Seated one evening at the door of their dug-out hut or cavern on the
banks of the river, the three brothers Skyd discussed the affairs of the
colony and smoked their pipes.
"Never knew such a country," said John Skyd, "never!"
"Abominable!" observed James.
"Detestable!" remarked Robert.
"Why don't you Skyd-addle then?" cried Frank Dobson. "If I thought it
as bad as you do, I'd leave it at once. But you are unjust."
"Unjust!" echoed John Skyd; "that were impossible. What could be worse?
Here have we been for three years, digging and ploughing, raking and
hoeing, carting and milking, churning and--and--and what the better are
we now? Barely able to keep body and soul together, with the rust
ruining our wheat, and an occasional Kafir raid depriving us of our
cattle, while we live in a hole on the river's bank like rabbits; with
this disadvantage over these facetious creatures, that we have more
numerous wants and fewer supplies."
"That's so," said Bob; "if we could only content ourselves with a few
bulbous roots and grass all would be well, but, Frank, we sometimes want
a little tea and sugar; occasionally we run short of tobacco; now and
then we long for literature; coffee sometimes recurs to memory; at rare
intervals, especially when domestic affairs go wrong, the thought of
woman, as of a long-forgotten being of angelic mould, _will_ come over
us. Ah! Frank, it is all very well for you to smile, you who have been
away enjoying yourself for months past hunting elephants and other small
game in the interior, but you have no notion how severely our failures
are telling on our spirits. Why, Jim there tried to make a joke the
other day, and it was so bad that Jack immediately went to bed with a
sick-headache."
"True," said Jack solemnly, "quite true, and I couldn't cure that
headache for a whole day, though I took a good deal of Cape-smoke before
it came on, as well as afterwards."
"But, my dear chums," remonstrated Dobson, "is it not--"
"Now don't ask, `Is it not your own fault?' with that wiseacre look of
yours," said John Skyd, testily tapping the bowl of his pipe on a stone
preparatory to refilling it. "We are quite aware that we are not
faultless; that we once or twice have planted things upside down, or a
yard too deep, besides other little eccentricities of ignorance; but
such errors are things of the past, and though we now drive our drills
as straight as once, heigho! we ruled our account-books, things don't
and won't improve."
"If you had not interrupted me, Jack, you might have spared much breath
and feeling. I was about to say, Is it not a fact that many of the
other settlers are beginning to overcome their difficulties though you
are not? True, it has now been found that the wheat crops, on which we
at first expected almost entirely to depend, have for three seasons
proved an entire failure, and sheep do not thrive on our sour grass
pasturage, though they seem to have done admirably with the Scotch at
Baviaans River; but have not many of those around us been successful in
raising rye, barley, oats, and Indian corn? have they not many herds of
healthy cattle? are not pumpkins and potatoes thriving pretty well, and
gardens beginning to flourish? Our roasted barley makes very fair
coffee, and honey is not a bad substitute for sugar."
"You have made a successful bag this trip, I see, by your taking such a
healthy view of our circumstances," said Bob.
"Yes, I've done very well," returned Dobson; "and I find the hunter's
life so congenial, and withal so profitable, that I'm really thinking of
adopting it as a profession. And that brings me to the object of my
visit here to-night. The fact is, my dear fellows, that men of your
genius are not fit for farmers. It takes quiet-going men of sense to
cultivate the soil. If you three were to live and dig to the age of
Methuselah you'd never make a living out of it."
"That's plain speaking," said John, with a nod, "and I agree with you
entirely."
"I mean to speak plainly," rejoined Dobson, "and now what I propose is,
that you should give it up and join me in the ivory business. It will
pay, I assure you."
Here their friend entered into a minute and elaborate account of his
recent hunting expedition, and imparted to John Skyd some of his own
enthusiasm, but James and Robert shook their heads. Leaving them to
think over his proposal, their friend went to make a call on the Brooks
of Mount Hope.
"Drat that boy! he's escaped again, and after mischief I'll be bound!"
was the first sound that saluted him as he walked towards the house. It
was Mrs Scholtz's voice, on the other side of the hedge with which the
garden was surrounded. The remark was immediately followed by a
piercing shriek from the nurse, who repeated it again and again. Dobson
could see her through an opening in the branches, standing helpless,
with her hands clasped and eyeballs glaring. Thoroughly alarmed, he
dashed towards the gate. At the same moment the voice of a child was
heard:--
"Oh, look!--look 'ere, nuss, ain't I cotched a pritty ting--such a
pritty ting!"
