The Settler and the Savage

“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.

Chapter Sixteen.

The Great Floods of 1823

All that night and all next day rain came down on the land in continuous floods. The settlers had previously been visited with occasional storms, which had roused some alarm among the timid and done a little damage, but nothing like this had yet befallen them. The water appeared to descend in sheets, and not only did the great rivers wax alarmingly, but every rill and watercourse became a brawling river.

The Skyds, and one or two others who, like themselves, had built too near the edge of streams, were the first to suffer.

“This won’t do,” said John Skyd, on the evening of the second day, as he and his brothers sat in front of their cavern gazing at the turbid river, which, thick and yellow as pea-soup, was hurrying trees, bushes, and wrack in formidable masses to the sea. “We must shift our abode. Come along.”

Without a word more the brothers entered their cave, and began to carry out their goods and chattels. They were strong and active, but they had miscalculated the rapidity of the flood. Fortunately most of their valuables were removed to higher ground in time, but before all was got out a sudden increase in the rushing river sent a huge wave curling round the entire piece of ground on which their farm lay. It came on with devastating force, bearing produce, fences, fruit-trees, piggeries, and every movable thing on its foaming crest. The brothers dropped their loads and ran. Next moment the cavern was hollowed out to twice its former size, and the sofa, the rude cupboard, the sea-chest, and family bed were seen, with all the miscellaneous improprieties, careering madly down the yellow flood.

In their trousers and shirt-sleeves—for they had thrown off their coats, as all active men do in an emergency—the brothers watched the demolition of their possessions and hopes in solemn silence.

“I think,” said John at length, with a sigh, “I’ve made up my mind to join Frank Dobson now.”

Bob and Jim smiled grimly, but said never a word.

Meanwhile the settlers of Mount Hope farm were not idle. Although not fully alive to the danger of the storm, they saw enough to induce a course of rapid action. Goods and cattle were removed from low-lying buildings to higher ground, but the dwelling-house, being on the highest point in the neighbourhood—with the exception of the hills themselves—was deemed safe.

In these arrangements the family were ably assisted by the unexpected accession of their friends. Hans, Considine, and Dobson taxed their activity and strength to the utmost, so that things were soon put in a state of security. Dobson did, indeed, think once or twice of his old chums on the river, but a feeling of gallantry prevented his deserting the ladies in the midst of danger, and besides, he argued, the Skyds are well able to look after themselves.

Just as this thought passed through his mind the chums in question appeared upon the scene, announcing the fact that their entire farm had been swept away, and that the water was still rising.

“Well, it can’t rise much higher now,” said Edwin Brook, after condoling with his young friends on their misfortunes, “and the moment it begins to abate we shall go down to save all we can of your property. You know, my poor fellows, that I shall be only too glad to help you to the utmost of my power in such a sad extremity as this.”

The brothers thanked their neighbour, and meanwhile aided the others in removing the farm-produce and implements to higher ground.

Night at length settled down on the scene, and the wearied party returned to the cottage for food and rest.

“Do you think, Mr Marais,” said Gertie, looking up timidly at the handsome young Dutchman, “that the worst of it is over?”

Hans, who felt somewhat surprised and chilled by the “Mister,” replied that he hoped it was.

But Hans was wrong. Late that night, after they had all lain down to rest, Edwin Brook, feeling sleepless and uneasy, rose to look out at the window. All was comparatively still, and very dark. There was something grey on the ground, he thought, but judged it to be mist. The noise of the storm, with the exception of rushing streams, had gone down, and though it still rained there was nothing very unusual to cause alarm. He lay down again and tried to sleep, but in vain. Then he thought he heard the sound of the river louder than before. At the same time there was a noise that resembled the lapping of water round the frame of the house.

Jumping up, he ran to his door, opened it, discovered that the supposed mist was water, and that his dwelling was an island in a great sea.

To shout and rouse the household was the work of an instant. His guests were men of promptitude. They had merely thrown themselves down in their clothes, and appeared in an instant. Mrs Brook and Gertie were also ready, but Mrs Scholtz, being fond of comfort, had partially undressed, and was distracted between a wild effort to fasten certain garments, and restrain Junkie, who, startled by the shout, was roaring lustily.

“Not a moment to lose!” said Brook, running hastily into the room, where all were now assembled. “Everything is lost. We must think only of life. Lend a helping hand to the women, friends—mind the boy.—Come, wife.”

Brook was sharp, cool, and decisive in his manner. Seizing his wife round the waist, he hurried her out into the dark night, stepping, as he did so, above the ankles in rising water.

Dobson, Considine, and the three brothers turned with a mutual impulse towards Gertie, but Hans Marais had already taken possession of her, and, almost carrying her in his powerful arms, followed her father.

“Come, my howlin’ toolip,” said George Dally, “you’re my special and precious charge. Shut up, will you!”

He seized the child and bore him away with such violence that the howling was abruptly checked; while Scholtz, quietly gathering his still half-clad spouse under an arm, followed with heavy stride.

