They experienced, indeed, no difficulties whatever, and camped that night by a dam half a mile off the road, five miles out of Potchefstroom. As they had several water-bottles hung under the cart, and a bag of mealies, the horses fared as well as their masters. One of the first questions that Hans had asked after they started was, whether Mr. Chambers had actually promised him five hundred pounds.
"It seems impossible," he said, "but that is what I understood him to say."
"That is what he intends to give you, Hans."
"But it is too much; only for sitting and listening for half an hour, and firing five shots with a rifle."
"That is all that it was to you, Hans, but to him it meant saving his life, and the lives of the ladies of his family. As to the gold, he told me how it was concealed, and that the robbers could never have got at it. Still, he values his life and those of the ladies at a large sum; and as he is a very rich man, he does not think it out of the way to make you a handsome present. I told him that I should advise you to carry out what we were saying the other day would be the best-paying thing for a man of small capital—to buy a piece of land near Johannesburg or Kimberley, to sink a deep well, and to put up horse-gear and irrigate the land; and to employ half a dozen Kaffirs to grow vegetables and plant fruit-trees, just as my cousin did. Only, you would do a great deal better than Mr. Allnutt, because the Boer farmers would not pay much for their vegetables or fruit, while you would get splendid prices in either of these towns. The vegetables would begin to pay three months after you started, but of course you would have to wait a couple of years before you got any return for the fruit-trees."
Hans was silent for three or four minutes, lost in the contemplation of himself as the owner of such a place.
"We shall have plenty of time to talk it over before then, Hans," Yorke went on, after a long pause, "but I should advise you not to spend any money on building a house for yourself at first—any sort of a hut will do; and though five hundred pounds seems a very large sum to you, you will want it all for your work; the well and horse-gear will cost a good bit. Then you will have your water-courses to make, and your ground to irrigate, say five acres to begin with; and it is always a good plan to keep some money in hand in case of accidents, such as your well failing and your having to go deeper, or of your Kaffirs running away. Besides, you must have a horse and cart to take your goods to market. At any rate, Hans, if you want to get on you will have to bestir yourself. You know that young English gentlemen who come out don't think themselves above taking off their coats and working, and at first you will have to do the same. After a bit you will, as you extend your cultivated ground and carry the work further, take on more Kaffirs, and you will have to see that they do their work. That was how Mr. Allnutt did, and it is only in that way that you will get work out of them."
"It will be grand," Hans murmured; "but," he broke off suddenly, "you will not be with me, Master Yorke, and I had hoped that, whatever you were doing, you would always keep me with you."
"So I should like to do, Hans, but it would not be good for you; it is always better that a man should depend upon himself, and not upon another. Some day you will want to marry, and then you will see how much better it is to have a nice home and a business than to be merely working for wages. It was just the same way with myself. I did not like leaving my father and mother, and going to start in a strange country. But I hoped that I might some day make a home for myself here, and do well; whereas, I had no chance of earning much in England."
"Well, Master Yorke, it was a lucky day for me when you came to Mr. Allnutt's, and took me to go out riding and shooting with you."