But with all these we have nothing to do just now. Our present duty is to follow those sections of the great immigrant band with the fortunes of which our tale has more particularly to do.
At the points of separation, where the long column broke up, a halt was made, while many farewells and good wishes were said.
“So you’re gaun to settle thereawa’?” said Sandy Black to John Skyd and his brothers as they stood on an eminence commanding a magnificent view of the rich plains and woodlands of the Zuurveld.
“Even so, friend Black,” replied John, “and sorry am I that our lot is not to be cast together. However, let’s hope that we may meet again ere long somewhere or other in our new land.”
“It is quite romantic,” observed James Skyd, “to look over this vast region and call it our own,—at least, with the right to pick and choose where we feel inclined. Isn’t it, Bob?”
To this Bob replied that it was, and that he felt quite like the children of Israel when they first came in sight of the promised land.
“I hope we won’t have to fight as hard for it as they did,” remarked Frank Dobson.
“It’s my opeenion,” said Sandy Black, “that if we haena to fight for it, we’ll hae to fight a bit to keep it.”
“Perhaps we may,” returned John Skyd, “and if so, fighting will be more to my taste than farming—not that I’m constitutionally pugnacious, but I fear that my brothers and I shall turn out to be rather ignorant cultivators of the soil.”
Honest Sandy Black admitted that he held the same opinion.