There was, we need scarcely observe, a strong spice of wickedness in George. If he had suggested a lion, or even an elephant, there would have been something definite for poor Jerry’s anxious mind to lay hold of and try to reason down and defy, but that dreadful “anything” that might come, gave him nothing to hold by. It threw the whole zoological ferocities of South Africa open to his unanchored imagination, and for a long time banished sleep from his eyes.
He allowed the blunderbuss to remain as his friend had placed it, and hugged the naked bowie-knife to his breast. In addition to these weapons he had provided himself with a heavy piece of wood, something like the exaggerated truncheon of a policeman, for the purpose of killing snakes, should any such venture near his couch.
The wild shrieks of laughter at the neighbouring Hottentot fire helped to increase Jerry’s wakefulness, and when this at last lulled, the irritation was kept up by the squalling of Master Junkie, whose tent was about three feet distant from Jerry’s pillow, and who kept up a vicious piping just in proportion to the earnestness of Mrs Scholtz’s attempts to calm him.
At last, however, the child’s lamentations ceased, and there broke upon the night air a sweet sound which stilled the merriment of the natives. It was the mellow voice of Stephen Orpin singing a hymn of praise, with a number of like-minded emigrants, before retiring to rest. Doubtless some of those who had already retired, and lay, perchance, watching the stars and thinking dreamily of home, were led naturally by the sweet hymn to think of the home in the “better land,” which might possibly be nearer to some of them than the old home they had left for ever—ay, even than the new “locations” to which they were bound.
But, whatever the thoughts suggested, the whole camp soon afterwards sank into repose. Tent-doors were drawn and curtains of waggon-tilts let down. The boers, sticking their big pipes in their hatbands, wrapped themselves in greatcoats, and, regardless of snake or scorpion, stretched their limbs on the bare ground, while Hottentots, negroes, and Bushmen, rolling themselves in sheepskin karosses, lay coiled up like balls with their feet to the fire. Only once was the camp a little disturbed, during the early part of the night, by the mournful howl of a distant hyena. It was the first that the newcomers had heard, and most of those who were awake raised themselves on their elbows eagerly to listen.
Jerry was just dropping into slumber at the time. He sat bolt upright on hearing the cry, and when it was repeated he made a wild grasp at the blunderbuss, but Dally was beforehand. He caught up the weapon, and this probably saved an explosion.
“Come, lie down, you imp!” he said, somewhat sternly.
Jerry obeyed, and his nose soon told that he had reached the land of dreams.
Dally then quietly drew the charge of shot, but left the powder and laid the piece in its former position. Turning over with the sigh of one whose active duties for the day have been completed, he then went to sleep.
Gradually the fires burned low, and gave out such flickering uncertain light, when an occasional flame leaped up ever and anon, that to unaccustomed eyes it might have seemed as though snakes were crawling everywhere, and Jerry Goldboy, had he been awake, would have beheld a complete menagerie in imagination. But Jerry was now in blessed oblivion.
When things were in this condition, that incomprehensible subtlety, the brain of Junkie Brook—or something else—so acted as to cause the urchin to give vent to a stentorian yell. Strong though it was, it did not penetrate far through the canvas tent, but being, as we have said, within a few feet of Jerry’s ear, it sounded to that unhappy man like the united, and as yet unknown, shriek of all the elephants and buffaloes in Kafirland.
Starting up with a sharp cry he stretched out his hand towards the blunderbuss, but drew it back with a thrill of horror. A huge black snake lay in its place!
To seize his truncheon was the act of a moment. The next, down it came with stunning violence on the snake. The reptile instantly exploded with a bellowing roar of smoke and flame, which roused the whole camp.
“Blockhead! what d’you mean by that?” growled George Dally, turning round sleepily, but without rising, for he was well aware of the cause of the confusion.
Jerry shrank within himself like a guilty thing caught in the act, and glanced uneasily round to ascertain how much of death and destruction had been dealt out. Relieved somewhat to see no one writhing in blood, he arose, and, in much confusion, replied to the numerous eager queries as to what he had fired at. When the true state of affairs became manifest, most of the Dutchmen, who had been active enough when aroused by supposed danger, sauntered back to their couches with a good-natured chuckle; the settlers who had “turned out” growled or chaffed, according to temperament, as they followed suit, and the natives spent half an hour in uproarious merriment over Booby’s dramatic representation of the whole incident, which he performed with graphic power and much embellishment.