Springing through the gate, Dobson beheld Master Junkie, staggering up
the track like a drunken man, with one hand clasped tight round the
throat of a snake whose body and tail were twining round the chubby arm
of its captor in a vain effort at freedom, while its forked tongue
darted out viciously. It was at once recognised as one of the most
deadly snakes in the country.
"Ain't it a booty?" cried Junkie, confronting Dobson, and holding up his
prize like the infant Hercules, whom he very much resembled in all
respects.
Dobson, seizing the child's hand in his own left, compressed it still
tighter, drew his hunting-knife, and sliced off the reptile's head, just
as Edwin Brook with his wife and daughter, attracted by the nurse's
outcry, rushed from the cottage to the rescue. Scholtz and George Dally
at the same time ran out respectively from stable and kitchen.
Mrs Scholtz had gone into a hysterical fit of persistent shrieking and
laughter, which she maintained until she saw that her darling was saved;
then, finishing off with a prolonged wail, she fell flat on the grass in
a dead faint.
Junkie at the same moment, as it were, took up the cry. To be thus
robbed of his new-found pet would have tried a better temper than his.
Without a moment's hesitation he rushed at Frank Dobson and commenced
violently to kick his shins, while he soundly belaboured his knees with
the still wriggling tail of the poor snake.
"What a blessing!" exclaimed Mrs Brook, grasping Dobson gratefully by
the hand.
"What a mercy!" murmured Gertie, catching up the infant Hercules and
taking him off to the cottage.
"What a rumpus!" growled Dally, taking himself off to the kitchen.
Scholtz gave no immediate expression to his feelings, but, lifting his
better half from the grass, he tucked her under one of his great arms,
and, with the muttered commentary, "zhe shrieckz like von mad zow,"
carried her off to his own apartment, where he deluged her with cold
water and abuse till she recovered.
"Your arrival has created quite a sensation, Dobson," said Edwin Brook,
with a smile, as they walked up to the house.
"Say, rather, it was opportune," said Mrs Brook; "but for your prompt
way of using the knife our darling might have been bitten. Oh! I do
dread these snakes, they go about in such a sneaking way, and are so
very deadly. I often wonder that accidents are not more frequent,
considering the numbers of them that are about."
"So do I, Mrs Brook," returned Dobson; "but I suppose it is owing to
the fact that snakes are always most anxious to keep out of man's way,
and few men are as bold as your Junkie. I never heard of one being
collared before, though a friend of mine whom I met on my last visit to
the karroo used sometimes to catch hold of a snake by the tail, whirl it
round his head, and dash its brains out against a tree."
"You'll stay with us to-day, Dobson!" said Brook.
Frank, involuntarily casting a glance at the pretty face of Gertie--who
had by that time attained to the grace of early womanhood,--accepted the
invitation, and that day at dinner entertained the family with graphic
accounts of his experiences among the wild beasts of the Great Fish
River jungles, and dilated on his prospects of making a fortune by
trading in ivory. "If that foolish law," he said, "had not been made by
our Governor, prohibiting traffic with the Kafirs, I could get
waggon-loads of elephants' tusks from them for an old song. As it is, I
must knock over the elephants for myself--at least until the laws in
question are rescinded."
"The Governor seems to have a special aptitude," said Brook, with a
clouded brow, "not only for framing foolish laws, but for abrogating
good ones."
The Governor referred to was Lord Charles Somerset, who did more to
retard the progress of the new settlements on the frontiers of Kafirland
than any who have succeeded him. Having complicated the relations of
the colonists and Kafirs, and confused as well as disgusted, not to say
astonished, the natives during his first term of office, he went to
England on leave of absence, leaving Sir Rufane Shaw Donkin to act as
Governor in his place.
