The Settler and the Savage by R. M. Ballantyne (great books to read txt) 📕
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“Just arrived,” answered Jerry.
“I thought so. You belong to the Scotch party that goes to Baviaans River, I suppose?” asked Frank Dobson.
This question led at length to a full and free account of the circumstances and destination of each party, with which however we will not trouble the reader in detail.
“D’ee ken onything aboot Baviaans River?” inquired Sandy Black, after a variety of subjects had been discussed.
“Nothing whatever,” answered John Skyd, “save that it is between one and two hundred miles—more or less—inland among the mountains, and that its name, which is Dutch, means the River of Baboons, its fastnesses being filled with these gentry.”
“Ay, I’ve heard as much mysel’,” returned Sandy, “an’ they say the craters are gey fierce. Are there ony o’ the big puggies in the Albany district?”
“No, none. Albany is too level for them. It lies along the sea-coast, and is said to be a splendid country, though uncomfortably near the Kafirs.”
“The Kawfirs. Ay. H’m!” said Sandy, leaving his hearers to form their own judgment as to the meaning of his words.
“An’ what may your tred be, sir?” he added, looking at John Skyd.
The three brothers laughed, and John replied—
“Trade? we have no trade. Our profession is that of clerks—knights of the quill; at least such was our profession in the old country. In this new land, my brother Bob’s profession is fun, Jim’s is jollity, and mine is a compound of both, called joviality. As to our chum Dobson, his profession may be styled remonstrance, for he is perpetually checking our levity, as he calls it; always keeping us in order and snubbing us, nevertheless we couldn’t do without him. In fact, we may be likened to a social clock, of which Jim is the mainspring, Bob the weight, I the striking part of the works, and Dobson the pendulum. But we are not particular, we are ready for anything.”
“Ay, an’ fit for nothin’,” observed Sandy, with a peculiar smile and shrug, meant to indicate that his jest was more than half earnest.
The three brothers laughed again at this, and their friend Dobson smiled. Dobson’s smile was peculiar. The corners of his mouth turned down instead of up, thereby giving his grave countenance an unusually arch expression.
“Why, what do you mean, you cynical Scot!” demanded John Skyd. “Our shoulders are broad enough, are they not? nearly as broad as your own.”
“Oo’ ay, yer shoothers are weel aneugh, but I wadna gie much for yer heeds or haunds.”
Reply to this was interrupted by the appearance, in the opening of the tent, of a man whose solemn but kindly face checked the flow of flippant conversation.
“You look serious, Orpin; has anything gone wrong?” asked Frank Dobson.
“Our friend is dying,” replied the man, sadly. “He will soon meet his opponent in the land where all is light and where all disputes shall be ended in agreement.”
Orpin referred to two of the settlers whose careers in South Africa were destined to be cut short on the threshold. The two men had been earnestly religious, but, like all the rest of Adam’s fallen race, were troubled with the effects of original sin. They had disputed hotly, and had ultimately quarrelled, on religious subjects on the voyage out. One of them died before he landed; the other was the man of whom Orpin now spoke. The sudden change in the demeanour of the brothers Skyd surprised as well as gratified Sandy Black. That sedate, and literally as well as figuratively, long-headed Scot, had felt a growing distaste to the flippant young Englishers, as he styled them, but when he saw them throw off their light character, as one might throw off a garment, and rise eagerly and sadly to question Orpin about the dying man, he felt, as mankind is often forced to feel, that a first, and especially a hasty, judgment is often incorrect.
Stephen Orpin was a mechanic and a Wesleyan, in virtue of which latter connection, and a Christian spirit, he had been made a local preacher. He was on his way to offer his services as a watcher by the bedside of the dying man.
This man and his opponent were not the only emigrants who finished their course thus abruptly. Dr Cotton, the “Head” of the “Nottingham party,” Dr Caldecott and some others, merely came, as it were like Moses, in sight of the promised land, and then ended their earthly career. Yet some of these left a valuable contribution, in their children, to the future colony.
While Black and his friend Jerry were observing Orpin, as he conversed with the brothers Skyd, the tall burly Englishman from whose shoulders the former had been hurled into the sea, chanced to pass, and quietly grasped the Scot by the arm.
“Here you are at last! Why, man, I’ve been lookin’ for you ever since that unlucky accident, to offer you a change of clothes and a feed in my tent—or I should say our tent, for I belong to a ‘party,’ like every one else here. Come along.”
“Thank ’ee kindly,” answered Sandy, “but what between haverin’ wi’ thae Englishers an’ drinkin’ their whusky, my freen’ Jerry an’ me’s dry aneugh already.”
The Englishman, however, would not listen to any excuse. He was one of those hearty men, with superabundant animal spirits—to say nothing of physique—who are not easily persuaded to let others follow their own inclinations, and who are so good-natured that it is difficult to feel offended with their kindly roughness. He introduced himself by the name of George Dally, and insisted on Black accompanying him to his tent. Sandy being a sociable, although a quiet man, offered little resistance, and Jerry, being a worshipper of Sandy, followed with gay nonchalance.
Threading his way among the streets of “Settlers’ Town,” and pushing vigorously through the crowds of excited beings who peopled it, George Dally led his new acquaintances to a tent in the outskirts of the camp—a suburban tent, as it were.