Thereafter the camp sank once more into repose, and rested in peace till morning.
Chapter Six.
Spreading over the Land
With the dawn next morning the emigrants were up and away. The interest of the journey increased with every novel experience and each new discovery, while preconceived notions and depressions were dissipated by the improved appearance of the country.
About the same time that the Scotch “party” left the Bay, several of the other parties set out, some large and some small, each under its appointed leader, to colonise the undulating plains of the Zuurveld.
Soon the pilgrims became accustomed to the nightly serenade of hyena and jackal—also to breakneck steeps, and crashing jolts, and ugly tumbles. But they were all hopeful, and most of them were young, and all, or nearly all, were disposed to make light of difficulties.
The country they were about to colonise had been recently overrun by Kafir hordes. These had been cleared out, and driven across the Great Fish River by British and Colonial troops, leaving the land a wilderness, with none to dispute possession save the wild beasts. It extended fifty miles along the coast from the Bushman’s River to the Great Fish River, and was backed by an irregular line of mountains at an average distance of sixty miles from the sea.
Leaving the Zwartkops River, not only the Scottish party, but all the other parties, filed successively away in long trains across the Sundays River, over the Addo Hill and the Quagga Flats and the Bushman’s River heights, until the various points of divergence were reached, when the column broke into divisions, which turned off to their several locations and overspread the land.
There was “Baillie’s party,” which crossed Lower Albany to the mouth of the Great Fish River, and on the way were charmed with the aspect of the country, which was at that time enriched and rendered verdant by recent rains, and enlivened by the presence of hartebeests, quaggas, springboks, and an occasional ostrich. There was, however, a “wash” of shadow laid on part of the pleasant picture, to counteract the idea that the Elysian plains had been reached, in the shape of two or three blackened and ruined farms of the old Dutch colonists—sad remains of the recent Kafir war—solemn reminders of the uncertainties and possibilities of the future.
Then there was the “Nottingham party.” They took possession of a lovely vale, which they named Clumber, in honour of the Duke of Newcastle, their patron. “Sefton’s party” settled on the Assegai Bush River and founded the village of Salem, afterwards noted as the headquarters of the Reverend William Shaw, a Wesleyan, and one of the most able and useful of South Africa’s missionary pioneers. Wilson’s party settled between the Waay-plaats and the Kowie Bush, across the path of the elephants, which creatures some of the party, it is said, attempted to shoot with fowling-pieces. Of the smaller parties, those of Cock, Thornhill, Smith (what series of adventurous parties ever went forth without a “Smith’s party”?), Osler, and Richardson, located themselves behind the thicket-clad sand hills of the Kowie and Green Fountain. But space forbids us referring, even in brief detail, to the parties of James and Hyman and Dyson, and Holder, Mouncey, Hayhurst, Bradshaw, Southey; and of Scott, with the Irish party, and that of Mahony, which at the “Clay Pits,” had afterwards to meet the first shock of every Kafir invasion of Lower Albany. Among these and other parties there were men of power, who left a lasting mark on the colony, and many of them left numerous descendants to perpetuate their names—such as Dobson, Bowker, Campbell, Ayliffe, Phillips, Piggott, Greathead, Roberts, Stanley, and others too numerous to mention.
But with all these we have nothing to do just now. Our present duty is to follow those sections of the great immigrant band with the fortunes of which our tale has more particularly to do.
At the points of separation, where the long column broke up, a halt was made, while many farewells and good wishes were said.
“So you’re gaun to settle thereawa’?” said Sandy Black to John Skyd and his brothers as they stood on an eminence commanding a magnificent view of the rich plains and woodlands of the Zuurveld.
“Even so, friend Black,” replied John, “and sorry am I that our lot is not to be cast together. However, let’s hope that we may meet again ere long somewhere or other in our new land.”
“It is quite romantic,” observed James Skyd, “to look over this vast region and call it our own,—at least, with the right to pick and choose where we feel inclined. Isn’t it, Bob?”
To this Bob replied that it was, and that he felt quite like the children of Israel when they first came in sight of the promised land.
“I hope we won’t have to fight as hard for it as they did,” remarked Frank Dobson.
