Our Home in the Silver West Part 12

'I was thinking,' he said. '_You_ were thinking; _he_, _she_, or _it_ was thinking. Well, my good people, you may stop all your life in Buenos Ayres and conjugate the verb "to think"; but if you'll take my advice you will put a shoulder to the wheel of life, and try to conjugate the verb "to do".'

'We all want to _do_ and act,' said Donald, energetically.

'Right. Well, you see, you have one thing already in your favour. You have a wee bit o' siller in your pouch. It is a nest egg, though; it is not to be spent--it is there to bring more beside it. Now, will I tell you how I got on in the world? I'm not rich, but I am in a fair way to be independent. I am very fond of work, for work's sake, and I'm thirty years of age. Been in this country now for over fourteen years. Had I had a nest egg when I started, I'd have been half a millionaire by now. But, wae's me! I left the old country with nothing belonging to me but my crook and my plaid.'

'You were a shepherd before you came out, then?' said aunt.

'Yes; and that was the beauty of it. You've maybe heard o' Foudland, in Aberdeenshire? Well, I came fra far ayant the braes o' Foudland. That's, maybe, the way my mither's sae auldfarrent. There, ye see, I'm talkin'

Scotch, for the very thought of Foudland brings back my Scotch tongue. Ay, dear lady, dear lady, my father was an honest crofter there. He owned a bit farm and everything, and things went pretty well with us till death tirled at the door-sneck and took poor father away to the mools. I was only a callan o' some thirteen summers then, and when we had to leave the wee croft and sell the cows we were fain to live in a lonely shieling on the bare brae side, just a b.u.t.t and a ben with a wee kailyard, and barely enough land to grow potatoes and keep a little Shetland cowie. But, young though I was, I could herd sheep--under a shepherd at first, but finally all by myself. I'm not saying that wasn't a happy time. Oh, it was, lady!

it was! And many a night since then have I lain awake thinking about it, till every scene of my boyhood's days rose up before me. I could see the hills, green with the tints of spring, or crimson with the glorious heather of autumn; see the braes yellow-ta.s.selled with the golden broom and fragrant with the blooming whins; see the glens and dells, the silver, drooping birch-trees, the grand old waving pines, the wimpling burns, the roaring linns and lochs asleep in the evening sunset. And see my mither's shieling, too; and many a night have I lain awake to pray I might have her near me once again.'

'And a kind G.o.d has answered that prayer!'

'Ay, Miss M'Crimman, and I'll have the sad satisfaction of one day closing her een. Never mind, we do our duty here, and we'll all meet again in the great "Up-bye." But, dear boys, to continue my story--if story I dare call it. Not far from the hills where I used to follow Laird Glennie's sheep, and down beside a bonnie wood and stream, was a house, of not much pretension, but tenanted every year by a gentleman who used to paint the hills and glens and country all round. They say he got great praise for his pictures, and big prices as well. I used often to arrange my sheep and dogs for him into what he would call picturesque groups and att.i.tudes.

Then he painted them and me and dogs and all. He used to delight to listen to my boyish story of adventure, and in return would tell me tales of far-off lands he had been in, and about the Silver Land in particular.

Such stories actually fired my blood. He had sown the seeds of ambition in my soul, and I began to long for a chance of getting away out into the wide, wide world, and seeing all its wonders, and, maybe, becoming a great man myself. But how could a penniless laddie work his way abroad?

Impossible.

'Well, one autumn a terrible storm swept over the country. It began with a perfect hurricane of wind, then it settled down to rain, till it became a perfect "spate." I had never seen such rain, nor such tearing floods as came down from the hills.

'Our shieling was a good mile lower down the stream than the artist's summer hut. It was set well up the brae, and was safe. But on looking out next day a sight met my eyes that quite appalled me. All the lowlands and haughs were covered with a sea of water, down the centre of which a mighty river was chafing and roaring, carrying on its bosom trees up-torn from their roots, pieces of green bank, "stooks" of corn and "coles" of hay, and, saddest of all, the swollen bodies of sheep and oxen. My first thought was for the artist. I ran along the bank till opposite his house.

Yes, there it was flooded to the roof, to which poor Mr. Power was clinging in desperation, expecting, doubtless, that every moment would be his last, for great trees were surging round the house and dashing against the tiles.

'Hardly knowing what I did, I waved my plaid and shouted. He saw me, and waved his arm in response. Then I remembered that far down stream a man kept a boat, and I rushed away, my feet hardly seeming to touch the ground, till I reached--not the dwelling, that was covered, but the bank opposite; and here, to my delight, I found old M'Kenzie seated in his coble. He laughed at me when I proposed going to the rescue of Mr. Power.

'"Impossible!" he said. "Look at the force of the stream."

'"But we have not to cross. We can paddle up the edge," I insisted.

'He ventured at last, much to my joy. It was hard, dangerous work, and often we found it safest to land and haul up the boat along the side.

'We were opposite the artist's hut at length, hardly even the chimney of which was now visible. But Power was safe as yet.

