The Settler and the Savage by R. M. Ballantyne (universal ebook reader txt) 📖

“Don’t you think this a charming life?” asked Mrs Brook of Mrs Merton, who had been her guest for a week.

Mrs Merton was about thirty years of age, and opinionated, if not strong-minded, also rather pretty. She had married young, and her eldest son, a lad of twelve, had brought her from her husband’s farm, some three miles distant from that of Edwin Brook.

“No, Mrs Brook, I don’t like it at all,” was Mrs Merton’s emphatic reply.

“Indeed!” said Mrs Brook, in some surprise.

She said nothing more after this for some time, but continued to ply her needle busily, while Mrs Scholtz, who by some piece of unusual good fortune had got Junkie to sleep, plied her scissors in cutting out and shaping raw material.

The two dames, with the nurse and Gertie, had agreed to unite their powers that day in a resolute effort to overtake the household repairs. They were in a cottage now, of the style familiarly known as “wattle and dab,” which was rather picturesque than permanent, and suggestive of simplicity. They sat on rude chairs, made by Scholtz, round a rough table by the same artist. Mrs Brook was busy with the rends in a blue pilot-cloth jacket, a dilapidated remnant of the “old England” wardrobe. The nurse was forming a sheep skin into a pair of those unmentionables which were known among the Cape-colonists of that period by the name of “crackers.” Mrs Merton was busy with a pair of the same, the knees of which had passed into a state of nonentity, while other parts were approaching the same condition. Gertie was engaged on a pair of socks, whose original formation was overlaid by and nearly lost in subsequent deposits.

“Why do you like this sort of life, Mrs Brook?” asked Mrs Merton suddenly.

“Because it is so new, so busy, so healthy, so thoroughly practical. Such a constant necessity for doing something useful, and a constant supply of something useful to do, and then such a pleasant feeling of rest when at last you do get your head on a pillow.”

“Oh! it’s delightful!” interpolated Gertie in a low voice.

“Well, now, that is strange. Everything depends on how one looks at things.—What do you think, Mrs Scholtz?” asked Mrs Merton.

“I’ve got no time to think, ma’am,” replied the nurse, giving the embryo crackers a slice that bespoke the bold fearless touch of a thorough artist. “When Junkie’s not asleep he keeps body and brain fully employed, and when he is asleep I’m glad to let body and brain alone.”

“What is your objection to this life, Mrs Merton?” asked Mrs Brook, with a smile.

“Oh! I’ve no special objection, only I hate it altogether. How is it possible to like living in a wilderness, with no conveniences around one, no society to chat with, no books to read, and, above all, no shops to go to, where one is obliged to drudge at menial work from morning till night, and one’s boys and girls get into rags and tatters, and one’s husband becomes little better than a navvy, to say nothing of snakes and scorpions in one’s bed and boots, and the howling of wild beasts all night? I declare, one might as well live in a menagerie.”

“But you must remember that things are in a transition state just now,” rejoined Mrs Brook. “As we spread and multiply over the land, things will fall more into shape. We shall have tailors and dressmakers to take the heavy part of our work in this way, and the wild beasts will retire before the rifle and the plough of civilised man; no doubt, also, shops will come in due course.”

“And what of the Kafirs?” cried Mrs Merton sternly. “Do you flatter yourself that either the plough or the rifle will stop their thievish propensities? Have we not learned, when too late—for here we are, and here we must bide,—that the black wretches have been at loggerheads with the white men ever since this was a colony, and is it not clear that gentle treatment and harsh have alike failed to improve them?”

“Wise treatment has yet to be tried,” said Mrs Brook.

“Fiddlesticks!” returned Mrs Merton impatiently. “What do you call wise treatment?”

“Gospel treatment,” replied Mrs Brook.

“Oh! come now, you know that that has also been tried, and has signally failed. Have we not heard how many hundreds of so-called black converts in this and in other colonies are arrant hypocrites, or at all events give way before the simplest temptations?”

“I have also heard,” returned Mrs Brook, “of many hundreds of so-called white Christians, whose lives prove them to be the enemies of our Saviour, and who do not even condescend to hypocrisy, for they will plainly tell you that they ‘make no pretence to be religious,’ though they call themselves Christians. But that does not prove gospel treatment among the English to have been a failure. You have heard, I daresay, of the Hottentot robber Africaner, who was long the terror and scourge of the district where he lived, but who, under the teaching of our missionary Mr Moffat, or rather, I should say, under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit, has led a righteous, peaceful, Christian life for many years. He is alive still to prove the truth of what I say.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” returned Mrs Merton, with a decisive compression of her lips.

