The Settler and the Savage by R. M. Ballantyne (great books to read txt) 📕

“This is pleasant!” said Charlie, pausing, with a sigh, and looking up.

“Ja, it is pleasant,” replied Hans.

“Ja!” repeated Charlie, quoting the Dutch “Yes” of the other; “are you a Dutchman?”

“I am; at least I am a Cape colonist descended from Dutchmen. Why are you surprised?”

“Because,” replied his companion, while he prepared another steak over the embers, “you speak English so well that I could not have known it. How came you to learn the language so perfectly?”

“My father, being wiser than some of his friends and neighbours,” said Hans, “sent me to Capetown to be educated. I suppose that is the reason. We dwelt in the western part of the colony then, and I was the eldest of the family. When a number of us Dutchmen left that part of the country—being disgusted with the Government,—and came up here, my brothers and sister had to be taken from school. This was a pity, for education taught me to know that education is an inestimable blessing—the want of it a heavy misfortune.”

“True,” remarked Considine. But being still too busy with the steaks to pursue the subject he merely added—“Does your father live near this?”

“About seven hours’ ride, which, as I daresay you know, is forty-two miles. You shall go home with me to-morrow.”

“How many are there of you?” asked Considine, looking at the young Dutchman over a bone. “Excuse my being so impolite,” he added, “but d’you know, one feels horribly like a tiger after a two days’ fast.”

“Don’t stand on ceremony,” said the other, with a laugh. “When you are satisfied we can converse. There are fifteen of us: father, mother, sister, and eleven boys besides myself. I’ll tell you about them all after supper; meanwhile I’ll go fetch the horses, for there are lions about, as I daresay you know, and some of them are nearly as ravenous as yourself.”

Hans rose, put his pipe in the band of his broad-brimmed hat, and sauntered heavily out of the thicket.

In a few minutes he returned, leading the horses, and then busied himself in surrounding the camp with an almost impenetrable wall of mimosa-thorn branches, the spikes of which were so tremendous that it seemed as if nothing smaller than an elephant could force its way through. This done, he sat down and quietly refilled his pipe, while Considine, having at last finished his meal, drew the embers of the fire together, disposed his limbs comfortably on the ground, lay back on his saddle, and prepared to enjoy a contemplative gaze at the cheering blaze and an interrogative conversation with his new friend.

“Do you smoke?” asked Hans.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes me sick, and I don’t like it.”

Hans looked surprised. This was a new idea to him, and he sat for some time pondering it; indeed, we may say with truth that he “smoked it” In a few minutes he looked earnestly at the youth, and asked why he came to the Cape.

“To make my fortune,” answered Considine.

“Fortunes are not easily made at the Cape,” was the grave reply. “My father has been making his fortune for the last quarter of a century, and it’s not made yet.—Why did you choose the Cape?”

“I didn’t choose it.”

“No?” said the Dutchman, with a look of surprise.

“No,” responded the Englishman; “my coming here was not a matter of choice: it was necessity. Come, I will make a confidant of you and relate my history. Don’t be alarmed, I won’t keep you up all night with prosy details. My life, as you may see, has not yet been a long one, and until this year it has been comparatively uneventful.”

He paused a few moments as if to recall the past, while his companion, picking his pipe with a mimosa thorn, settled himself to listen.

“Father, mother, brothers, and sisters I have none,” began Considine as he whittled a stick—a pastime, by the way, which is erroneously supposed to be an exclusively American privilege. “Neither have I grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts, nephews, nieces, or anything else of the sort. They all died either before or soon after I was born. My only living relation is an uncle, who was my guardian. He is a sea-captain, and a good man, but tough. I bear him no ill-will. I would not speak disrespectfully of him; but he is tough, and, I incline to think, no better than he should be. Infancy and boyhood with squalling and schooling I pass over. My uncle ordered me to study for the medical profession, and I obeyed. Wishing to see a little of the world before finishing my course, I sailed in a vessel bound for Australia. We touched at Table Bay in passing. Obtaining leave, I went ashore at Capetown. The ship also went ashore—without leave—in company with six other ships, during a terrific gale which sprang up in the night. Our vessel became a total wreck. The crew were saved, but my effects went with the cargo to the bottom. Fortunately, however, I had carried ashore with me the little cash I possessed.”

“I found the Capetown people very kind. One of them took me by the hand and offered me employment, but I preferred to proceed into the interior with a trader and work or shoot my way, in order to save my money. No trader being about to start at that time, I was obliged to accept the offer of a frontier farmer, who, for a small sum, agreed to allow me to accompany his waggons, on condition that I should make myself generally useful. I grudged the cash, but closed with the offer, and next day started on our journey of six hundred miles—such being the distance we had to go, according to my employer or comrade, Jan Smit.”

“Who?” exclaimed Hans, with sudden energy.

“Jan Smit,” repeated Considine. “Do you know him?”

“Ja—but go on,” said Hans, with a nod and a smile.

