“Studied farmin’?” inquired George.
“Not much, but we flatter ourselves that what we do know will be of some service to us,” said John.
Dally made no reply, but he greatly doubted in his own mind the capacity of the brothers for the line of life they had chosen.
His judgment in this respect was proved correct a week later, when he and Edwin Brook had occasion to visit the brothers, whom they found hard at work ploughing and sowing.
“Come, this looks business-like!” exclaimed Brook heartily, as he shook hands with the brothers; “you’ve evidently not been idle. I have just come to ask a favour of you, gentlemen.”
“We shall grant it with pleasure, if within our powers,” said Robert Skyd, who leaned on a spade with which he had been filling in a trench of about two feet deep.
“It is, that you will do me and Mrs Brook the pleasure of coming over to our location this afternoon to dinner. It is our Gertie’s birthday. She is thirteen to-day. In a rash moment we promised her a treat or surprise of some sort, but really the only surprise I can think of in such an out-of-the-way place is to have a dinner-party in her honour. Will you come?”
The brothers at once agreed to do so, remarking, however, that they must complete the sowing of their carrot-seed before dinner if possible.
“What did you say you were sowing?” asked Brook, with a peculiar smile.
“Carrot-seed,” answered Robert Skyd.
“If your carrot-seed is sown
there
,” said George Dally, pointing with a broad grin to the trench, “it’s very likely to come up in England about the time it does here,—by sendin’ its roots right through the world!”
“How? what do you mean?”
“The truth is, my dear sir,” said Brook good-humouredly, “that you’ve made a slight mistake in this matter. Carrot-seed is usually sown in trenches less than an inch deep. You’d better leave off work just now and come over to my place at once. I’ll give you some useful hints as we walk along.”
The knights of the quill laughed at their mistake, and at once threw down their implements of husbandry. But on going over their farm, Brook found it necessary to correct a few more mistakes, for he discovered that the active brothers had already planted a large quantity of Indian corn, or “mealies,” entire, without knocking it off the cobs, and, in another spot of ground, a lot of young onions were planted with the roots upwards!
“You see, Miss Gertie,” said John Skyd, when commenting modestly on these mistakes at dinnertime, “my brothers and I have all our lives had more to do with the planting of ‘houses’ and the growth of commercial enterprise than with agricultural products, but we are sanguine that, with experience and perseverance, we shall overcome all our difficulties. Have
you
found many difficulties to overcome!”
Gertie was not sure; she thought she had found a few, but none worth mentioning. Being somewhat put out by the question, she picked up a pebble—for the dinner was a species of picnic, served on the turf in front of Mr Brook’s tent—and examined it with almost geological care.
“My daughter does not like to admit the existence of difficulties,” said Mrs Brook, coming to the rescue, “and to say truth is seldom overcome by anything.”
“Oh, ma, how can you?” said Gertie, blushing deeply.
“That’s not true,” cried Mr Brook; “excuse me, my dear, for so flat a contradiction, but I have seen Gertie frequently overcome by things,—by Junkie’s obstinacy for instance, which I verily believe to be an insurmountable difficulty, and I’ve seen her thoroughly overcome, night after night, by sleep.—Isn’t that true, lass?”
“I suppose it is, father, since you say so, but of course I cannot tell.”
“Sleep!” continued Brook, with a laugh, “why, would you believe it, Mr Skyd, I went into what we call the nursery-tent one morning last week, to try to stop the howling of my little boy, and I found him lying with his open mouth close to Gertie’s cheek, pouring the flood of his wrath straight into her ear, and she sound asleep all the time! My nurse, Mrs Scholtz, told me she had been as sound as that all night, despite several heavy squalls, and notwithstanding a chorus of hyenas and jackals outside that might almost have awakened the dead.—By the way, that reminds me: just as I was talking with nurse that morning we heard a most unearthly shriek at some distance off. It was not the least like the cry of any wild animal I have yet heard, and for the first time since our arrival the idea of Kafirs flashed into my mind. Did any of you gentlemen happen to hear it?”
