In the midst of the confused heap of their property, Edwin Brook sat down on a large chest beside his wife and daughter, and gazed for some time in silence on his new estate and home.
To say truth, it was in many respects a pleasant prospect. A bright blue sky overhead, a verdant earth around. Grassy hills and undulations of rich pasture-land swept away from their feet like a green sea, until stopped in the far distance by the great blue sea itself. These were dotted everywhere with copses of the yellow-flowered mimosa-bush, through openings in which the glitter of a stream could be seen, while to the left and behind lay the dark masses of a dense jungle filled with arboreous and succulent plants, acacias and evergreens, wild-looking aloes, tall euphorbias, quaint cactuses, and a great variety of flowering shrubs—filled also, as was very soon discovered, with antelopes, snakes, jackals, hyenas, leopards, and other wild creatures. The only familiar objects which broke the wild beauty of the scene were the distant white specks which they knew to be the tents just put up by those settlers who chanced to be their “next neighbours.”
“May God protect and bless us in our new home!” said Edwin Brook, breaking the silence, and reverently taking off his cap.
A heartfelt “Amen” was murmured by Mrs Brook and Gertie, but a strange, though not unpleasant, feeling of loneliness had crept over their spirits, inducing them to relapse into silence, for they could not avoid realising strongly that at last they were fairly left alone to fight the great battle of life. Edwin Brook in particular, on seeing the long team of the Dutch driver disappear over a distant ridge, was for the first time deeply impressed with, as it were, the forsaken condition of himself and his family. It was plain that he must take root there and grow—or die. There was no neighbouring town or village from which help could be obtained in any case of emergency; no cart or other means of conveyance to remove their goods from the spot on which they had been left; no doctor in case of sickness; no minister in cases either of joy or sorrow—except indeed (and it was a blessed exception) Him who came to our world “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”
Strong in the comfort that this assurance gave, Edwin Brook shook off the lethargy that had been stealing over him, and set about the duties of the present hour. The tent had to be pitched, the trunks and boxes conveyed into it, a fire kindled, the kettle boiled, the goods and chattels piled and secured from the weather, firewood cut to prepare for the night-bivouac, etcetera.
Much of this work was already in progress, for George Dally,—with that ready resource and quiet capacity of adaptation to circumstances which he had displayed on the voyage out and on the journey to the location,—had already kindled a fire, sent Scholtz to cut firewood, and was busy erecting the tent when Brook joined him.
“That’s right, George,” he said, seizing a tent-peg and mallet; “we have plenty to do here, and no time to waste.”
“Very true, sir,” replied George, touching his cap, for George was an innately respectful man—respectful to all, though with a strong tendency to humorous impudence; “very true, sir; that’s just what I thought when I see you a-meditatin’, so I went to work at once without wastin’ any time.”
“Is zat enough?” asked Scholtz, staggering up at the moment with a heavy load of firewood, which he threw on the ground.
The question was put to George, for whom the big German had a special regard, and whose orders he consequently obeyed with unquestioning alacrity, although George had no special right to command.