young man rode up, and demanded to know what we were doing there without leave. My father gently explained that we had done it in ignorance, but his explanation was cut short by a harangue loud and long. The stripling sat on his horse, my father stood before him with bowed head and folded arms whilst a torrent of abuse poured over him, with a plentiful mixture of such terse and biting missiles of invective as greatly enrich the South African Dutch language. We stood around and remembered that only a few months before the man thus rated like a dog was standing before enthusiastic thousands in England, who hung with bated breath upon his utterances. Something of shame must have arrested the wrath of the young man, for he suddenly rode away without impounding our cattle as he had threatened to do. We inspanned and proceeded, calling on our way at the house, and there we found ourselves received by a venerable white-haired farmer and his wife with open arms, for they and my parents proved to be old friends. Right glad were we that nothing had been done on our r.ide to make us ashamed to meet them.
In our home-life at Kuruman there was ahvays plenty of variety. No traveller or trader at that time thought of passing into the interior without calling at the station. Then, again, natives would come from long distances round to get books or medicine, and chiefs to get advice or mediation in their disputes with each other. With so many distractions and calls upon his time, it was only Robert Moffat’s immense energy that enabled him to accomplish large and connected results. The ground-work of his life in those days was translation — the revision and printing were latterly taken off his hands by Mr. Ashton — and for many days he would be in his study from early morn till late at night, appearing only at meals, and for an hour or two about sunset.
Even at table he would, at such times, occasionally sit silent and abstracted. His aged friend, Robert Hamilton, who lived with us, would try to draw him out, and give it up; nothing but the watchful eye of my mother would prevent him from leaving his plate untouched, while he was pondering some knotty verse for which he had been unable to find a rendering in Sechwana.
Then, after a period of intense application, outdoor demands would grow imperious — the garden, the workshop, was calling for the master’s eye and hand; some epidemic would bring a crowd of applicants for medicine; the pen would be thrown aside, and he would be seen wich swift steps hurrying from one point to another. That rapid, urgent walk of his was proverbial throughout the country, and was a specimen of all his ways.
Then waggons would need mending; there would be no smith at hand, so for a few days the smithy would be the scene of his labours, and there, with a few amateur assistants, his shirt-sleeves rolled up and the sweat on his brow, not only his mechanical skill, but his mighty strength, would be in full action, and the cheerful music of the blacksmith’s hammer might be heard through the live-long day.
It was marvellous what a variety of employments would fill up the measure of a single week, into each and every one of which he would bring a concentrated purpose which seemed almost like a passion. Never mind what the work was, it was all part of the duty he had undertaken, and it must be done quickly and well.
He and the partner who stood by him all through the heat and burden of his life were in many ways a great contrast. Pie was tall and strong, with dark, piercing eyes, with more than ordinary endurance. She was under ordinary height, with blue eyes, and a complexion which never lost its delicate girlish bloom. She was never strong, and latterly lived and worked only by dint of great care and method. She found that to be able to accomplish anything at all, she must make a compromise with weakness. She was astir with the sun, and carried through her multifarious household duties before noon. Then she would remain perfectly passive until towards evening, when she would revive and resume her activity.
She held eminently practical views of life. She used to say that her first duty was to take care of her husband’s health and strength, and in this way to contribute to the success of his work, where she could not serve the cause more directly — by seeing that the table was well spread, and the family resources husbanded. Waste was abhorrent to her, and her life was full of struggle to teach the improvident and thoughtless natives that extravagance was not generosity.
But besides this, she had her own special work among the women and girls of the settlement. She knew them all, and watched them all with love and care. If a man appeared in church with a torn jacket or an unwashed shirt, his wife might reckon upon catching it the first time Mamary had the chance of getting speech with her; and a lecture from Mamary, though given in sweet and plaintive tones, was not to be encountered with a light heart, or to be easily forgotten.
But Mary Moffat had a much wider field of interest than the Kuruman district or the Bechwana country. After the arrival cf a post, a great event in those days, it was her delight of an evening, after the labours of the day were over, throned in her own particular corner of the family room, to revel in the newspapers and periodicals, and all the news from home; and to expatiate to those around her on anything of special interest. The news from the old country never became a subject of indifference to her or to my father. They keenly watched the movements of the day, poHtical and religious, and they followed with hearty sympathy the work of missionaries in other parts of the world.
Mary Moffat was a striking example of the courage which was lent by a sense of duty. Constitutionally timid enough (I have seen her effectually routed by a pugnacious turkey-cock), she was all through life subject to dark and anxious forebodings, which only Christian principle could overcome; but once let her see the path of duty, and nothing could turn her aside. I remember being with her on one of her long journeys, when she had none but her little children and her Bechwana servants, and we were suddenly beset by a crowd of strange and apparently mischievous natives. I knew that the mother’s heart was palpitating; but orders were given by her calmly and clearly to our attendants themselves all but demented with fear — and her resolute demeanour seemed to give them new life, and carried us through unmolested.
It is not without reluctance that I have penned these reminiscences. The bitter-sweet recollections so dear to their own children may seem to the public of less value. I will take the risk, however, and hope thus to add a few lines of further completeness to the portraits of my parents, and trust to the sympathy of the many who have shown that they share the love and reverence inspired by the memory of Robert and Mary Moffat.