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Mass' George: A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 1 |
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_ Chapter One.
You'll find it all in your histories; how the General had leave to take so many followers, and carve out for themselves land and estates in the beautiful new country. My father was one of the party. He went, for he was sick at heart and despondent. He had married a sweet English lady--my mother--and when I was about six years old she died; and after growing more and more unhappy for a couple of years, his friends told him that if he did not seek active life of some kind, he would die too, and leave me an orphan indeed. That frightened him so that he raised himself up from his despondent state, readily embraced the opportunity offered by the General's expedition, sold his house in the country to which he had retired on leaving the army, and was going out to the southern part of North America with me only. But Sarah would not hear of parting from me, and begged my father to take her to be my attendant and his servant, just as on the same day Morgan Johns, our gardener, had volunteered to go with his master. Not that he was exactly a gardener, though he was full of gardening knowledge, and was a gardener's son; for he had been in my father's company in the old regiment, and when my father left it, followed him down and settled quite into a domestic life. Well, as Morgan Johns volunteered to go with the expedition, and said nothing would suit him better than gardening in a new country, and doing a bit of fighting if it was wanted, and as our Sarah had volunteered too, it fell out quite as a matter of course, that one day as my father was seated in his room writing letters, and making his final preparations for his venturesome journey, and while I was seated there looking at the pictures in a book, Morgan and Sarah came in dressed in their best clothes, and stood both of them looking very red in the face. "Well?" said my father, in the cold, stern way in which he generally spoke then; "what is it?" "Tell him, Sarah," I heard Morgan whisper, for I had gone up to put my hand in hers. "For shame!" she said; "it's you who ought." "Now look you," said Morgan, who was a Welshman, and spoke very Welshy sometimes, "didn't you just go and promise to help and obey? And the first thing I tells you to do you kicks." "I am very busy," said my father. "If you two want a holiday, say so." "Holiday, sir? Not us," said Morgan, in a hesitating way. "We don't want no holiday, sir, only we felt like as it was our dooty to tell you what--" "To tell me what?" "Yes, sir; seeing as we were going out to a savage country, where you've got to do everything yourself before you can have it, and as there'd be no parsons and churches, we thought we'd get it done decent and 'spectable here first." "My good fellow, what do you mean?" said my father. "Why, what I've been telling of you, sir. Sarah says--" "I did not, Morgan, and I shouldn't have thought of such a thing. It was all your doing." "Steady in the ranks, my lass. Be fair. I'll own to half of it, but you know you were just as bad as me." "I was not, sir, indeed," cried Sarah, beginning to sob. "He deluded me into it, and almost forced me to say yes." "Man's dooty," said Morgan, dryly. "What!" cried my father, smiling; "have you two gone and been married?" "Stop there, sir, please, begging your pardon," said Morgan; "I declare to gootness, you couldn't make a better guess than that." "I beg your pardon, sir," said Sarah, who was very red in the face before, but scarlet now; and as I sit down and write all this, as an old man, everything comes back to me as vividly as if it were only yesterday--for though I have forgotten plenty of my later life, all this is as fresh as can be--"I beg your pardon, sir, but as you know all the years I have been in your service, and with my own dear angel of a mistress--Heaven bless her!" "Amen," said my father, and, stern soldier as he was, I saw the tears stand thick in his eyes, for poor Sarah broke down and began to sob, while Morgan turned his face and began to blow his nose like a trumpet out of tune. "I--I beg your pardon for crying, sir, and it's very weak, I own," continued Sarah, after a few minutes' interval, during which I hurriedly put my arm round her, and she dabbed down and kissed me, leaving my face very wet; "but you know I never meant to be married, but when Morgan comes to me and talks about what I was thinking about--how you and that poor darling motherless boy was to get on in foreign abroad, all amongst wild beasts and savages, and no one to make a drop o' gruel if you had colds, or to make your beds, or sew on a button, and your poor stockings all in holes big enough to break any decent woman's heart, and to Master George's head--" "I can wash my own head well enough now, Sarah," I said. "Yes, my dear; but I don't believe you'd do it as well as I could, and you