Part 5 (1/2)

”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 pa.s.s, 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 wors.h.i.+pper of Sandy, followed with gay nonchalance.

CHAPTER FOUR.

FURTHER PARTICULARS OF ”SETTLERS' TOWN,” AND A START MADE FOR THE PROMISED LAND.

Threading his way among the streets of ”Settlers' Town,” and pus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sist.

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 pa.s.sengers with a squall which lasted longer than the gale, and was ultimately p.r.o.nounced the worst that had visited the s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sengers 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.