CHAPTER XXV
THE GREAT TREK
On the morrow we began to make ready, and a month later we trekked fromour much loved home. Jan tried to sell the farm, which was a very goodone of over six thousand morgen, or twelve thousand English acres, wellwatered, and having on it a dwelling house built of stone, with largekraals and out-buildings, an orchard of fruit-trees, and twenty morgenof crop lands that could be irrigated in the dry season, well fenced inwith walls built of loose stones. But no one would make a bid for it,for there were few English about, and most of the farmers were trekking,so at last he parted with it to a cowardly fellow, a Boer by birth, but,as I believe, a spy of the British Government, who gave him fifty poundsand an old waggon in exchange for the place and everything upon itexcept the stock which we took with us.
Some years ago I heard that this man's grandson sold that same farm fortwenty thousand pounds in cash, and that now it is a place where theybreed horses, angora goats, and ostriches in great numbers. It makes memad to think that the descendant of that low spy should have profitedso largely out of the land which was ours, but so it often chances thatthose whose hearts are small and mean reap the reward of the courage andmisfortunes of braver men. Nor should we grumble indeed, seeing that theLord has blessed us greatly in land and goods.
Ah! It was a sad home leaving. The day before we trekked Ralph rodeto visit his mother's grave for the last time, and then, following thetrack which he had taken as a child, he went to the kloof where Suzannehad found him, and sat down upon that stone on which as a child he hadknelt in prayer, and where in after years he and his lost wife had toldtheir love. Jan accompanied him upon this dismal journey, for to speaktruth we did not like to leave him more alone than we could help, sincehis manner remained strange, and when he set out on his solitary rideswe could not be certain that we should ever see him come back again.
Next morning we trekked away, and my eyes were so full of tears as I satbeneath the tent of the first waggon that the familiar landscape and thehome where I lived for twenty years and more were blotted from my sight.But I could still hear the long-nosed spy who had bought the farm, andwho as waiting to enter into possession, talking to Jan.
"Good-bye, Heer Botmar," he said, "and good fortune to you upon yourjourney. For my part I cannot understand you emigrants. The EnglishGovernment is an accursed Government, no doubt; still I would not sella farm and a house like this for fifty pounds and an old waggon in orderto wander in the wilderness to escape from it, there to be eaten bylions or murdered by Kaffirs. Still, good-bye, and good luck to you, andI hope that you are as content with your bargain as I am with mine."
"The Lord will be our guide, as He was to the Israelites of old,"answered Jan in a somewhat troubled voice.
"Yes, yes; they all say that, Heer Botmar, and I trust that they areright, for you will need nothing less than a cloud by day and a pillarof fire in the darkness to protect you from all the dangers in yourpath. Also I hope that the hosts of Pharaoh, in the shape of Englishsoldiers, will not fetch you back before you cross the border, for then,when you have sold your birthright in Egypt, and are cut off from thePromised Land, your lot will be hard, Heer Botmar."
"The Lord will guide and protect us," repeated Jan, and gave the word totrek.
In my heart at the time I was inclined to agree with that cheat'ssneering words; and yet Jan was right, and not I, for of the truth theLord did guide and protect us. Has anything more wonderful happened inthe world than this journey of a few farmers, cumbered with women andchildren, and armed only with old-fashioned muzzle-loading guns, into avast, unknown land, peopled by savages and wild beasts? Yet, look whatthey did. They conquered Moselikatse; they broke the strength of Dingaanand all his Zulu impis; they peopled the Free State, the Transvaal, andNatal. That was the work of those few farmers, and I say that of theirown strength they could never have done it; the strength was given tothem from above; the Sword of God was in their hand, and He guided thathand and blessed it.