know I never let the soap get in your eyes. And when, sir, Morgan comes to me, and he asks me if I'd got the heart to let you both go out into the wilderness like that without a soul to look after you, and tells me as it was my dooty to marry him, and go out and look after the housekeeping for you both, while he did the garden, what could I say?" Poor Sarah paused quite out of breath. "Say?" said my father, smiling, but looking very much moved. "You could only say _yes_, like the good, true-hearted woman you are." "Oh, sir!" exclaimed Sarah. "You have both relieved me of a great deal of care and anxiety by your faithful, friendly conduct," continued my father, "for it will make what I am going to seek in the wilderness quite a home at once. It is not the wilderness you think, for I know on very good authority that the place where we are going is a very beautiful and fertile country." "Can't come up to Wales," said Morgan, shaking his head. "Perhaps not," said my father, smiling; "but very beautiful all the same. I ought to warn you both, though, while there is time to draw back, that the land is entirely new." "What, wasn't it made with the rest of the world, sir?" said Morgan, staring. "Yes, of course," said my father; "but I mean it has never been inhabited more than by a few Indians, who passed through it when hunting. No houses; not so much as a road." "Then there won't be no taverns, Sarah," said Morgan, giving her a nudge. "And a very good thing too," she replied. "So that," continued my father, "I shall have to help cut down the trees to build my own house, make my own furniture, and fence in the estate-- in short, do everything." "Well, I don't see nothing to grumble at in that, sir, so long as there's plenty of wood," said Morgan. "There'll be too much wood, my man," said my father, smiling, "and we shall have to ply the axe hard to clear our way." "Any stone or slate, sir?" "Plenty of stone, but no slate that I am aware of." "No," cried Morgan, triumphantly. "I knew there'd be no slate. That proves as it won't come up to Wales. There isn't such a country for slate anywhere as Wales. Well, sir, but even if there's no slate, we can make shift. First thing we do as soon as we get out, will be for me to rig the missus up a bit of a kitchen, and we shall take a few pots and pans in a box." "Oh, I shall go well provided with necessaries," said my father. "Then pray don't forget a frying-pan, sir. It's wonderful what the missus here can do with a frying-pan." "Do be quiet, Morgan Johns," said Sarah. "Shan't," he growled. "I'm a-telling of the truth. It's wonderful, sir, that it is. Give her a frying-pan and a bit o' fire, and we shan't never hurt for a bit o' well-cooked victuals." "But--" began my father, when Morgan rushed in again. "Washin', sir, I forgot all about the washing. We shall want a tub and a line. Trees 'll do for tying up to, and you'll see we shall none of us ever want for clean clothes." "Do be quiet, Morgan." "I shan't, Sarah. It's only fair as the master should know what you can do, look you." "But I wish you people to think seriously now, while there is yet time," said my father. "Seriously, sir? Oh yes, we've been thinking of it seriously enough, and--I say, missus, do try and do without flat-irons; they're very heavy kind o' traps for a man to take in his kit." "Come, come," said my father; "you had better think better of it, and not embrace such a rough life." "We have thought better on it, sir, and the very best too. We're coming, and if you won't take us, we'll come without. And look you, sir, of course you'll take some guns, and swords, and powder and shot." "Of course." "Then don't forget some tools: spades, and hoes, and seeds, and some carpenter's things and nails. You can't think what a deal can be done with a hammer, a saw, and a few nails." "Then you mean to come?" "Mean to come, sir?" cried Morgan, in astonishment. "Why we got married o' purpose; didn't we, Sarah?" "Oh yes, sir; that's the very truth." "And we shall be obliged to go now." I did not see where the obligation came in, but I supposed it was all right. "Then I can only say thank you heartily," cried my father, warmly; "and for my part, I'll do my duty by you both." "Of course we know that, don't we, Sarah? Or else we shouldn't go." "My dear master!" said Sarah, and she bent forward and kissed his hand before clapping her handkerchief to her eyes, and rushing out of the room. "She'll be all right, sir, soon," whispered Morgan. "And look you, I'll begin getting together all sorts of little tackle, sir, as I think 'll be useful out yonder. Knives and string, and--look you, Master George, strikes me as a few hooks and lines wouldn't be amiss. A few good fish in a frying-pan, cooked as Sarah can cook 'em, arn't to be sneezed at now and then." He gave us both a sharp nod, and hastily followed his wife, while I stayed to pester my father with endless questions about our new home. _ |
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