"P.S.--Don't forget that cabbages and cauliflowers must be transplanted about five weeks after they are sown."
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This was vexing enough, but when the next letter came, saying that Mrs. Burtenshaw was laid up with bronchitis and would be unable to travel for some time, John was thoroughly distressed. He knew how his father would hate hanging on indefinitely, with nothing to do, and no interests to keep him in St. Mungo's city. Mr. Halliday, however, did not remain in Glasgow. He went to his old home in the south of England, instructing Wright and MacKellar to summon him by telegraph when the lady arrived.
As time went on, the stock on the farm was considerably increased by the arrival of healthy lambs and calves. John had expected his father to return before it became necessary to drive the animals to Nairobi for sale, and he became seriously concerned as to how that was to be done. Being the only white man on the farm he could not leave it; yet the animals must be taken to market somehow, for his father was relying on the proceeds of their sale to replenish his small balance at the bank, which he had had to draw upon to meet the expenses of his prolonged stay in England. John himself was running short of "trade" for the payment of his native workers from the village, and of ready money for his immediate dependants, who required hard cash or notes of the East African currency. He did not wish to draw on the bank, as his father had authorized him to do; and he knew that the sums realized by the sale of the stock would enable him to carry on for a considerable time, and also to add to the bank surplus, upon which Mr. Halliday might have to draw at any moment.
There was no one among the hands to whom he could entrust the driving of the cattle. Wasama and his boy, no doubt, could do the actual driving, if they were not plundered on the way; but the presence of a white man would be almost a sine qua non to prevent molestation on the journey. Even in the unlikely chance of Wasama getting the beasts safely to Nairobi he could not be expected to sell them to advantage, and Said Mohammed, when John spoke of it to him one day, very frankly acknowledged that the Masai would come off second best in any attempt to barter with the traders of Nairobi, whether Indian or European.
"You have to be up to snuff, sir," said the Bengali, "in dealing with gentlemen of business capacity. Wasama is a very good chap: I have high opinion of his honesty, et cetera; but honesty is no go in markets without the possession of considerable acumen, and Wasama has not had the advantage of gaining that familiarity with the methods of civilization, which, as the proverb says, breeds contempt," an unconsciously double-edged remark which did not amuse John.
Of course he might ask the help of Mr. Gillespie, which would no doubt be very willingly given; but John was very reluctant to let things out of his own hands, having a full share of Anglo-Saxon independence. The matter, at any rate, was not immediately urgent. Two or three more months must pass before the young animals were weaned and fit to undertake the long journey; and John still hoped that by the time the sale of them became imperative his father would have returned.
It was about six months after Mr. Halliday left that John received the following letter from him--
"The lady has arrived. She's a very decent, respectable widow body. She has brought all her family, two boys and a girl--a pretty creature, the image of her mother when I first knew her. The widow produced her birth certificate and a series of photographs, the first showing her in her father's arms at about a week old, for all the world as if he were a royalty displaying the infant to a crowd of grandees. Wright and MacKellar are satisfied, which is more than I am, coming all this way on such a fool's errand. The widow wanted to repay me the £100 or so I've wasted, but of course I couldn't hear of that. I expect to sail next week. Glad to hear you're getting on well.