“Well, we shall try our best,” said the elder Skyd, with a laugh; “I’ve a great belief in that word ‘try’.—Goodbye, Sandy.” He held out his hand.
The Scot shook it warmly, and the free-and-easy brothers, after bidding adieu to the rest of the Scotch party, who overtook them there, diverged to the right with their friend Frank Dobson, and walked smartly after their waggons, which had gone on in advance.
“Stoot chields they are, an’ pleesant,” muttered Sandy, leaning both hands on a thick cudgel which he had cut for himself out of the bush, “but wofu’ ignorant o’ farmin’.”
“They’ll make their mark on the colony for all that,” said a quiet voice at Sandy’s elbow.
Turning and looking up, as well as round, he encountered the hazel eyes and open countenance of Hans Marais.
“Nae doot, nae doot, they’ll mak’ their mark, but it’ll no’ be wi’ the pleugh, or I’m sair mista’en. Wull mair o’ the settlers be pairtin’ frae us here?”
Hans, although ignorant of the dialect in which he was addressed, understood enough to make out its drift.
“Yes,” he replied, “several parties leave us at this point, and here comes one of them.”
As he spoke, the cracking of whips announced the approach of a team. A moment later, and a small Hottentot came, round a bend in the road, followed by the leading pair of oxen. It was the train of Edwin Brook, who soon appeared, riding a small horse. George Dally walked beside him. Scholtz, the German, followed, conversing with the owner of the waggon. In the waggon itself Mrs Brook, Mrs Scholtz, and Junkie found a somewhat uneasy resting-place, for, being new to the style of travel, they had not learned to accommodate themselves to jolts and crashes. Gertie preferred to walk, the pace not being more than three miles an hour.
“Oh, father!” said Gertie, running up to the side of her sire, with girlish vivacity, “there is the tall Dutchman who was so polite to me when I was pricked by the thorn bush.”