“It’s my opeenion,” said Sandy Black, “that if we haena to fight for it, we’ll hae to fight a bit to keep it.”
“Perhaps we may,” returned John Skyd, “and if so, fighting will be more to my taste than farming—not that I’m constitutionally pugnacious, but I fear that my brothers and I shall turn out to be rather ignorant cultivators of the soil.”
Honest Sandy Black admitted that he held the same opinion.
“Well, we shall try our best,” said the elder Skyd, with a laugh; “I’ve a great belief in that word ‘try’.—Goodbye, Sandy.” He held out his hand.
The Scot shook it warmly, and the free-and-easy brothers, after bidding adieu to the rest of the Scotch party, who overtook them there, diverged to the right with their friend Frank Dobson, and walked smartly after their waggons, which had gone on in advance.
“Stoot chields they are, an’ pleesant,” muttered Sandy, leaning both hands on a thick cudgel which he had cut for himself out of the bush, “but wofu’ ignorant o’ farmin’.”
“They’ll make their mark on the colony for all that,” said a quiet voice at Sandy’s elbow.
Turning and looking up, as well as round, he encountered the hazel eyes and open countenance of Hans Marais.
“Nae doot, nae doot, they’ll mak’ their mark, but it’ll no’ be wi’ the pleugh, or I’m sair mista’en. Wull mair o’ the settlers be pairtin’ frae us here?”
Hans, although ignorant of the dialect in which he was addressed, understood enough to make out its drift.
“Yes,” he replied, “several parties leave us at this point, and here comes one of them.”
As he spoke, the cracking of whips announced the approach of a team. A moment later, and a small Hottentot came, round a bend in the road, followed by the leading pair of oxen. It was the train of Edwin Brook, who soon appeared, riding a small horse. George Dally walked beside him. Scholtz, the German, followed, conversing with the owner of the waggon. In the waggon itself Mrs Brook, Mrs Scholtz, and Junkie found a somewhat uneasy resting-place, for, being new to the style of travel, they had not learned to accommodate themselves to jolts and crashes. Gertie preferred to walk, the pace not being more than three miles an hour.
“Oh, father!” said Gertie, running up to the side of her sire, with girlish vivacity, “there is the tall Dutchman who was so polite to me when I was pricked by the thorn bush.”
“True, Gertie, and there also is the Scot who was so free and easy in giving his opinion as to the farming powers of the brothers Skyd.”
“Your road diverges here, sir,” said Hans, as Brook rode up; “I fell behind my party to bid you God-speed, and to express a hope that we may meet again.”
“Thanks, friend, thanks,” said Brook, extending his hand. “I am obliged for the aid you have rendered me, and the advice given, which latter I shall no doubt find valuable.—You are bound for the highlands, of course,” he added, turning to Sandy Black. “We of the Albany lowlands must have a friendly rivalry with you of the highlands, and see who shall subdue the wilderness most quickly.”
This remark sent the Scot into a rather learned disquisition as to the merits and probable prospects of a hill as compared with a low-lying region, during which Hans Marais turned to Gertie. Being so very tall, he had to stoop as well as to look down at her pretty face, though Gertie was by no means short for her age. Indeed, she was as tall as average women, but, being only twelve, was slender and girlish.
“How very tall you are, Mr Marais!” she exclaimed, with a laugh, as she looked up.
“True, Gertie,” said Hans, using the only name which he had yet heard applied to the girl; “true, we Cape-Dutchmen are big fellows as a race, and I happen to be somewhat longer than my fellows. I hope you don’t object to me on that account?”
“Object? oh no! But it is so funny to have to look up so high. It’s like speaking to father when he’s on horseback.”
“Well, Gertie, extra height has its advantages and its inconveniences. Doubtless it was given to me for some good end, just as a pretty little face and figure were given to you.”
“You are very impudent, Mr Hans.”
“Am I? Then I must ask your pardon. But tell me, Gertie, what do you think of the new life that is before you?”
“How stupid you are, Hans! If the new life were behind me I might be able to answer, but how can I tell how I shall like what I don’t know anything about?”
“Nay, but you know something of the beginning of it,” returned the young Dutchman, with an amused smile, “and you have heard much of what is yet to come. What do you think of the prospect before you?”
