So Hans set to the growing of vines, without thought of market.
It was not till the fourth or fifth year, when all his capital was gone, that he realised he was thirty miles from a town.
But a vigneron he had decided to become, and a vigneron he must remain.
He had cleared and fenced and planted a twelve-acre block with Isabella vines, which, being phylloxera-and-odium-proof, are certain to crop. But the Isabella was not yet a popular grape in this country, and Holterman’s Isabella proved a drug even on the local market, which was not fastidious. After five years the grapes flourished, and bore marvelously—soil, climate, and position being all eminently favourable. Each latter vintage Hans added fresh barrels to the row of stained casks in the outroom which served as a cellar.
His wine-press was a home-made box, tin-lined, with a long sapling for a lever. He tied bags of stone to the sapling to get pressure, and drained off the purple juice in a kerosene-tin bucket.
Hans Holterman soon discovered that his wine was practically unsaleable, and this took the heart out of him.
He retired within himself, living in solitude, and worst of all—consuming his own stock.
He drank a jug of wine when he rose, a jug at breakfast, a jug before going to work, and thereafter throughout the day and night jugs at frequent intervals.
Sometimes on Sunday afternoons would ride up to Holterman’s door bushmen from the neighbourhood, and these in return for unlimited quantities of new wine, supplied in opposition to the Licensing Act, they would leave him a little silver.
This was practically Hans Holterman’s sole medium of existence. The few shillings which he received from casual drinkers bought him flour, and occasionally meat. The man who can buy flour and meat can live on the land.
One evening at dusk, a ragged figure crept out of the shadow of the forest and listened.
The eyes of Jean Petit, like those of a glittering tiger cat, peered intently through a crack in the slabs of Holterman’s wine-room.
The escapee saw in the twilight a stout figure mounted upon an empty soap-box.
This figure held in one hand a jug. As the hand moved in response to the man’s words, a dark liquid, looking like blood, splashed from the jug. It was the blood of Holterman’s vines.