The brothers looked at each other, and at their friend Dobson, and then unitedly turned their eyes on George Dally, who—performing the combined duties of cook and waiter, at a fire on the ground, not fifteen feet to leeward of the dinner-party—could hear every word of the conversation.
“Why, yes,” said John Skyd, “we did hear it, and so did your man Dally. We had thought—”
“The truth is, sir,” said George, advancing with a miniature pitchfork or “tormentor” in his hand; “pardon my interrupting you, sir,—I did hear the screech, but as I couldn’t say exactly for certain, you know, that it was a Kafir, not havin’ seen one, I thought it best not to alarm you, sir, an’ so said nothing about it.”
“You looked as if you had seen one,” observed Frank Dobson, drawing down the corners of his mouth with his peculiar smile.
“Did I, sir!” said George, with a simple look; “very likely I did, for I’m timersome by nature an’ easily frightened.”
“You did not act with your wonted wisdom, George, in concealing this,” said Edwin Brook gravely.
“I’m afraid I didn’t sir,” returned George meekly.
“In future, be sure to let me know every symptom of danger you may discover, no matter how trifling,” said Brook.
“Yes, sir.”
“It was a very tremendous yell, wasn’t it, Dally?” asked John Skyd slily, as the waiter-cook was turning to resume his duties at the fire.
“Wery, sir.”
“And alarmed us all dreadfully, didn’t it?”
“Oh! dreadfully, sir—’specially me; though I must in dooty say that you four gentleman was as bold as brass. It quite relieved me when I saw your tall figurs standin’ at the mouth o’ your cavern, an’ the muzzles o’ your four double-guns—that’s eight shots—with your glaring eyes an’ pale cheeks behind them!”
“Ha!” exclaimed John Skyd, with a grim smile—“but after all it might only have been the shriek of a baboon.”
“I think not, sir,” replied George, with a smile of intelligence.
“Perhaps then it was the cry of a zebra or quagga,” returned John Skyd, “or a South African ass of some sort.”
“Wery likely, sir,” retorted George. “I shouldn’t wonder if it was—which is wery consolin’ to my feelin’s, for I’d sooner be terrified out o’ my wits by asses of any kind than fall in with these long-legged savages that dwell in caves.”
With an appearance of great humility George returned to his work at the fire.
It was either owing to a sort of righteous retribution, or a touch of that fortune which favours the brave, that George Dally was in reality the first, of this particular party of settlers, to encounter the black and naked inhabitant of South Africa in his native jungle. It was on this wise.
George was fond of sport, when not detained at home by the claims of duty. But these claims were so constant that he found it impossible to indulge his taste, save, as he was wont to say, “in the early morn and late at eve.”
One morning about daybreak, shouldering his gun and buckling on his hunting-knife, he marched into the jungle in quest of an antelope. Experience had taught him that the best plan was to seat himself at a certain opening or pass which lay on the route to a pool of water, and there bide his time.
Seating himself on a moss-covered stone, he put his gun in position on his knee, with the forefinger on the trigger, and remained for some time so motionless that a North American Indian might have envied his powers of self-restraint. Suddenly a twig was heard to snap in the thicket before him. Next moment the striped black and yellow skin of a leopard, or Cape tiger, appeared in the opening where he had expected to behold a deer. Dally’s gun flew to his shoulder. At the same instant the leopard skin was thrown back, and the right arm of a tall athletic Kafir was bared. The hand grasped a light assagai, or darting spear. Both men were taken by surprise, and for one instant they glared at each other. The instance between them was so short that death to each seemed imminent, for the white man’s weapon was a deadly one, and the cast of the lithe savage would doubtless have been swift and sure.
