They were now wrapped in blankets and laid on mattresses placed on the hurdles; the contents of the baskets – for others besides Mr Humphreys had brought a stock of provisions, not knowing how long the search-party might be engaged – were distributed among the workers, and then four men lifted each hurdle and the party started for home, a messenger having been sent back at full speed directly the boys were got out, to bear the glad news to Castleton.
It was just midnight when the main body returned. A second cup of brandy and milk had done much to revive the two elder boys, and Dick had been able to eat a piece of bread. James, however, had fallen asleep directly he was wrapped in the blankets, and did not awake until he was set down at his father’s door.
At both houses doctors were in waiting for their arrival. Dick was at once pronounced to be none the worse for his adventure, except that his feet were frost-bitten from long contact with the snow; indeed had it not been from this cause he could, on the following day, have been up and about. As it was, in a fortnight, he was perfectly himself again.
Tom Jackson was confined to the house for many weeks; he lost several of his toes, but eventually became strong and hearty again. James, however, never recovered – the shock to his system had been too great; he lingered on for some months, and then sank quietly and painlessly.
The events of the snow-storm left a far deeper trace upon Mrs Humphreys than upon her son. The terrible anxiety of those five days had told greatly upon her, and after they were over she seemed to lose strength rapidly. She had never been very strong, and a hacking cough now constantly shook her. The doctor who attended her looked serious, and one day said to Mr Humphreys —
“I don’t like the state of your wife; she has always been weak in her lungs, and I fear that the anxiety she went through has somehow accentuated her former tendency to consumption. The air of this place – you see she was born in the south – is too keen for her. If I were you I would take her up to London and consult some first-rate man in lung diseases, and get his opinion.”
The next day Mr Humphreys started for London. The celebrated physician examined his wife, and afterwards took him aside.
“I cannot conceal from you,” he said, “that your wife’s lungs are very seriously affected, although consumption has not yet thoroughly set in. If she remains in this country she may not live many months; your only hope is to take her abroad – could you do that?”
“Yes, sir,” Mr Humphreys said. “I can take her anywhere. Where would you advise?”
“She would benefit from a residence either in Egypt or Madeira,” the doctor said; “but for a permanency I should say the Cape. I have known many complete cures made there. You tell me that you are engaged in agricultural pursuits; if it is possible for you to settle there, I can give you every hope of saving her life, as the disease is not yet developed. If you go, don’t stay in the lowlands, but get up into the high plateaus, either behind the Cape itself, or behind Natal. The climate there is delicious, and land cheap.”
Mr Humphreys thanked him and left, returning the next day to Castleton. The astonishment of the boys, and indeed of Mrs Humphreys, was unbounded, when the farmer announced in the evening at supper that he intended to sell his land and emigrate at once to the Cape.
The boys were full of excitement at the new and strange idea, and asked numerous questions, none of which the farmer could answer; but he brought out a pile of books, which he had purchased in town, concerning the colonies and their resources, and for once Dick’s aversion to books vanished, and he was soon as much absorbed as his brother in the perusal of the accounts of the new land to which they were to go.
On the following Saturday, to the surprise of all Castleton, an advertisement appeared in the Derbyshire paper announcing the sale by auction at an early date of Mr Humphreys’ farm.
Dick and John were quite heroes among their companions, who looked with envy at boys who were going to live in a land where lions and elephants and all sorts of wild beasts abounded, to say nothing of warlike natives.
“There always seem to be Kaffir wars going on,” one boy said, “out at the Cape; you will have all sorts of excitement, Dick.”
“I don’t think that sort of excitement will be nice,” Dick replied; “it must be horribly anxious work to think every time you go out to work that the place may be attacked and every one killed before you get back. But that is all nonsense, you know; I have been reading about some of the Kaffir wars; they are in the bush-country, down by the sea. We are going up on to the high lands at the back of Natal. Father says very likely we may buy a farm in the Transvaal, but mother does not seem to like the accounts of the Dutchmen or Boers, as they are called, who live there, and says she would rather have English neighbours; so I expect if we can get a farm somewhere in the Natal colony, we shall do so.”
“You seem to know all about the place,” the boy said, surprised.
“Well, we have had seven or eight books to read about it, and I seem now to know more about South Africa than about any other country in the world. There are the diamond-fields, too, out there, and I hope, before I settle down regularly to a farm, that father will let me go for a few months and try my luck there. Would it not just be jolly to find a diamond as big as a pigeon’s egg and worth about twenty thousand pounds?”
“And do they do that?” the boy asked.
“Well, they don’t often find them as big as that; still, one might be the lucky one.”
The news that Mr Humphreys and his family were about to sell off and emigrate naturally caused a great deal of talk in and around Castleton, and put the idea into the minds of many who had never before seriously thought of it. If Mr Humphreys, who had one of the best farms in the neighbourhood, thought that it would pay him to sell his land and go out, it would surely be a good thing for others to do the same. He was considered to be a good farmer and a long-headed man; one who would not take such a step without carefully looking into the matter – for Mr Humphreys, in order to avoid questioning and the constant inquiries about his wife’s health, which would be made, did he announce that he was leaving for that reason, did not think it necessary to inform people that it was in the hopes of staving off the danger which threatened her that he was making a move.
A great many of the neighbouring labourers would gladly have gone with him; but he found by his reading that Kaffir labour was to be obtained out there very cheaply. He determined, however, to take with him two of his own hands; the one a strong active young fellow named Bill Harrison, the other a middle-aged man named Johnson, who had been with him from a boy. He was a married man with two girls, aged fifteen and sixteen, the eldest of whom was already employed by Mrs Humphreys in the house. Johnson’s wife was a superior woman of her class, and Mr Humphreys thought that it would be pleasant for his wife, having a woman at hand, whom she could speak to. The girls were to act as servants – indeed Mr Humphreys thought it probable that the whole party would live under one roof.
Among those whom Mr Humphreys’ decision to emigrate had much moved was Mr Jackson. He was not in so good a position, as he did not farm his own land; but he had sufficient capital to start him well in the colony, where a farm can be bought outright at a few shillings an acre. He talked the matter over with his friend on several occasions, and at last said —
“Well, I think I have pretty well made up my mind; the doctor is telling me that my poor little chap is not likely to live long; his mother is wrapped up in him, and will never like the place again; – so I think on all grounds a change will be good. I can’t come out with you, because I have got a lease of the farm; but I fancy that it is worth more than it was when I took it, and if I can get a good tenant to take it off my hands I don’t suppose the landlord will make any objections. I shall look about at once, and, when my poor little chap is gone, I shan’t be long before I come after you. You will let me know how you find the place, and whether these book-accounts are true? – I have heard that many of these chaps who write books are awful liars. I should like to get a farm as near you as may be.”
It was early in the spring when Mr Humphreys and his party embarked at Plymouth in the Dunster Castle. The farm had