The others, each seizing the object that in his eyes appeared to be most valuable—such as a desk or workbox,—sprang after the household and left the house to its fate. They first made for the cattle-kraals, but these were already flooded and the cattle gone. Then they tried a barn which stood a little higher, but it was evidently no place of refuge, for the stream just there was strong, and broke against it with violence.

“To the hills,” shouted Hans, lifting Gertie off the ground altogether, as if she had been a little child.

There was no time for ceremony. Edwin Brook lifted his wife in the same manner, for the water was deepening at every step, and the current strengthening. The darkness, which had appeared dense at first, seemed to lighten as they became accustomed to it, and soon a terrible state of things became apparent. Turbid water was surging among the trees and bushes everywhere, and rushing like a mill-race in hollows. One such hollow had to be crossed before the safety of the hills could be gained. The water reached Edwin’s waist as he waded through. To prevent accident, John Skyd and Considine waded alongside and supported him. James Skyd performed the same office for Hans, and Bob waded just below Scholtz and his burden—which latter, in a paroxysm of alarm, still tried frantically to complete her toilet.

The hills were reached at last, and the whole party was safe—as far, at least, as the flood was concerned—but a terrible prospect lay before them. The farm of Mount Hope was by that time a sea of tumultuous water, which seemed in the darkness of the night to be sweeping away and tearing up trees, bushes, and houses. Behind and around them were the hills, whose every crevice and hollow was converted into a wild watercourse. Above was the black sky, pouring down torrents of rain incessantly, so that the very ground seemed to be turning into mud, and slipping away from beneath their feet. Fortunately there was no wind.

“To spend the night here will be death to the women and child,” said Edwin Brook, as they gathered under a thick bush which formed only a partial shelter; “yet I see no way of escape. Soaked as they are, a cavern, even if we can find one, will not be of much service, for our matches are hopelessly wet.”

“We must try to reach Widow Merton’s farm,” said John Skyd. “It is only three miles off and stands on highish ground.”

“It’s a bad enough road by daylight in fine weather,” said George Dally, on whose broad shoulder Junkie had fallen sound asleep, quite regardless of damp or danger, “but in a dark night, with a universal flood, it seems to me that it would be too much for the ladies. I know a cave, now, up on the hill-side, not far off, which is deep, an’ like to be dryish—”

“Never do,” interrupted Hans Marais, to whose arm Gertie clung with a feeling that it was her only hope; “they’d die of cold before morning. We must keep moving.”

“Yes, let us try to reach the widow’s farm,” said poor Mrs Brook anxiously, “I feel stronger, I think; I can walk now.”

“Zee vidow is our only chanze.—Hold up, mein vrow,” said Scholtz, taking a firmer grasp of his wife, who, having leisure to think and look about her now, felt her heart begin to fail. “I know zee road vell,” continued Scholtz. “It is bad, but I have zeen vurse. Ve must carry zee vimen. Zey could not valk.”

As the women made no objection, those who had carried them from the house again raised them in their arms—Mrs Scholtz insisting, however, on being treated a little less like a sack of old clothes—and the march along the hill-side was begun.

George Dally, knowing the way best, was set in advance to take the responsibility of guide as well as the risk of being swept away while fording the torrents. The brothers Skyd, being free from precious burdens, marched next, to be ready to support the guide in case of accident, and to watch as well as guard the passage of dangerous places by those in rear. Then followed in succession Mr Brook with his wife, Charlie Considine, Hans with Gertie, and Scholtz with his vrow, the procession closing with Frank Dobson and Junkie, the latter having been transferred to Frank when Dally took the lead.

It was a slow as well as dangerous march on that dreary night, because every step had to be taken with care, and the rivulets, white though they were with foam, could scarcely be seen in the thick darkness. Many a fall did they get, too, and many a bruise, though fortunately no bones were broken. Once George Dally, miscalculating the depth of a savage little stream, stepped boldly in and was swept away like a flash of light. Jack Skyd made a grasp at him, lost his balance and followed. For a moment the others stopped in consternation, but they were instantly relieved by hearing a laugh from George a few yards down the stream as he assisted Skyd to land. At another time Scholtz was not careful enough to follow exactly in the footsteps of Hans, and, while crossing a torrent, he put his foot in a deep hole and went down to the armpits, thereby immersing his vrow up to her neck. A wild shriek from the lady was followed by “Zounds! hold me op!” from the man.

Hans turned short round, stretched out his long right arm—the left being quite sufficient to support Gertie,—and, seizing the German’s shaggy hair with a mighty grip, held on till one of the Skyds returned to the rescue.

It was also a melancholy march on that dismal night, for poor Edwin Brook was well aware, and fully alive to the fact, that he was a ruined man. His labour for the previous three years was totally lost, and his property swept entirely away. Only life was spared,—but for that he felt so thankful as to feel his losses slightly at the time. The brothers Skyd were also painfully alive to the fact that they were ruined, and as they staggered and stumbled along, a sinking of heart unusual to their gay and cheerful natures seemed to have the effect of sinking their steps deeper in the soft mire through which they waded.

