"It would be a little too far from Rock Castle," M. Zermatt replied. "I think it would be better to build this chapel near our principal residence, round which new houses will gradually gather. But, as I said before, we will look carefully into the idea."
During the three or four months which remained of the fine weather all hands were employed in the most pressing work, and from the 15th of March until the end of April there was not a single holiday. Mr. Wolston did not spare himself; but he could not take the place of Fritz and Frank in providing the farmsteads with fodder for the winter keep. There were now a hundred sheep, goats and pigs at Wood Grange; the hermitage at Eberfurt and Prospect Hill, and the cattlesheds at Rock Castle would not have been large enough to accommodate all this stock. The poultry was all brought into the poultry yard before the rainy season, and the fowls, bustards, and pigeons were attended to there every day. The geese and ducks could amuse themselves on the pond, a couple of gunshots away. It was only the draught cattle, the asses and buffaloes, and the cows and their calves that never left Rock Castle. Thus, irrespective of hunting and fishing, which were still very profitable from April to September, supplies were guaranteed merely from the produce of the yards.
On the 15th of March, however, there was still a good week before the field work would require the service of all hands. So, during that week, there would be no harm done by devoting the whole time to some trip outside the confines of the Promised Land. And this was the topic of conversation between the two families in the evening.
Mr. Wolston's knowledge was limited to the district between Jackal River and False Hope Point, including the farms at Wood Grange, the hermitage at Eberfurt, Sugar-cane Grove and Prospect Hill.
"I am surprised, Zermatt," he said one day, "that in all these twelve years neither you nor your children have attempted to reach the interior of New Switzerland."
"Why should we have tried, Wolston?" M. Zermatt replied. "Think! When the wreck of the Landlord cast us on this shore, my boys were only children, incapable of accompanying me on a journey of exploration. My wife could not have gone with me, and it would have been most imprudent to leave her alone."
"Alone with Frank, who was only five years old," Mme. Zermatt put in. "And besides, we had not abandoned hope of being picked up by some ship."
"Before all else," M. Zermatt went on, "it was a matter of providing for our immediate needs and of staying in the neighbourhood of the ship until we had taken out of her every single thing that might be useful to us. At the mouth of Jackal River we had fresh water, fields that could be cultivated easily on its right bank, and plantations all ready grown not far away. Soon afterwards, quite by chance, we discovered this healthy and safe dwelling-place at Rock Castle. Ought we to have wasted time merely satisfying our curiosity?"
"And besides," Ernest remarked, "might not leaving Deliverance Bay have meant exposing ourselves to the chance of meeting natives, like those of the Nicobars and Andamans perhaps who are such fierce savages?"
"At all events," M. Zermatt went on, "each day brought some task that sheer necessity forbade us to postpone. Each new year imposed upon us the work of the year before. And gradually, with habits formed and an accustomed sense of well-being, we struck down roots in this spot, if I may use the phrase; that is why we have never left it. So the years have gone by, and it seems only yesterday that we first came here. What would you have had us do, Wolston? We were very well off here, in this district, and it did not occur to us that it would be wise to go out of it to look for anything better."