Lord Charles seems to have been a resentful as well as an incapable man,
for immediately after his return to the colony in 1821 he overturned the
policy of the acting Governor, simply because he and Sir Rufane were at
personal enmity. The colony at that time, and the Home Government
afterwards, approved of the wise measures of the latter. He had
arranged the military forces on the frontier so as to afford the new
settlers the greatest possible amount of protection; the Cape corps men
had been partly placed at their disposal, both to assist and defend;
those who found their allotted farms too small, had them increased to
the extent of the farms of their Dutch neighbours; acceptable public
officers were appointed; provisions were supplied on credit, and
everything, in short, had been done to cheer and encourage the settlers
during the period of gloom which followed their first great calamity,
the failure of the wheat-crops. All this was upset on the return of
Lord Charles Somerset. With a degree of tyranny and want of judgment
worthy of a mere "Jack-in-office," he immediately removed from the
magistracy of the British Settlement of Albany a favourite and able man,
to make room for one of his own proteges and supporters. He withdrew
troops from one of the most important frontier villages (in a strategic
point of view), and stopped the formation of a road to it, thus
compelling the settlers to desert it and leave their standing crops to
the surprised but pleased Kafirs, who were perplexed as well as
emboldened by the vacillating policy of white Governors! In addition to
this he gave permission to the savage chief Macomo to occupy the land so
vacated, thus paving the way for future wars. Instead of encouraging
traffic with the Kafirs he rendered it illegal. He issued a
proclamation forbidding all public meetings for political purposes; he
thwarted the philanthropic and literary Pringle and Fairbairn in their
attempts to establish a newspaper, and drove the former from the colony.
But why proceed? We cite these facts merely to account for the cloud
on Edwin Brook's brow, and for the fact that at this time many of the
British settlers, who would gallantly have faced the "rust" and other
troubles and difficulties sent to them by Providence, could not bear the
oppression which "driveth a wise man mad," but, throwing up all their
hopes and privileges as settlers, scattered themselves far and wide over
the colony. This, as it happened, was much to the advantage of
themselves and the old Dutch settlers with whom they mingled. Those of
them who remained behind, however, continued to fight the battle against
oppression and circumstances most manfully.
Long and patiently did Mrs Brook listen to her visitor and husband
while they indignantly discussed these subjects.
"But why," said she, at last giving vent to her feelings, "why does the
Government at home not remove such an incapable and wicked Governor and
give us a better?"
"Because, my dear," replied Edwin, with a smile, "the incapable and
wicked Governor happens to possess almost despotic _power_, and can gain
the ear of men in high places at home, so that they are deceived by him,
while all who venture to approach them, except through this Governor,
are regarded with suspicion, being described as malcontents. And yet,"
continued Brook, growing warm at the thought of his wrongs, "we do not
complain of those at home, or of the natural disadvantages of the
country to which we have been sent. We settlers are actuated by one
undivided feeling of respect and gratitude to the British Government,
which future reverses will never efface; but it is peculiarly hard to
have been sent to this remote and inaccessible corner of the globe, and
to be left to the control of one individual, who misrepresents us and
debars us the right to express our collective sentiments. Why, we might
as well be living under the dominion of the Turk. But a word in your
ear, Frank Dobson; meetings _have_ been held, private ones, while you
were away in the bush, and our case _has_ been properly represented at
last, and a Royal Commission of Inquiry is to be sent out to put things
right. So there's hope for us yet! The clouds which have been so long
lowering, are, I think, beginning to clear away."
While the sanguine settler was thus referring to the clouds of adversity
which had for more than two years hovered over the young settlement, the
natural clouds were accumulating overhead in an unusually threatening
manner. Long periods of drought are frequently followed in South Africa
by terrible thunderstorms. One of them seemed to be brewing just then.
"I fear Hans and Considine will get wet jackets before they arrive,"
said Frank Dobson, rising and going to the window.
"Hans and Considine!" exclaimed Gertie, with a flush; "are they here?"
"Ay, they came with me as far as Grahamstown on business of some sort.--
By the way, what a big place that is becoming, quite a town! When we
saw it first, you remember, it was a mere hamlet, the headquarters of
the troops."
"It will be a city some day," prophesied Brook as he put on an old
overcoat that had hitherto survived the ravages of time; "you see all
our comrades who have discovered that farming is not their vocation are
hiving off into it, and many of them, being first-rate mechanics, they
have taken to their trades, while those with mercantile tendencies have
opened stores. You shall see that things will shake into their proper
places, and right themselves in time, and this will become a flourishing
colony, for the most of us are young and full of British pluck, while
the climate, despite a few trifling disadvantages, is really splendid."
Edwin Brook spoke heartily, as he clapped his hat firmly on, preparatory
to going out to make things secure against the expected storm.