In that instant of uncertainty the white man’s innate spirit of forbearance acted almost involuntarily. Dally had hitherto been a man of peace. The thought of shedding human blood was intensely repulsive to him. He lowered the butt of his gun, and held up his right hand in token of amity.
The savage possessed apparently some of the good qualities of the white man, for he also at once let the butt of his assegai drop to the ground, although he knew, what Dally was not aware of, that considering the nature of their weapons, he placed himself at a tremendous disadvantage in doing so—the act of throwing forward and discharging the deadly fire-arm being much quicker than that of poising and hurling an assagai.
Without a moment’s hesitation George Dally advanced and held out his right hand with a bland smile.
Although unfamiliar with Kafir customs, he had heard enough from the Dutch farmers who drove the ox-teams to know that only chiefs were entitled to wear the leopard skin as a robe. The tall form and dignified bearing of the savage also convinced him that he had encountered no ordinary savage. He also knew that the exhibition of a trustful spirit goes a long way to create good-will. That his judgment was correct appeared from the fact of the Kafir holding out his hand and allowing George to grasp and shake it.
But what to do next was a question that puzzled the white man sorely, although he maintained on his good-natured countenance an expression of easy nonchalance.
Of course he made a vain attempt at conversation in English, to which the Kafir chief replied, with dignified condescension, by a brief sentence in his own tongue.
As George Dally looked in his black face, thoughts flashed through his brain with the speed of light. Should he kill him outright? That would be simple murder, in the circumstances, and George objected to murder, on principle. Should he suddenly seize and throw him down? He felt quite strong enough to do so, but after such a display of friendship it would be mean. Should he quietly bid him good morning and walk away? This, he felt, would be ridiculous. At that moment tobacco occurred to his mind. He quietly rested his gun against a tree, and drew forth a small roll of tobacco, from which he cut at least a foot and handed it to the chief. The dignity of the savage at once gave way before the beloved weed. He smiled—that is, he grinned in a ghastly way, for his face, besides being black, was streaked with lines of red ochre—and graciously accepted the gift. Then George made an elaborate speech in dumb-show with hands, fingers, arms, and eyes, to the effect that he desired the Kafir to accompany him to his location, but the chief gravely shook his head, pointed in another direction and to the sun, as though to say that time was on the wing; then, throwing his leopard-skin robe over his right shoulder with the air of a Spanish grandee, he turned aside and strode into the jungle.
George, glad to be thus easily rid of him, also turned and hurried home.
This time he was not slow to let his employer know that he had met with a native.
“It behoves us to keep a sharp look-out, George,” said Brook. “I heard yesterday from young Merton that some of the settlers not far from his place have had a visit from the black fellows, who came in the night, and while they slept carried off some of the sheep they had recently purchased from an up-country county Dutchman. We will watch for a few nights while rumours of this kind are afloat. When all seems quiet we can take it easy. Let Scholtz take the first watch. You will succeed him, and I will mount guard from the small hours onward.”
For some days this precaution was continued, but as nothing more was heard of black marauders the Brook family gradually ceased to feel anxious, and the nightly watch was given up.
Chapter Eight.
Shows the Pleasures, Pains, and Penalties of Housekeeping in the Bush
“Don’t you think this a charming life?” asked Mrs Brook of Mrs Merton, who had been her guest for a week.
Mrs Merton was about thirty years of age, and opinionated, if not strong-minded, also rather pretty. She had married young, and her eldest son, a lad of twelve, had brought her from her husband’s farm, some three miles distant from that of Edwin Brook.
“No, Mrs Brook, I don’t like it at all,” was Mrs Merton’s emphatic reply.
“Indeed!” said Mrs Brook, in some surprise.
She said nothing more after this for some time, but continued to ply her needle busily, while Mrs Scholtz, who by some piece of unusual good fortune had got Junkie to sleep, plied her scissors in cutting out and shaping raw material.