Entering it, and ushering in his companions, he introduced them as the gentlemen who had been capsized into the sea on landing, at which operation he had had the honour to assist.
There were four individuals in the tent. A huge German labourer named Scholtz, and his wife. Mrs Scholtz was a substantial woman of forty. She was also a nurse, and, in soul, body, and spirit, was totally absorbed in a baby boy, whose wild career had begun four months before in a furious gale in the Bay of Biscay. As that infant “lay, on that day, in the Bay of Biscay O!” the elemental strife outside appeared to have found a lodgment in his soul, for he burst upon the astonished passengers with a squall which lasted longer than the gale, and was ultimately pronounced the worst that had visited the ship since she left England. Born in a storm, the infant was baptised in a stiff breeze by a Wesleyan minister, on and after which occasion he was understood to be Jabez Brook; but one of the sailors happening to call him Junkie on the second day of his existence, his nurse, Mrs Scholtz, leaped at the endearing name like a hungry trout at a gay fly, and “Junkie” he remained during the whole term of childhood.
Junkie’s main characteristic was strength of lungs, and his chief delight to make that fact known. Six passengers changed their berths for the worse in order to avoid him. One who could not change became nearly deranged towards the end of the voyage, and one, who was sea-sick all the way out, seriously thought of suicide, but incapacity for any physical effort whatever happily saved him. In short, Junkie was the innocent cause of many dreadful thoughts and much improper language on the unstable scene of his nativity.
Besides these three, there was in the tent a pretty, dark-eyed, refined-looking girl of about twelve. She was Gertrude Brook, sister and idolater of Junkie. Her father, Edwin Brook, and her mother, dwelt in a tent close by. Brook was a gentleman of small means, but Mrs Brook was a very rich lady—rich in the possession of a happy temper, a loving disposition, a pretty face and figure, and a religious soul. Thus Edwin Brook, though poor, may be described as a man of inexhaustible wealth.
Gertrude had come into Dally’s tent to fetch Junkie to her father when Sandy Black and his friends entered, but Junkie had just touched the hot teapot, with the contents of which Mrs Scholtz was regaling herself and husband, and was not in an amiable humour. His outcries were deafening.
“Now do hold its dear little tongue, and go to its popsy,” said Mrs Scholtz tenderly. (Mrs Scholtz was an Englishwoman.)
We need not say that Junkie declined obedience, neither would he listen to the silvery blandishments of Gertie.
“Zee chile vas born shrieking, ant he vill die shrieking,” growled Scholtz, who disliked Junkie.
The entrance of the strangers, however, unexpectedly stopped the shrieking, and before Junkie could recover his previous train of thought Gertie bore him off in triumph, leaving the hospitable Dally and Mrs Scholtz to entertain their visitors to small talk and tea.
While seated thus they became aware of a sudden increase of the din, whip-cracking, and ox-bellowing with which the camp of the settlers resounded.
“They seem fond o’ noise here,” observed Sandy Black, handing his cup to Mrs Scholtz to be refilled.
“I never ’eard such an ’owling before,” said Jerry Goldboy; “what is it all about?”
“New arrivals from zee interior,” answered Scholtz; “dere be always vaggins comin’ ant goin’.”
“The camp is a changin’ one,” said Dally, sipping his tea with the air of a connoisseur. “When you’ve been here as long as we have you’ll understand how it never increases much, for although ship after ship arrives with new swarms of emigrants from the old country, waggon after waggon comes from I don’t know where—somewheres inland anyhow—and every now an’ then long trains of these are seen leaving camp, loaded with goods and women and children, enough to sink a small schooner, and followed by crowds of men tramping away to their new homes in the wilderness—though what these same new homes or wilderness are like is more than I can tell.”
“Zee noise is great,” growled Scholtz, as another burst of whip-musketry, human roars, and bovine bellows broke on their ears, “ant zee confusion is indesgraibable.”
“The gentlemen whose business it is to keep order must have a hard time of it,” said Mrs Scholtz; “I can’t ever understand how they does it, what between landing parties and locating ’em, and feeding, supplying, advising, and despatching of ’em, to say nothing of scolding and snubbing, in the midst of all this Babel of bubbledom, quite surpasses my understanding. Do you understand it, Mr Black?”
“Ay,” replied Sandy, clearing his throat and speaking somewhat oracularly. “’Ee must know, Mrs Scholtz, that it’s the result of organisation and gineralship. A serjeant or corporal can kick or drive a few men in ony direction that’s wanted, but it takes a gineral to move an army. If ’ee was to set a corporal to lead twunty thoosand men, he’d gie them orders that wad thraw them into a deed lock, an’ than naethin’ short o’ a miracle could git them oot o’t. Mony a battle’s been lost by brave men through bad gineralship, an’ mony a battle’s been won by puir enough bodies o’ men because of their leader’s administrative abeelity, Mrs Scholtz.”
“Very true, Mr Black,” replied Mrs Scholtz, with the assurance of one who thoroughly understands what she hears.
“Noo,” continued Sandy, with increased gravity, “if thae Kawfir bodies we hear aboot only had chiefs wi’ powers of organisation, an’ was a’ united thegither, they wad drive the haul o’ this colony into the sea like chaff before the wind. But they’ll niver do it; for, ’ee see, they want mind—an’
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