Together they went on shore. Brentham had not even stayed to say good-bye. Somebody saw after her luggage. She had so lost interest in it that she did not care if anything was missing.... Then John said: "I hope you've brought out the Harmonium that your uncle gave us," and she replied a little listlessly: "Oh yes! it was such a bother getting it across London, but I think it's on board."
"I am taking you," said John, inconsequently, in the boat, devouring her with his eyes all the time, "to stay with Mrs. Ewart Stott until we're married."
CHAPTER VII
UNGUJA—AND UP-COUNTRY
Every two or three years in those days you met either Mr. or Mrs. Ewart Stott at Unguja, usually at the ramshackle residence and place of business of Mr. Callaway, the Commercial Agent of the East African Mission. And when Mrs. Ewart Stott was there she took command, so that you instinctively greeted her as hostess. Mr. Callaway was quite willing it should be so, because she accomplished wonders in setting his untidy house in order; she gingered up his servants and routed the cockroaches, chased away some of the smells, and generally cured a feverish attack by quinine, chicken broth, and motherly care.
The Ewart Stotts as missionaries were independent because Mrs. Ewart Stott had begun as Church of England and Mr. E. S. as a Presbyterian, yet they could not quite agree with the discipline or the ideals of the different churches or sects and preferred evangelizing East Africa on a plan of their own. They had private means—at any rate at first; until they had run through them in founding mission stations, whereafter they were supported by anonymous benefactors. And as their tenets and modus operandi were nearest to those of the Methodists' East African Mission, they worked alongside them and made use of their Agent and depôt at Unguja.
Both were of Ulster parentage, with some admixture of a more genial stock; yet both were born in Australia. She as a Miss Ewart and he originally a Mr. Stott. At the same moment, so to speak, they had "found Christ," and it really seemed a logical sequel that Providence should bring them together at some Australian religious merry-making. They instantly fell in love, quickly married and fused their surnames. She was twenty, he twenty-two. She was distinctly personable and he quite good-looking. They had probably been born, both of them, perfectly good, unconsciously sinless, so that the getting of religion did not make them better or more likeable but only afflicted them with a mania for quoting hymns, psalms, and Bible texts à tout propos and seeing the Lord's hand, His Divine interference in every incident, every accident, any change for better or worse which affected themselves. They were constantly in receipt of Divine intimations generally after communing in prayer. And these they obeyed as promptly as possible.
For instance, only six months after they were married, and when their eldest child was already on its way, they were inspired to evangelize East Africa. Forthwith they sold up their home in South Australia, took ship with an immense outfit to Aden, and thence transferred themselves to Unguja and the Zangian mainland.
They wished to preach nothing but "Christ crucified" and the new life which black men and white men should lead after "accepting of" this sacrifice, this atonement for the presumed sinfulness of poor, martyred humanity. But despite this broad, if illogical, basis of their propaganda, they were afflicted with a bitter dislike of Science, which they concentrated on the theory of Evolution, or on any Biblical criticism which would weaken their faith in a very manlike God who apparently turned his back on his own universe to concern himself solely and very fussily, very ineffectively with one of its grains of dust, a tiny planet circling round a fifth-rate star among a billion other stars. For the rest, they had infinite courage, infinite love and charity, immense powers of work, but no sense of humour.
Consul after Consul warned them as to the risks they ran in plunging—Father, Mother and Babies—into unexplored Africa of the worst reputation. They smilingly ignored warnings and protests, ... wild beasts, wild peoples, wild climates, wild scenery—all seemed against them. Mr. Stott was once tossed by a rhinoceros into a river; but the water broke his fall and he emerged before the crocodiles woke up, and staggered back to camp, only slightly wounded. Shortly afterwards, hundreds of Masai warriors charged their camp, and their coast porters fled into the bush. The naked, fat-and-ochre-anointed warriors with their six-foot spears found Mrs. Stott sipping tea at her camp-table and sewing clothes for her baby, while Mr. Stott with bound-up wounds was lying on a camp-bed. Mrs. Stott, convinced that the Almighty was somewhere in the offing, smiled on the warriors and shared her plum cake among the foremost. They returned the smile, enlarging it into a roar of laughter. After executing a war dance they withdrew, and later on sent her a large gourd of fresh milk.