Only two of the party were in any degree cheerful. Gertie, although overwhelmed by the sudden calamity, which she had yet very imperfectly realised, felt a degree of comfort—a sort of under-current of peace—at being borne so safely along in such powerful arms; and Hans Marais, huge and deep-chested though he was, felt a strange and mysterious sensation that his heart had grown too large for his body that night. It perplexed him much at the time, and seemed quite unaccountable!

The storm had revelled furiously round the widow Merton’s wattle-and-dab cottage, and the water had risen to within a few feet of its foundations, but the effect on her mind was as nothing compared with that produced by the sudden storming of her stronghold by the Mount Hope family in the dead of night, or rather in the small hours of morning. The widow was hospitable. She and her sons at once set about making the unfortunates as comfortable as the extent of their habitation and the state of their larder would admit.

But the widow Merton was not the only one of the Albany settlers who had to offer hospitality during the continuance of that terrible catastrophe of 1823, and Edwin Brook’s was not the only family that was forced to accept it.

All over the land the devastating flood passed like the besom of destruction. Hundreds of those who had struggled manfully against the blight of the wheat crops, and Kafir thefts, and bandit raids, and oppression on the part of those who ought to have afforded aid and protection, were sunk to the zero of misfortune and despair by this overwhelming calamity, for in many cases the ruin was total and apparently irremediable. Everywhere standing crops, implements of husbandry, and even dwellings, were swept away, and whole families found themselves suddenly in a state of utter destitution. The evil was too wide-spread to admit of the few who were fortunate enough to escape rendering effectual assistance to the many sufferers, for it was obvious that hundreds of pounds would not be sufficient to succour the infant colony.

In this extremity God’s opportunity was found. The hearts of men and women far away, at Capetown, in India, and in England, were touched by the story of distress; generosity was awakened and purses were opened. Men such as HE Rutherfoord of Capetown, the Reverend Doctor Philip, the Reverend W Shaw, and others like-minded, entered heartily into the work of charity, and eventually some ten thousand pounds were distributed among those who had suffered. To many this was as life from the dead. Some who would never have recovered the blow took heart again, braced their energies anew, and ere long the wattle-and-dab cottages were rebuilt, the gardens replanted, and the lands cultivated as before.

The existence of the settlement was saved, but its prosperity was not yet secured. The battle had gone sorely against the valiant band of immigrants, and very nearly had they been routed, but the reinforcements had enabled them to rally and renew the fight. Still, it was a fight, and much time had yet to come and go before they could sit down in the sunshine of comparative peace and enjoy the fruits of their industry.

Meanwhile the oppressions and mismanagements of the Colonial Government went on as before. It were useless in a tale like this to inflict details on our readers. Suffice it to say that in the distribution of lands, in treaties with the Kafirs, in the formation of laws for the protection of Hottentots and slaves, in the treatment of the settlers, a state of things was brought about which may be described as confusion worse confounded, and the oppressed people at last demanded redress with so loud a voice that it sounded in England, and produced the Royal Commission of Investigation already referred to in a previous chapter.

The arrival of the gentlemen composing this Commission followed close on the Floods of 1823. The event, long looked for and anxiously desired, was hailed with a degree of eager delight scarcely to be understood except by those who had gone through the previous years of high-handed oppression, of weary wrangling and appeal, and of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. Expectation was raised to the highest pitch, and when it was heard that the Commissioners had reached Capetown preparations were made in Grahamstown to give them a warm reception.

Chapter Seventeen.

Treats of Hopes, Fears, and Prospects, besides describing a Peculiar Battle

Mounted on a pair of sturdy ponies Hans Marais and Charlie Considine galloped over the plains of the Zuurveld in the direction of Grahamstown. The brothers Skyd had preceded them, Edwin Brook was to follow.

It was a glorious day, though this was nothing unusual in that sunny clime, and the spirits of the young men were high. Excitement has a tendency to reproduce itself. Hans and his friend did not feel particularly or personally interested in the arrival of the Royal Commissioners, but they were sympathetic, and could not resist surrounding influences. Everywhere they overtook or passed, or somehow met with, cavaliers on the road—middle-aged and young—for old men were not numerous there at that time—all hastening to the same goal, the “city of the settlers,” and all had the same tale to tell, the same hopes to express. “Things are going to be put right now. The Commissioners have full powers to inquire and to act. We court investigation. The sky is brightening at last; the sun of prosperity will rise in the ‘east’ ere long!”

In Grahamstown itself the bustle and excitement culminated. Friends from the country were naturally stirred by meeting each other there, besides being additionally affected by the object of the meeting. Crowds gathered in the chief places of the fast rising town to discuss grievances, and friends met in the houses of friends to do the same and draw up petitions.

At last the Commissioners arrived and were welcomed by the people with wild enthusiasm.

Abel Slingsby, an impulsive youth, and a friend of Hans Marais, who had just been married to a pretty neighbour of Hans in the karroo, and was in Grahamstown on his honeymoon, declared that he would, without a moment’s hesitation, throw up his farm and emigrate to Brazil, if things were not put right without delay.