'At the very moment our boat reached him the chimney disappeared, and with it the artist. The turmoil was terrible, for the whole house had collapsed. For a time I saw nothing, then only a head and arm raised above the foaming torrent, far down stream. I dashed in, in spite of M'Kenzie's remonstrances, and in a minute more I had caught the drowning man. I must have been struck on the head by the advancing boat. That mattered little--the st.u.r.dy old ferryman saved us both; and for a few days the artist had the best room in mither's shieling.

'And this, dear lady, turned out to be--as I dare say you have guessed--my fairy G.o.dfather. He went back to Buenos Ayres, taking me as servant. He is here now. I saw him but yesterday, and we are still the fastest friends.

'But, boys, do not let me deceive you. Mr. Power was not rich; all he could do for me was to pay my pa.s.sage out, and let me trust to Providence for the rest.

'I worked at anything I could get to do for a time, princ.i.p.ally holding horses in the street, for you know everybody rides here. But I felt sure enough that one day, or some day, a settler would come who could value the services of an honest, earnest Scottish boy.

'And come the settler did. He took me away, far away to the west, to a wild country, but one that was far too flat and level to please me, who had been bred and born among the grand old hills of Scotland.

'Never mind, I worked hard, and this settler--a Welshman he was--appreciated my value, and paid me fairly well. The best of it was that I could save every penny of my earnings.

'Yes, boys, I roughed it more than ever you'll have to do, though remember you'll have to rough it too for a time. You don't mind that, you say.

Bravely spoken, boys. Success in the Silver Land rarely fails to fall to him who deserves it.

'Well, in course of time I knew far more about sheep and cattle-raising than my master, so he took me as a partner, and since then I have done well. We changed our quarters, my partner and I. We have now an excellent steading of houses, and a grand place for the beasts.'

'And to what qualities do you chiefly attribute your success?' said my aunt.

'Chiefly,' replied Moncrieff, 'to good common-sense, to honest work and perseverance. I'm going back home in a week or two, as soon as I get married and my mither gets the "swimming" out of her head. She says she still feels the earth moving up and down with her; and I don't wonder, an auld body like her doesn't stand much codging about.

'Well, you see, boys, that I, like yourselves, had one advantage to begin with. You have a bit o' siller--I got a fairy G.o.dfather. But if I had a year to spare I'd go back to Scotland and lecture. I'd tell them all my own ups and downs, and I'd end by saying that lads or young men, with plenty of go in them and willingness to work, will get on up country here if they can once manage to get landed. Ay, even if they have hardly one penny to rattle against another.

'Now, boys, do you care to go home with me? Mind it is a wild border-land I live on. There are wild beasts in the hill jungles yet, and there are wilder men--the Indians. Yes, I've fought them before, and hope to live to fight them once again.'

'I don't think _we'll_ fear the Indians _very_ much,' said my bold brother Donald.

'And,' I added, 'we are so glad you have helped us to solve the problem that we stood face to face with--namely, how to begin to do something.'

'Well, if that is all, I'll give you plenty to do. I've taken out with me waggon-loads of wire fencing as well as a wife. Next week, too, I expect a ship from Glasgow to bring me seven st.u.r.dy Scotch servant men that I picked myself. Every one of them has legs like pillar post-offices, hands as broad as spades, and a heart like a lion's. And, more than all this, we are trying to form a little colony out yonder, then we'll be able to hold our own against all the reeving Indians that ever strode a horse. Ah!

boys, this Silver Land has a mighty future before it! We have just to settle down a bit and work with a will and a steady purpose, then we'll fear compet.i.tion neither with Australia nor the United States of America either.

'But you'll come. That's right. And now I have you face to face with fate and fortune.

"Now's the day and now's the hour, See the front of battle lower."

Yes, boys, the battle of life, and I would not give a fig for any lad who feared to face it.

'Coming, mither, coming. That's the auld lady waking up, and she'll want a cup o' tea.'

CHAPTER IX.

SHOPPING AND SHOOTING.

We all went to Moncrieff's wedding, and it pa.s.sed off much the same way as do weddings in other parts of the world. The new Mrs. Moncrieff was a very modest and charming young person indeed, and a native of our sister island--Ireland. I dare say Moncrieff loved his wife very much, though there was no extra amount of romance about his character, else he would hardly have spoken about his wife and a truck-load of wire fencing in the self-same sentence. But I dare say this honest Scot believed that wire fencing was quite as much a matter of necessity in the Silver West as a wife was.

As for my brothers and me, and even aunt, we were impatient now--'burning'

bold Donald called it--to get away to this same Silver West and begin the very new life that was before us.

But ships do not always arrive from England exactly to a day; the vessel in which Moncrieff's men, dogs, goods, and chattels were coming was delayed by contrary winds, and was a whole fortnight behind her time.

Meanwhile we restrained ourselves as well as we could, and aunt went shopping. She had set her heart upon guanaco robes or ponchos for each of us; and though they cost a deal of money, and were, according to Moncrieff, a quite unnecessary expense, she bought them all the same.

'They will last for ever, you know,' was aunt's excuse for the extravagance.

'Yes,' he said, 'but we won't. Besides,' he added, 'these ponchos may bring the Gaucho malo (the bad Gaucho) round us.'

'All the better,' persisted aunt. 'I've heard such a deal about this Gaucho malo that I should very much like to see a live specimen.'

Moncrieff laughed.