“Well, I soon found that my Dutch comrade—”

“He’s only half Dutch,” interrupted Hans. “His mother was Dutch, but his father is English.”

“Well, Dutch or English, he is the most unmitigated scoundrel I ever met.”

“Ja,” muttered Hans, “he is.”

“And I soon found that my trip of pleasure became a trip of torment. It is true we shot plenty of game—lions among the rest—but in camp the man was so unbearable that disgust counterbalanced all the pleasure of the trip. I tried hard to get the better of him by good-humour and jollity, but he became so insolent at last that I could not stand it. Three days ago when I asked him how far we were from his farm, he growled that it wasn’t far off now; whereupon I could not refrain from saying that I was glad to hear it, as we should soon have the pleasure of parting company. This put him in a rage. He kicked over the pot containing part of our breakfast, and told me I might part company then and there if I pleased. My temper does not easily go, but it went at last. I jumped up, saddled my horse, mounted, and rode away. Of course I lost myself immediately, and for two days have been trying to find myself, without success, mourning over my fate and folly, and fasting from necessity. But for my opportune meeting with you, Mr Marais, it might have gone hard with me and my poor horse, for the want of water had well-nigh floored us both.”

“You’ll never make your fortune by doctoring on the frontier,” said Hans, after a few minutes’ silence. “Nobody gets ill in this splendid climate—besides, we couldn’t afford to waste time in that way. People here usually live to a great age, and then go off without the assistance of a doctor. What else can you turn your hand to?”

“Anything,” replied Considine, with the overweening confidence of youth.

“Which means nothing, I suspect,” said the Dutchman, “for Jack-of-all-trades is proverbially master of none.”

“It may be so,” retorted the other, “nevertheless, without boasting, I may venture to assert—because I can prove it—that I am able to make tables, chairs, chests, and such-like things, besides knowing something of the blacksmith’s trade. In regard to doctoring, I am not entitled to practise for fees, not yet being full-fledged—only a third-year student—but I may do a little in that way for love, you know. If you have a leg, for instance, that wants amputating, I can manage it for you with a good carving-knife and a cross-cut saw. Or, should a grinder give you annoyance, any sort of pincers, small enough to enter your mouth, will enable me to relieve you.”

At this Hans smiled and displayed a set of brilliant “grinders,” which did not appear likely to give him annoyance for some time to come.

“Can you shoot?” asked Hans, laying his hand on his companion’s double-barrelled gun, which lay on the ground between them, and which, with its delicate proportions and percussion-locks, formed a striking contrast to the battered, heavy, flint-lock weapon of the Dutchman.

“Ay, to some extent, as the lions’ skins in Jan Smit’s waggon can testify.—By the way,” added Considine quickly, “you said that you knew Smit. Can you tell me where he lives? because I still owe him the half of the money promised for permission to accompany him on this trip, and should not like to remain his debtor.”

“Ja, I know where he lives. He’s a bad specimen of a Dutch farmer in every respect, except as to size. He lives quite close to our farm—more’s the pity!—and is one of those men who do their best to keep up bad feeling between the frontier-men and the Kafirs. The evil deeds of men such as he are represented in England, by designing or foolish persons, as being characteristic of the whole class of frontier farmers, hence we are regarded as a savage set, while, in my humble opinion, we are no worse than the people of other colonies placed in similar circumstances—perhaps better than some of them. Do you know anything of our past history?”

“Not much,” replied Considine, throwing away the remnant of the stick he had been whittling, and commencing on another piece. “Of course I know that the Cape was first doubled by the Portuguese commander Bartholomew Diaz in, I think, 1486, and after him by Vasco de Gama, and that the Dutch formed the first settlement on it under Van Riebeek in 1652, but beyond this my knowledge of Cape history and dates is hazy and confused. I know, however, that your forefathers mismanaged the country for about a century and a half, after which it finally came into possession of the British in 1806.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Hans, while a shade of displeasure flitted for a moment across his broad visage. “’Tis a pity your reading had not extended farther, for then you would have learned that from 1806 the colony has been mismanaged by your countrymen, and the last fruit of their mismanagement has been a bloody war with the Kafirs, which has only just been concluded. Peace has been made only this year, and the frontier is now at rest. But who will rebuild the burned homesteads of this desolated land? who will reimburse the ruined farmers? above all, who will restore the lost lives?”

The young Dutchman’s eyes kindled, and his stern face flushed as he spoke, for although his own homestead had escaped the ruthless savage, friends and kindred had suffered deeply in the irruption referred to, which took place in 1819, and one or two of his intimate comrades had found early graves in the wild karroo.

Considine, sympathising with his companion’s feelings, said, “I doubt not that you have much to complain of, for there is no colony under the sun that escapes from the evil acts of occasional bad or incompetent Governors. But pray do not extend your indignation to me or to my countrymen at large, for few of us know the true merits of your case. And tell me, what was the origin