“We shall make a prodigious saving of labour there,” said the captain. “We are obliged to keep three handmills constantly at work; and even so can scarcely get flour enough for our daily wants. When our mill is up, it will grind our whole stock in a week, and one man will be enough to look after it.”
“As I had not room to bring everything,” said Richard, “I have been more particular about a good supply of tools than about articles of machinery. I thought we might make machinery with tools more easily than we could make tools with machinery.”
“Very right. You brought the simple machinery by which we could make the complicated: for both are machinery and both are tools. Tools are simple machinery; and machinery is a complicated tool. So you have brought the means by which we may get together the parts of a forge; and then the forge will in its turn make and keep in repair our tools. But was the Governor willing to advance these goods for us?”
“Perfectly; when he heard what a variety of things we hoped to send by and by in exchange for them. I told him we were honest people, who hoped to pay for the help we wanted: and when he heard how well we were doing before we were robbed, he said he would trust us for the debt, for he thought, for our own sakes, we should keep a better watch henceforth.”
“We must see to that without delay, Richard.”
“Yes, sir; and I have brought arms and powder; and we have made an arrangement about exchanging. The Governor says it is hard upon our settlement and others to have to send so far as Cape Town; so he is to despatch a ship to an appointed place on the coast, only fifty miles from hence, and there we and all the settlers between this place and the mountains to the south are to send our fruit, and our corn, and our hides, and ostrich feathers, and anything else we may have, to be exchanged for powder, and iron, and any manufactured things that we cannot get for ourselves. The convenience is so great, that among so many settlements we can well afford to defray the expense of the little voyage; and, when I look round me, sir, I have no fear of our not being able to pay off our debt, if we can but keep thieves at a distance.”
When the waggon had crossed the stream (which was easy in its present shallow state) everybody was eager to begin to unpack; but the captain forbade any such proceeding till the morning. It was necessary that Richard should superintend; and Richard was very tired; so, when the oxen were taken out, the curious were obliged to content themselves with peeping and prying under the leather covering. There appeared a tempting store of packages, but so neatly done up, that nothing could be seen of them but here and there the blade of a saw, or the edge of a ploughshare, or the stock of a musket.
Some one asked whether watch should not be kept over their new wealth during the night.—“No doubt,” the captain replied. “There was[was] little fear of another attempt from the Bushmen at present; but there could not be too much care in watching.”
Arnall suggested that the watchers should be furnished with fire-arms, and offered his own services in that case, as he was accustomed to handle a musket. This seemed so reasonable, that Richard undertook to produce two muskets and a small barrel of powder. Arnall was properly thanked, while one said to another that his love of handling fire-arms must be very strong to overcome the dislike of night-air and fatigue in one who was so fond of his ease.
While Richard was busy upon the waggon, Arnall was seen to be talking very earnestly with him, till Richard laughed aloud, when the gentleman marched off with a very haughty step.[step.]