Completely battered, Paddy remained for hours sitting under the tree where he left blue eyes Tinah, the mother of his future heir before she suddenly vanished away.
He piqued the curiosity of the passersby who wondered what a Caucasian tourist could be doing alone in African bushes.
One of the villagers, a young man in his prime age, came up to the landlord and inquired how he could help him out.
At first, Paddy didn't reply to him but the young man asked the baron for a second time how he could assist him and assured him that he was a trustworthy person.
Paddy's attention was hooked by the youngster's promise to be a good confidant. The landlord thus invited the young man to sit next to him, which the latter hurried to do.
The baron then asked for his name and he answered that he was Johnny, putting thus Paddy in a better mood.
The British man was very pleased that the local young man was bearing an appellation that was more common in Great Britain than in Swaziland.
"Nice to meet you, Johnny. I am Paddy," told the landlord to the youngster with a bright smile.
In a matter of seconds, the sorrowful baron looked as if there had never been an issue before. Johnny was proud of himself and praised his healing skill.
"I must be a magician. Now you have a better facial expression. You should always look this happy, sir," said the young man to Paddy.
Now that the glass between the two perfect unknown moments ago was broken, they began a serious conversation.
The landlord opened himself to Johnny as if he was talking with a son. And the young man listened with the utmost attention to the long revelation of the old man that he was now seeing as a father.
Paddy recounted to the youngster how he left his home country Great Britain three decades ago and migrated to Swaziland with not much money in his pockets but with a big dream in his head, which was to become successful by plowing the land.
The landlord went on by confessing how he met with his wife Pola for the first time in the capital city Mbabane before they moved a year later to Mankayane and bought a small plot of land and began to sow ears of corn.
Very rapidly the plantation grew and the couple recruited farmers to help them to keep up with the international demand.
After ten years in the business, Paddy was reckoned to be worth hundreds of millions of Swazi lilangeni. And after another decade, he was a billionaire.
However, there was something that was missing for his life to be complete. He didn't have an heir until the apparition of two spirits, a good one and a bad one while lying on his sickbed.
The good spirit told him that he would have a son but the bad spirit said that the infant would be struck with deafness and dumbness at his first sunset and the baron would henceforth languish in poverty.
The kid was born but was miraculously saved after the baron baptized him with the holy water of the Ngwempisi river.
So the child was ultimately healthy and could hear and speak. And the landlord Paddy who also poured on himself the holy water of the Ngwempisi river remained very prosperous.
Johnny was all ears and continued to hear the story of the baron without saying a single word.
Paddy carried on and told the young man that his son was his greatest joy but when he reached the age of five years, he was bitten by his puppy that had been contaminated with rage syndrome.
Both his heir and the dog passed away and a bit later a maid of his manor house who had been bitten too by the enraged animal while the employees were seeking it in the yard after the incident with the Master's kid.
The landlord was devastated to have lost his only child and heir and worried very much that he would never have the chance to be a father again because his wife had reached the stage of menopause.
The fifty-five-year-old baron back then thus found refuge in the bible.
He was inspired by the tale of Abraham who got a son at an advanced age with Hagar, the young maidservant of his barren spouse Sarah.
However, contrary to Abraham, the landlord Paddy had an outside marriage affair without his wife knowing and authorizing him.
He dated Tinah, a newly hired maid to the manor house in Mankayane. She was young and beautiful and had the only blue eyes in the region.
But one day without explanation she disappeared overnight from the manor house to an unknown destination.
Sad and after a few months without any news from his paramour, Paddy decided to look for her and lied to his wife that he was traveling to London in Great Britain for an emergency.
He took instead the road to Mahamba, the hometown of the maid Tinah in the south of Swaziland, hoping to find her there.
Luckily she was indeed in the village but had physically changed, for she was six months pregnant. The baron Paddy was first in shock then was thrilled that he would soon be a father for the second time and wanted to celebrate the event.
He proposed to head to the grocery store and buy some lamb. The pregnant Tinah insisted to go with him because he didn't know the village and would get lost or be captured by evil spirits in the bushes.
The baron accepted though he wasn't convinced that due to her state, Tinah could bear the harshness of a walk.
Ultimately he was proven right because Tinah a few meters away from the grocery store was too tired to continue on foot. So she sat under the same tree where the landlord Paddy and Johnny were now sitting.
The baron then explained to the young man that he suggested to Tinah to rest and wait for him under the refreshing branches of the tree while he went to look for a car.
He did find a vehicle a few meters ahead but when he came back with the driver to the spot where he left Tinah, she was no longer there. She had inexplicably disappeared, leaving behind the market bag that he was holding.
Paddy concluded his story and burst out in tears.
Johnny took the baron in his arms and whispered to his ear: "Don't cry, dad! I'm Johnny your son. Mom is at his home and the lamb ragout is ready. Come with me!"
An eighty-year-old Paddy who had his sobbing face on the young man's chest heaved his head and looked at Johnny extremely confused...
TO BE CONTINUED...