“Think of the prospect?” repeated Gertie, knitting her brows and looking down with a pretended air of profound thought; “let me see: the prospect as I’ve heard father say to mother,—which was just a repetition of what I had heard him previously say to these queer brothers Skyd—is a life in the bush—by which I suppose he means the bushes—in which we shall have to cut down the trees, plough up the new soil, build our cottages, rear our sheep and cattle, milk our cows, make our butter, grow our food, and sometimes hunt it, fashion our clothing, and protect our homes. Is that right?”
“Well, that’s just about it,” was the answer; “how do you like that prospect?”
“I delight in it,” cried the girl, with a flash in her brilliant black eyes, while she half laughed at her own sudden burst of enthusiasm. “Only fancy! mother milking the cows, and me making butter, and Scholtz ploughing, and Dally planting, and nurse tending Junkie and making all sorts of garments, while father goes out with his gun to shoot food and protect us from the Kafirs.”
“’Tis a pleasant picture,” returned Hans, with a bland smile, “and I hope may be soon realised—I must bid you goodbye now, Gertie, we separate here.”
“Do you go far away?” asked the girl, with a touch of sadness, as she put her little hand into that of the young giant.
“A goodish bit. Some six or eight days’ journey from here,—according to the weather.”
“You’ll come and see us some day, won’t you, Hans?”
“Ja—I will,” replied Hans, with emphasis.
The whips cracked again, the oxen strained, the lumbering waggons groaned as they moved away, and while the Scotch band passed over the Zuurbergen range and headed in the direction of the Winterberg mountains, their English friends spread themselves over the fertile plains of Albany.
A few days of slow but pleasant journeying and romantic night-bivouacking brought the latter to their locations on the Kowie and Great Fish River.
On the way, the party to which Edwin Brook belonged passed the ground already occupied by the large band of settlers known as “Chapman’s party,” which had left Algoa Bay a few weeks before them in an imposing procession of ninety-six waggons. They had been accompanied to their future home by a small detachment of the Cape Corps, the officer in command of which gave them the suggestive advice, on bidding them goodbye, never to leave their guns behind them when they went out to plough! Although so short a time located, this party had produced a marvellous change in the appearance of the wilderness, and gave the settlers who passed farther eastward, an idea of what lay before themselves. Fields had already been marked out; the virgin soil broken up; timber cut, and bush cleared; while fragile cottages and huts were springing up here and there to supplant the tents which had given the first encampments a somewhat military aspect. Grotesque dwellings these, many of them, with mats and rugs for doors, and white calico or empty space for windows. It was interesting, in these first locations, to mark the development of character among the settlers. Those who were practical examined the “lie” of the land and the nature of the soil, with a view to their future residence. Timid souls chose their sites with reference to defence. Men of sentiment had regard to the picturesque, and careless fellows “squatted” in the first convenient spot that presented itself. Of course errors of judgment had to be corrected afterwards on all hands, but the power to choose and change was happily great at first, as well as easy.
As Brook’s party advanced, portions of it dropped off or turned aside, until at last Edwin found himself reduced to one family besides his own. Even this he parted from on a ridge of land which overlooked his own “location,” and about noon of the same day his waggons came to a halt on a grassy mound, which was just sufficiently elevated to command a magnificent view of the surrounding country.
“Your location,” said his Dutch waggon-driver, with a curious smile, as though he should say, “I wonder what you’ll do with yourselves.”
But the Dutchman made no further remark. He was one of the taciturn specimens of his class, and began at once to unload the waggon. With the able assistance of Brook and his men, and the feeble aid of the “Tottie,” or Hottentot leader of the “span” of oxen, the boxes, ploughs, barrels, bags, cases, etcetera, which constituted the worldly wealth of the settlers, were soon placed on the green sward. Then the Dutchman said “goeden-dag,” or farewell, shook hands all round, cracked his long whip, and went off into the unknown wilderness, leaving the Brook family to its reflections.
Chapter Seven.
The “Location.”
In the midst of the confused heap of their property, Edwin Brook sat down on a large chest beside his wife and daughter, and gazed for some time in silence on his new estate and home.