The two dames, with the nurse and Gertie, had agreed to unite their powers that day in a resolute effort to overtake the household repairs. They were in a cottage now, of the style familiarly known as “wattle and dab,” which was rather picturesque than permanent, and suggestive of simplicity. They sat on rude chairs, made by Scholtz, round a rough table by the same artist. Mrs Brook was busy with the rends in a blue pilot-cloth jacket, a dilapidated remnant of the “old England” wardrobe. The nurse was forming a sheep skin into a pair of those unmentionables which were known among the Cape-colonists of that period by the name of “crackers.” Mrs Merton was busy with a pair of the same, the knees of which had passed into a state of nonentity, while other parts were approaching the same condition. Gertie was engaged on a pair of socks, whose original formation was overlaid by and nearly lost in subsequent deposits.
“Why do you like this sort of life, Mrs Brook?” asked Mrs Merton suddenly.
“Because it is so new, so busy, so healthy, so thoroughly practical. Such a constant necessity for doing something useful, and a constant supply of something useful to do, and then such a pleasant feeling of rest when at last you do get your head on a pillow.”
“Oh! it’s delightful!” interpolated Gertie in a low voice.
“Well, now, that is strange. Everything depends on how one looks at things.—What do
you
think, Mrs Scholtz?” asked Mrs Merton.
“I’ve got no time to think, ma’am,” replied the nurse, giving the embryo crackers a slice that bespoke the bold fearless touch of a thorough artist. “When Junkie’s not asleep he keeps body and brain fully employed, and when he is asleep I’m glad to let body and brain alone.”
“What is your objection to this life, Mrs Merton?” asked Mrs Brook, with a smile.
“Oh! I’ve no special objection, only I hate it altogether. How is it possible to like living in a wilderness, with no conveniences around one, no society to chat with, no books to read, and, above all, no shops to go to, where one is obliged to drudge at menial work from morning till night, and one’s boys and girls get into rags and tatters, and one’s husband becomes little better than a navvy, to say nothing of snakes and scorpions in one’s bed and boots, and the howling of wild beasts all night? I declare, one might as well live in a menagerie.”
“But you must remember that things are in a transition state just now,” rejoined Mrs Brook. “As we spread and multiply over the land, things will fall more into shape. We shall have tailors and dressmakers to take the heavy part of our work in this way, and the wild beasts will retire before the rifle and the plough of civilised man; no doubt, also, shops will come in due course.”
“And what of the Kafirs?” cried Mrs Merton sternly. “Do you flatter yourself that either the plough or the rifle will stop their thievish propensities? Have we not learned, when too late—for here we are, and here we must bide,—that the black wretches have been at loggerheads with the white men ever since this was a colony, and is it not clear that gentle treatment and harsh have alike failed to improve them?”
“Wise treatment has yet to be tried,” said Mrs Brook.
“Fiddlesticks!” returned Mrs Merton impatiently. “What do you call wise treatment?”
“Gospel treatment,” replied Mrs Brook.
“Oh! come now, you know that
that
has also been tried, and has signally failed. Have we not heard how many hundreds of so-called black converts in this and in other colonies are arrant hypocrites, or at all events give way before the simplest temptations?”
“I have also heard,” returned Mrs Brook, “of many hundreds of so-called white Christians, whose lives prove them to be the enemies of our Saviour, and who do not even condescend to hypocrisy, for they will plainly tell you that they ‘make no pretence to be religious,’ though they call themselves Christians. But that does not prove gospel treatment among the English to have been a failure. You have heard, I daresay, of the Hottentot robber Africaner, who was long the terror and scourge of the district where he lived, but who, under the teaching of our missionary Mr Moffat, or rather, I should say, under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit, has led a righteous, peaceful, Christian life for many years. He is alive still to prove the truth of what I say.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” returned Mrs Merton, with a decisive compression of her lips.
“Well, many people have testified to the truth of this, and some of these people have seen Africaner and have believed.”
“Humph!” returned Mrs Merton.
