Years, with their summers and winters, their joys and sorrows, have passed away, since the Cleopatra, her long and wearying voyage over, cast anchor in one of the extensive bays of Southern Africa. How eagerly and anxiously her many passengers looked across the belt of heaving waters toward the land, which, low at first, gradually rose into ranges of lofty hills, stretching far into the distance! For most of them had crossed the ocean, and bidden adieu to their remoter kindred, in the hope of finding, amid its secluded valleys, some "forest sanctuary," where the bonds of the world that had hitherto chafed them might be unfelt, and their efforts at earning a livelihood for themselves and little ones be better rewarded.
Foremost among them stood a man, the eagle keenness of whose eye bespoke him one fitted to cope, and successfully, with the world, in whatever phase it might present itself. But it was not so; and Robert Tryon, despite years of unwearying effort, now stood gazing on the shores of the far south, a world-worn and almost penniless man, and one whose spirit was embittered, and his heart hardened, by seeing others, whom he deemed less worthy, victors in the arena where he could achieve nothing.
While thus he stood pondering with contracted brow, on what might be the result of this last decisive step of emigration, a sweet, childish voice by his side exclaimed,
"Let me see too, father."
Immediately the stern expression passed away, and with a bright smile he raised the little girl to stand where she might easily look over the bulwark. Robert Tryon was devotedly attached to his wife and family; and the more the chilling blasts of adversity had frozen his heart toward the world, the more did it gush forth in warm affection to those surrounding his own humble and sometimes ill-supplied fireside; and he felt that to see them possessed of the comforts of life befitting their station—more he asked not, wished not—would be a happiness that would, in his estimation, render the labor of even a galley-slave light.
But dearer than all was his little fairy Kate, as fair and beautiful a child as the eye need wish to rest upon, with soft, dark, earnest eyes, looking forth from among her brown clustering curls as though the misfortunes of her parents had dispelled the joyous beams of childhood, and awakened her already to the realities of life, and a sweet smile playing upon her rosy lips, as if, in the buoyancy of her innocent spirit, hoping and trusting a brighter future.
And the child's trust seemed not misplaced, for brighter days soon began to dawn upon them. Robert Tryon obtained a small farm in one of the deep fertile hollows branching off from the great valley of the Fish River; and though it needed both time and labor to render it productive, both were ungrudgingly bestowed; and some five or six years after his arrival, Willow Dell (so named from the fringe of Babylonian willows that swept the little streamlet murmuring through it), was as fair a scene of rural promise as the wide frontier could show.
And for a while Robert Tryon was a happy and contented man; his loved ones were growing up beautiful and joyous around him, and the humble competence he once had sighed for was now theirs: few, indeed, are they whose wishes are so fully gratified! But it sufficed not long. With prosperity loftier ideas awoke in Tryon's breast; and after a time he began to pine for riches to bestow on the children whom every succeeding day rendered yet dearer, and whom he felt assured wealth would grace so well. How, as he wandered at evening beside the willows, he would dream of the proud future that—could his wishes be realized—might be in store for his promising sons and beautiful daughters, in some higher sphere; and how in years to come they might revisit their fatherland, and look scornfully down on those who in other days had despised himself!
Occupied with such visions, discontent began to take possession of his heart. It would be years—many years—ere by his farm he could hope to obtain such results; and ere that his children's youth would be passed—their lot in life decided, and riches not so precious; and again he felt that he could toil as man never yet had toiled, to bestow wealth on his children.
Of the many objects man pursues with avidity, gold is not the one that most frequently eludes him, for there are many modes by which it may be obtained, and one of these presented itself to Tryon.