To say truth, it was in many respects a pleasant prospect. A bright blue sky overhead, a verdant earth around. Grassy hills and undulations of rich pasture-land swept away from their feet like a green sea, until stopped in the far distance by the great blue sea itself. These were dotted everywhere with copses of the yellow-flowered mimosa-bush, through openings in which the glitter of a stream could be seen, while to the left and behind lay the dark masses of a dense jungle filled with arboreous and succulent plants, acacias and evergreens, wild-looking aloes, tall euphorbias, quaint cactuses, and a great variety of flowering shrubs—filled also, as was very soon discovered, with antelopes, snakes, jackals, hyenas, leopards, and other wild creatures. The only familiar objects which broke the wild beauty of the scene were the distant white specks which they knew to be the tents just put up by those settlers who chanced to be their “next neighbours.”
“May God protect and bless us in our new home!” said Edwin Brook, breaking the silence, and reverently taking off his cap.
A heartfelt “Amen” was murmured by Mrs Brook and Gertie, but a strange, though not unpleasant, feeling of loneliness had crept over their spirits, inducing them to relapse into silence, for they could not avoid realising strongly that at last they were fairly left alone to fight the great battle of life. Edwin Brook in particular, on seeing the long team of the Dutch driver disappear over a distant ridge, was for the first time deeply impressed with, as it were, the forsaken condition of himself and his family. It was plain that he must take root there and grow—or die. There was no neighbouring town or village from which help could be obtained in any case of emergency; no cart or other means of conveyance to remove their goods from the spot on which they had been left; no doctor in case of sickness; no minister in cases either of joy or sorrow—except indeed (and it was a blessed exception) Him who came to our world “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”
Strong in the comfort that this assurance gave, Edwin Brook shook off the lethargy that had been stealing over him, and set about the duties of the present hour. The tent had to be pitched, the trunks and boxes conveyed into it, a fire kindled, the kettle boiled, the goods and chattels piled and secured from the weather, firewood cut to prepare for the night-bivouac, etcetera.
Much of this work was already in progress, for George Dally,—with that ready resource and quiet capacity of adaptation to circumstances which he had displayed on the voyage out and on the journey to the location,—had already kindled a fire, sent Scholtz to cut firewood, and was busy erecting the tent when Brook joined him.
“That’s right, George,” he said, seizing a tent-peg and mallet; “we have plenty to do here, and no time to waste.”
“Very true, sir,” replied George, touching his cap, for George was an innately respectful man—respectful to all, though with a strong tendency to humorous impudence; “very true, sir; that’s just what I thought when I see you a-meditatin’, so I went to work at once without wastin’ any time.”
“Is zat enough?” asked Scholtz, staggering up at the moment with a heavy load of firewood, which he threw on the ground.
The question was put to George, for whom the big German had a special regard, and whose orders he consequently obeyed with unquestioning alacrity, although George had no special right to command.
“Enough!” exclaimed George, with a look of surprise, “why, zat is not enough to scare a weasel with, much less a elephant or a—a platzicumroggijoo.”
George was ignorant of South African zoology, and possessed inventive powers.
“Bring ten times as much,” he added; “we shall have to keep a blazin’ bonfire agoin’ all night.”
Scholtz re-shouldered his axe, and went off to the jungle with a broad grin on his broader countenance.
He was a man who did not spare himself, yet of a temperament that kicked at useless labour, and of a size that forbade the idea of compulsion, but George Dally could have led him with a packthread to do anything.
Before he had reached the jungle, and while the smile was yet on his visage, his blood was curdled and his face elongated by a most appalling yell! It was not exactly a war-whoop, nor was it a cry of pain, though it partook of both, and filled the entire family with horror as they rushed to the tent on the mound from which the cry had issued.
The yell had been given by Junkie, who had been bitten or stung by something, and who, under the combined influence of surprise, agony, and wrath, had out-Junkied himself in the fervour and ferocity of his indignant protest.
The poor child was not only horrified, but inconsolable. He wriggled like an eel, and delivered a prolonged howl with intermittent bursts for full half an hour, while his distracted nurse and mother almost tore the garments off his back in their haste to discover the bite or the brute that had done it.
“It must have bin a serpent!” cried the nurse, agonising over a knotted string.
“Perhaps a tarantula,” suggested Gertie, who only clasped her hands and looked horrified.
“Quick!” exclaimed Mrs Brook, breaking the unmanageable tape.
“Ze chile is growing black and vill bust!” murmured Scholtz in real alarm.