This being an unanswerable argument, Mrs Brook smiled by way of reply, and turned a sleeve inside out, the better to get at its dilapidations. Changing the subject, she desired Gertie to go and prepare dinner, as it was approaching noon.
“What shall I prepare, mother?” asked Gertie, laying down her work.
“You’d better make a hash of the remains of yesterday’s leg of mutton, dear; it will be more quickly done than the roasting of another leg, and we can’t spare time on cookery to-day. I daresay Mrs Merton will excuse—”
“Mrs Brook,” interrupted Mrs Merton, with that Spartan-like self-denial to which she frequently laid claim, without, however, the slightest shadow of a title, “I can eat anything on a emergency. Have the hash by all means.”
“And I’m afraid, Mrs Merton,” continued Mrs Brook, in an apologetic tone, “that we shall have to dine without bread to-day—we have run short of flour. My husband having heard that the Thomases have recently got a large supply, has gone to their farm to procure some, but their place is twelve miles off, so he can’t be back till night. You won’t mind, I trust?”
Mrs Merton vowed that she didn’t mind, became more and more Spartanic in her expression and sentiments, and plied her needle with increased decision.
Just then Gertie re-entered the cottage with a face expressive of concern.
“Mother, there’s no meat in the larder.”
“No meat, child? You must be mistaken. We ate only a small part of yesterday’s leg.”
“Oh! ma’am,” exclaimed the nurse, dropping the scissors suddenly, and looking somewhat guilty, “I quite forgot, ma’am, to say that master, before he left this morning, and while you was asleep, ma’am, ordered me to give all the meat we had in the house to Scholtz, as he was to be away four or five days, and would require it all, so I gave him the leg that was hanging up in the larder, and master himself took the remains of yesterday’s leg, bidding me be sure to tell George to kill a sheep and have meat ready for dinner.”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” said Mrs Brook; “we shall just have to wait a little longer.”
Nurse looked strangely remorseful.
“But, ma’am—” she said, and paused.
“Well, nurse!”
“I forgot, ma’am—indeed I did—to tell George to kill a sheep.”
Mrs Brook’s hands and work fell on her lap, and she looked from Mrs Scholtz to her visitor, and from her to the anxious Gertie, without speaking.
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mrs Merton.
“My dear,” replied Mrs Brook, with a touch of solemnity, “George Dally, our man, asked me this morning if he might go into the bush to cut rafters for the new kitchen, and I gave him leave, knowing nothing of what arrangements had been made before—and—and—in short, there’s not a man on the place, and—there’s nothing to eat.”
The four females looked at each other in blank silence for a few seconds, as the full significance of their circumstances became quite clear to them.
Mrs Merton was the first to recover.
“Now,” said she, while the Spartanic elements of her nature became intensified, “we must rise to this occasion like true women; we must prove ourselves to be not altogether dependent on man; we must face the difficulty, sink the natural tenderness of our sex, and—and—kill a sheep!”
She laid down the crackers on the table with an air of resolution, and rose to put her fell intent in execution.
But the carrying out of her plan was not so easy as the good lady had, at the first blush of the thing, imagined it would be. In the first place, like other heroes and heroines, she experienced the enervating effects of opposition and vacillating purpose in others.
“You must all help me,” she said, with the air of a commander-in-chief.
“Help you to kill a sheep, ma’am?” said Mrs Scholtz, with a shudder, “I’ll die first! I couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t, for my weight in gold.”
Notwithstanding the vehemence of her protestation, the nurse stood by and listened while the other conspirators talked in subdued tones, and with horrified looks, of the details of the contemplated murder.
“I never even saw the dreadful deed done,” said Mrs Brook, becoming pale as she thought of it.
“Oh, mamma! much better go without meat; we could dine on cakes,” suggested Gertie.
“But my love, there is not a cake or an ounce of flour in the house.”
