In fact, we may
be likened to a social clock, of which Jim is the mainspring, Bob the
weight, I the striking part of the works, and Dobson the pendulum. But
we are not particular, we are ready for anything."

"Ay, an' fit for nothin'," observed Sandy, with a peculiar smile and
shrug, meant to indicate that his jest was more than half earnest.

The three brothers laughed again at this, and their friend Dobson
smiled. Dobson's smile was peculiar. The corners of his mouth turned
down instead of up, thereby giving his grave countenance an unusually
arch expression.

"Why, what do you mean, you cynical Scot!" demanded John Skyd. "Our
shoulders are broad enough, are they not? nearly as broad as your own."

"Oo' ay, yer shoothers are weel aneugh, but I wadna gie much for yer
heeds or haunds."

Reply to this was interrupted by the appearance, in the opening of the
tent, of a man whose solemn but kindly face checked the flow of flippant
conversation.

"You look serious, Orpin; has anything gone wrong?" asked Frank Dobson.

"Our friend is dying," replied the man, sadly. "He will soon meet his
opponent in the land where all is light and where all disputes shall be
ended in agreement."

Orpin referred to two of the settlers whose careers in South Africa were
destined to be cut short on the threshold. The two men had been
earnestly religious, but, like all the rest of Adam's fallen race, were
troubled with the effects of original sin. They had disputed hotly, and
had ultimately quarrelled, on religious subjects on the voyage out. One
of them died before he landed; the other was the man of whom Orpin now
spoke. The sudden change in the demeanour of the brothers Skyd
surprised as well as gratified Sandy Black. That sedate, and literally
as well as figuratively, long-headed Scot, had felt a growing distaste
to the flippant young Englishers, as he styled them, but when he saw
them throw off their light character, as one might throw off a garment,
and rise eagerly and sadly to question Orpin about the dying man, he
felt, as mankind is often forced to feel, that a first, and especially a
hasty, judgment is often incorrect.

Stephen Orpin was a mechanic and a Wesleyan, in virtue of which latter
connection, and a Christian spirit, he had been made a local preacher.
He was on his way to offer his services as a watcher by the bedside of
the dying man.

This man and his opponent were not the only emigrants who finished t