It did seem as if there were some likelihood of such a catastrophe, for Junkie’s passion and struggles had rendered him blue in the face; but it wes found that the bite or sting, whichever it was, had done little apparent damage, and as the child cried himself out and sobbed himself to sleep in half an hour without either blackening or bursting, the various members of the family were relieved, and resumed their suspended labours.
The shades of evening had fallen, and, among other orbs of night, the stars of that much too highly complimented constellation, the “Southern Cross,” had for some time illumined the sky before these labours were completed, and the wearied Brook family and household retired to rest, with weapons ready at hand and fires blazing. Wild beasts—to whose cries they were by that time accustomed—soon began their nightly serenade and carried it on till morning, but they were not wild enough to disturb the newcomers with anything more formidable than sound.
Next morning early, George Dally was the first to bestir himself. On taking a general view of surrounding nature he observed a thin column of smoke rising above the tree-tops in the direction of the stream or river to which reference has already been made.
“Perhaps it’s Kafirs,” thought George.
Following up that thought he returned to what we may style his lair—the place where he had spent the night—under a mimosa-bush, and there girded himself with a belt containing a long knife. He further armed himself with a fowling-piece. Thus accoutred he sallied forth with the nonchalant air of a sportsman taking his pleasure. Going down to the stream, and following its course upwards, he quickly came in sight of the camp-fire whose smoke had attracted his attention. A tall man in dishabille was bending over it, coaxing the flame to kindle some rather green wood over which a large iron pot hung from a tripod. The fire was in front of a large, but not deep, cavern, in the recesses of which three slumbering figures were visible.
Drawing cautiously nearer, George discovered that the man at the fire was John Skyd, and of course jumped to the conclusion that the three slumbering figures were his brothers and friend. These enterprising knights of the quill, having found what they deemed a suitable spot, had selected a cave for their residence, as being at once ready and economical.
Now, George Dally, being gifted with a reckless as well as humorous disposition, suddenly conceived the idea of perpetrating a practical joke. Perhaps Junkie’s performances on the previous evening suggested it. Flinging his cap on the ground, he ran his fingers through his thick hair until it stood up in wild confusion, and then, deliberately uttering a hideous and quite original war-whoop, he rushed furiously towards the cave.
The brothers Skyd and company proved themselves equal to the occasion, for they received him at the cavern mouth with the muzzles of four double-barrelled guns, and a stern order to halt!
Next moment the muzzles were thrown up as they exclaimed in surprise—
“Why, Dally, is it you?”
“Didn’t you hear it?” gasped George, supporting himself on the side of the cavern.
“Hear what?”
“The war-whoop!”
“Of course we did—at least we heard a most unearthly yell. What was it?”
“We’d best go out and see,” cried George, cocking his gun; “if it was Kafirs the sooner we follow them up the better.”
“Not so, friend George,” said Frank Dobson, in a slightly sarcastic tone. “If it was Kafirs they are far beyond our reach by this time, and if they mean us harm we are safer in our fortress here. My opinion is that we should have our breakfast without delay, and then we shall be in a fit state to face our foes—whether they be men or beasts.”
Acting on this suggestion, with a laugh, the brothers leaned their guns against the wall of the cavern and set about the preparation of breakfast in good earnest.
Meanwhile George gravely assented to the wisdom of their decision, and sat down to his morning pipe, while he questioned the brothers as to their intentions.
They pointed out to him the spot where they thought of commencing agricultural operations and the site of their future dwelling—close, they said, to the cave, because that would be conveniently near the river, which would be handy for both washing, drinking, and boiling purposes.
“That’s true—wery true,” said George, “but it seems to me you run a risk of bein’ washed away, house and all, if you fix the site so low down, for I’ve heard say there are floods in these parts now and again.”
“Oh, no fear of that!” said Robert Skyd, who was the quietest of the three brothers; “don’t you see the foundation of our future house is at least ten feet above the highest point to which the river seems to have risen in times past?”
“Ah, just so,” responded George, with the air of a man not convinced.
“Besides,” added John Skyd, lifting the iron pot off the fire and setting it down, “I suppose that floods are not frequent, so we don’t need to trouble ourselves about ’em.—Come, Dally, you’ll join us?”
“No, thank ’ee. Much obleeged all the same, but I’ve got to prepare breakfast for our own party.—Goin’ to begin plantin’ soon?”
“As soon as ever we can get the soil broken up,” replied Dobson.