“Women!” exclaimed Mrs Merton severely, “we must rise to the occasion. I am hungry
now
, and it is not yet noon; what will be our condition if we wait till night for our dinner?”
This was a home-thrust. The conspirators shuddered and agreed to do the deed. Gertie, in virtue of her youth, was exempted from taking any active part, but an unaccountable fascination constrained her to follow and be a witness—in short, an accomplice.
“Do you know where—where—the
knife
is kept?” asked Mrs Merton.
Mrs Scholtz knew, and brought it from the kitchen.
It was a keen serviceable knife, with a viciously sharp point. Mrs Merton received it, coughed, and hurried out to the sheep-fold, followed by her accomplices.
To catch a sheep was not difficult, for the animals were all more or less tame and accustomed to gentle treatment by the females, but to hold it was quite another thing. Mrs Merton secured it by the head, Mrs Scholtz laid hold of the tail, and Mrs Brook fastened her fingers in the wool of its back. Each female individually was incapable of holding the animal, though a very small one had been purposely selected, but collectively they were more than a match for it. After a short struggle it was laid on its side, and its feet were somewhat imperfectly secured with a pocket-handkerchief.
“Now, ma’am,” cried Mrs Scholtz, holding tight to the tail and shutting her eyes, “do be quick.”
Mrs Merton, also shutting her eyes, struck feebly with the knife. The others, having likewise shut their eyes, waited a few seconds in a state of indescribable horror, and then opened them to find that the Spartan lady had missed her mark, and planted her weapon in the ground! So feeble, however, had been the stroke that it had barely penetrated an inch of the soil.
“Oh, Mrs Merton!” exclaimed Mrs Brook remonstratively.
Mrs Merton tried again more carefully, and hit the mark, but still without success.
“It
won’t
go in!” she gasped, as, on opening her eyes a second time, she found only a few drops of blood trickling from a mere scratch in the sheep’s neck; “I—I
can’t
do it!”
At that moment the unfortunate animal suddenly freed its head from the Spartan matron’s grasp. A sharp wriggle freed its tail and feet, and in another moment it burst away from its captors and made for a shallow pond formed by Edwin Brook for a colony of household ducks.
Roused to excessive indignation by the weakness and boastfulness of Mrs Merton, Mrs Scholtz sprang to her feet and gave chase. The others joined. Hunger, shame, determination, disappointment, combined to give them energy of purpose. The sheep rushed into the pond. Mrs Scholtz recklessly followed—up to the knees—caught it by the horns, and dragged it forth.
“Give me the knife!” she shouted.
Mrs Merton hurriedly obeyed, and the nurse, shutting her eyes, plunged it downwards with a wild hysterical shriek.
There was no mistake this time. Letting the animal go, she fled, red-handed, into the innermost recess of the cottage, followed by her horrified friends.
“Oh! what
have
I done?” groaned Mrs Scholtz; burying her face in her hands.
Mrs Brook and the others—all shuddering—sought to soothe her, and in a short time they regained sufficient composure to permit of their returning to the victim, which they found lying dead upon the ground.
Having thus got over the terrible first step, the ladies hardened themselves to the subsequent processes, and these they also found more difficult than they had anticipated. The skinning of a sheep they did not understand. Of the cutting up they were equally ignorant, and a terrible mess they made of the poor carcass in their varied efforts. In despair Mrs Brook suggested to Mrs Scholtz, who was now the chief and acknowledged operator, that they had better cut it up without skinning, and singe off the wool and skin together; but on attempting this Mrs Scholtz found that she could not find the joints, and, being possessed of no saw, could not cut the bones; whereupon Mrs Merton suggested that she should cut out four slices from any part that would admit of being penetrated by a knife, and leave the rest of the operation to be performed by Dally on his return. This proposal was acted on. Four fat slices were cut from the flanks and carried by Gertie to the kitchen, where they were duly cooked, and afterwards eaten with more relish than might have been expected, considering the preliminaries to the feast.
This was one of those difficultie