At the same moment the South African storm-fiend (an unusually large
though not frequently obtrusive one) laughed in a voice of thunder and
nearly dashed in the windows with a tempest of wind and rain! As if his
voice had called up spirits from the "vasty deep," two horsemen suddenly
appeared approaching at full speed. One of them was of unusual size.
"Here they come just in time!" exclaimed Gertie, clapping her hands in
excitement.
The _girl_ spoke and acted there. Then she blushed for the _woman_
interfered!
Hans Marais reached the quince hedge first and sprang off his steed.
Charlie Considine came second. With a wild whoop he caused his steed to
leap the garden gate and dismounted at the cottage door.
Then there was a hearty welcoming and inquiring, and shaking of bands,
while the travellers were congratulated on having just escaped the
storm.
While this was going on at Mount Hope, the Skyds were actively engaged
in gathering in their rattle and otherwise making their place secure.
They had more than once been warned that their position was one of
danger, but being young, athletic, and rollicking, they had not cared
hitherto to remove their humble dwelling. It was time enough to do
that, they said, when "lovely woman" should come on the scene and render
improvement in domicile necessary. Bob Skyd had more than once
attempted to induce a "lovely woman" to invade the land and enlighten
the cave, but somehow without success!
"We shall have it stiff," said John, as the three brothers approached
their burrow.
"And heavy," added Bob.
James made no remark, but opened the door. It was growing dark at the
time and inside their cavern only a dim light prevailed.
"Why--what's--hallo! I say--"
Jim leaped back with a look of alarm. The brothers gazed in and saw, in
the region of their bed (which held three easily), a pair of glaring
eyeballs.
The brothers, although not superstitious, were by no means free from
human weakness. At the same time they were gifted with a large share of
animal courage. With beating heart John struck a light, and held up a
flaming brimstone match. This caused the eyes to glare with fearful
intensity, and revealed a distinct pair of horns. At that moment the
match went out. With anxious trepidation another light was struck, and
then it was discovered that a recently purchased goat had, under a wrong
impression, taken possession of the family bed.
Laughing at this, they lit a tallow candle, which was stuck into that
most convenient of candlesticks--an empty bottle.
The brothers, although not proficients, were mechanical in their way.
One had set up the household bed; another had constructed a table, which
had broken down only six times since their arrival; and the third had
contrived a sofa. This last was Jim's work. It was a masterpiece in
its way, of simplicity, and consisted of two rough planks laid on two
mounds of earth, the whole being covered with a piece of chintz which
fell in a curtain to the floor. This curtain, like love, covered a
multitude of improprieties, in the shape of old boots, dirty linen,
miscellaneous articles, and a sea-chest.
Sitting down on the sofa, John Skyd laughed long and heartily at the
scene with the goat. His laugh suddenly ceased, and was replaced by an
exclamation and a look of anxious surprise. "Something" had moved under
the sofa! Snakes occurred to their minds at once, and the deadly
character of South African snakes was well known.
"Look out, boys," cried John, leaping on the sofa, and seizing a sword
which hung on a peg just above it.--"Fetch the light."
Bob quickly obeyed and revealed the tail of a large cobra disappearing
among the improprieties. Jim ran to a rude cupboard where pistols and
ammunition were kept, and began to load with small shot.
"This way I hold it closer to the wall," said John, in an earnest voice;
"I see one of his coils at the back of the sofa. Now then, steady--
there!"
He made a deadly thrust as he spoke and pinned the snake to the ground,
but evidently by the wrong coil, for in a moment its angry head was seen
twining up towards the handle of the sword.
"Quick, Jim--the pistol!"
Jim was ready and Bob raised the curtain of the sofa, while John stood
in readiness to let go the sword and bolt if the reptile should prove to
be capable of reaching his hand.
"Fire, Jim, fire! look sharp!" cried John Skyd.
Jim took aim and fired. The candle was put out by the concussion.
In the dark John could risk the danger no longer. He let go the sword
and sprang with a shout upon the bed. Bob and Jim made for the same
place of refuge, and, tumbling over each other, broke the pint bottle
and the candle. Securing a fragment of the latter they proceeded once
more to strike a light, with quaking hearts, while a horrible hissing
and lashing was heard under the sofa. At last light was again thrown on
the scene, and when the curtain was cautiously raised the cobra was seen
to be writhing in its death-agonies--riddled with shot, and still pinned
with the sword.
This scene closed most appropriately with a flash of lightning and a
tremendous clap of thunder,--followed, immediately, by cataracts of
rain.