The Shadow of the Past by Ethel Mills

Oom Koos Marais was a Boer of the old style, who had acquired what little education he possessed, as he had acquired other things during the leisurely course of a frugal, industrious, and accumulative span of fifty odd years, unaided and by dint of his own perseverance and his lack of all pretence. Most men trusted Oom Koos; Oom Koos in turn trusted no man, and only one woman -- his wife. He concealed his wealth in his house; read his Testament; did not flog his Kaffirs, because he had grown too stout and the power had gone from his arm; and was bitterly opposed to the Scab Act. Apart from this, he was an amiable, simple-minded man, of staunchly conservative principles, with a big heart, and certain fixed ideas of life which no argument could unsettle.

Any one who attempted to convince Oom Koos against his judgment inevitably arrived at the cul-de-sac which prohibited further progress when Oom Koos broke in gently with the relevant impertinence: "As my old father used to say, I have my good sight and my good hearing, which remain unaffected when men talk foolishness."