“Well, many people have testified to the truth of this, and some of these people have seen Africaner and have believed.”

“Humph!” returned Mrs Merton.

This being an unanswerable argument, Mrs Brook smiled by way of reply, and turned a sleeve inside out, the better to get at its dilapidations. Changing the subject, she desired Gertie to go and prepare dinner, as it was approaching noon.

“What shall I prepare, mother?” asked Gertie, laying down her work.

“You’d better make a hash of the remains of yesterday’s leg of mutton, dear; it will be more quickly done than the roasting of another leg, and we can’t spare time on cookery to-day. I daresay Mrs Merton will excuse—”

“Mrs Brook,” interrupted Mrs Merton, with that Spartan-like self-denial to which she frequently laid claim, without, however, the slightest shadow of a title, “I can eat anything on a emergency. Have the hash by all means.”

“And I’m afraid, Mrs Merton,” continued Mrs Brook, in an apologetic tone, “that we shall have to dine without bread to-day—we have run short of flour. My husband having heard that the Thomases have recently got a large supply, has gone to their farm to procure some, but their place is twelve miles off, so he can’t be back till night. You won’t mind, I trust?”

Mrs Merton vowed that she didn’t mind, became more and more Spartanic in her expression and sentiments, and plied her needle with increased decision.

Just then Gertie re-entered the cottage with a face expressive of concern.

“Mother, there’s no meat in the larder.”

“No meat, child? You must be mistaken. We ate only a small part of yesterday’s leg.”

“Oh! ma’am,” exclaimed the nurse, dropping the scissors suddenly, and looking somewhat guilty, “I quite forgot, ma’am, to say that master, before he left this morning, and while you was asleep, ma’am, ordered me to give all the meat we had in the house to Scholtz, as he was to be away four or five days, and would require it all, so I gave him the leg that was hanging up in the larder, and master himself took the remains of yesterday’s leg, bidding me be sure to tell George to kill a sheep and have meat ready for dinner.”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” said Mrs Brook; “we shall just have to wait a little longer.”

Nurse looked strangely remorseful.

“But, ma’am—” she said, and paused.

“Well, nurse!”

“I forgot, ma’am—indeed I did—to tell George to kill a sheep.”

Mrs Brook’s hands and work fell on her lap, and she looked from Mrs Scholtz to her visitor, and from her to the anxious Gertie, without speaking.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mrs Merton.

“My dear,” replied Mrs Brook, with a touch of solemnity, “George Dally, our man, asked me this morning if he might go into the bush to cut rafters for the new kitchen, and I gave him leave, knowing nothing of what arrangements had been made before—and—and—in short, there’s not a man on the place, and—there’s nothing to eat.”

The four females looked at each other in blank silence for a few seconds, as the full significance of their circumstances became quite clear to them.

Mrs Merton was the first to recover.

“Now,” said she, while the Spartanic elements of her nature became intensified, “we must rise to this occasion like true women; we must prove ourselves to be not altogether dependent on man; we must face the difficulty, sink the natural tenderness of our sex, and—and—kill a sheep!”

She laid down the crackers on the table with an air of resolution, and rose to put her fell intent in execution.

But the carrying out of her plan was not so easy as the good lady had, at the first blush of the thing, imagined it would be. In the first place, like other heroes and heroines, she experienced the enervating effects of opposition and vacillating purpose in others.

“You must all help me,” she said, with the air of a commander-in-chief.

“Help you to kill a sheep, ma’am?” said Mrs Scholtz, with a shudder, “I’ll die first! I couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t, for my weight in gold.”

Notwithstanding the vehemence of her protestation, the nurse stood by and listened while the other conspirators talked in subdued tones, and with horrified looks, of the details of the contemplated murder.

“I never even saw the dreadful deed done,” said Mrs Brook, becoming pale as she thought of it.

“Oh, mamma! much better go without meat; we could dine on cakes,” suggested Gertie.

“But my love, there is not a cake or an ounce of flour in the house.”

“Women!” exclaimed Mrs Merton severely, “we must rise to the occasion. I am hungry now, and it is not yet noon; what will be our condition if we wait till night for our dinner?”

This was a home-thrust. The conspirators shuddered and agreed to do the deed. Gertie, in virtue of her youth, was exempted from taking any active part, but an unaccountable fascination constrained her to follow and be a witness—in short, an accomplice.

“Do you know where—where—the knife is kept?” asked Mrs Merton.

Mrs Scholtz knew, and brought it from the kitchen.

It was a keen serviceable knife, with a viciously sharp point. Mrs Merton received it, coughed, and hurried out to the sheep-fold, followed by her accomplices.

To catch a sheep was not difficult, for the animals