The Gold Kloof. H. A. Bryden

He was presently sent for. His house-master laid his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder and put him into a chair.

      "This is a very sad business, Hardcastle," he said. "I know what a loss yours is. Nothing, no other friend, can replace a good father, do what we can. I think you know that I feel with you most sincerely in your trouble. I knew your father, and liked and respected him much; and I had as little idea as yourself that he was so soon to be taken from you."

      The tears came to Guy's eyes at these words; his feelings were too much for him; he could just then say nothing. His master noticed the lad's trouble, and went on.

      "But we are now face to face with quite a different set of circumstances from those of forty-eight hours ago. You have to go out into the world, not, thanks to your Uncle Charles, quite alone, but with the knowledge that for the future you have to rely mainly upon your own exertions in the battle which we all have to fight. I have had a long letter from your uncle; it contains very much the same information that he has sent you. I have purposely left you a day for reflection before talking things over. I have always looked upon you as a sensible fellow. What are your ideas as to the future?"

      Guy had had time to recover himself, as his master intended he should. He was now able to answer in a fairly collected voice.

      "Well, sir, I have thought over things the greater part of the last day and night, and the conclusion I have come to is, that I should prefer above all things to go out to Bechuanaland and join my uncle. My reasons are best expressed, I think, by the last part of my uncle's letter to me."

      He showed the letter to Mr. Brimley-Fair, who read it carefully.

      "Well," said the house-master, "there is a great deal in what your uncle says, and you are certainly restricted in your choice of a profession or business. Still, your ideas may alter. Don't be in a hurry."

      "No, sir," the boy went on firmly, "my mind is quite made up, and I don't think anything will alter it. My uncle's life, which I know a good deal about, will, I am certain, suit me better than any other occupation. I should like it above all things. Of course I shall hear what my Aunt Effie-Miss Hardcastle, I mean-has to say, but I am convinced I shall not change my opinion."

      Miss Hardcastle came down from the north during the following week, and Guy's future was again seriously and thoroughly discussed. In the end, all three parties-Miss Hardcastle, Mr. Brimley-Fair, and Guy Hardcastle-agreed that he, Guy, could not do better than go out to his uncle and take up the life of a farmer in South Africa.

      Guy left that term, to the general regret of his schoolfellows, his house-master, and, a much more important personage, the headmaster of the school. In the following September, having chosen his modest kit and belongings, as advised by his Uncle Charles, Guy sailed for South Africa in the fine Cape liner, the Tantallon Castle. He had an excellent passage, and landed at Cape Town in the second week in October.

      Chapter II.

      BAMBOROUGH FARM

      At Cape Town Guy was met by his uncle, who had come down country to welcome him. The greeting was an affectionate one on both sides, for uncle and nephew were much attached to one another.

      "My word, Guy," said Mr. Blakeney, as he shook his nephew by the hand, and looked him up and down, "you have grown since I saw you at home two years ago. What height are you now?"

      "Five foot ten, uncle," returned Guy, smiling; "and my weight is eleven stone four. I don't want to grow any taller."

      "Well, you're about tall enough," said Mr. Blakeney; "but I expect you'll put on another inch before you've done, and you're bound to be a twelve stone five man when you're full grown. I'm heartily glad to see you, and so will your aunt and cousins be when you reach Bamborough. As for Tom, he's dying to have a look at his cousin, of whom he has heard so much. By the way, my boy, I have to congratulate you on saving that girl from drowning at Tewkesbury in July last. Mr. Brimley-Fair told me about it in a letter shortly after, and sent me an account of it in a local paper. We're all very proud of you; and you are, I can see, like your father, a good plucked one. Mr. Brimley-Fair says you are pretty sure to get the Humane Society's medal later on, and indeed you deserve it after so gallant a feat."

      "Please, uncle, don't say another word about it," said Guy, reddening at Mr. Blakeney's words. "I only did what any other fellow would have done. I was nearest to the girl, and you must remember I was already stripped-or nearly stripped-for rowing."

      "Yes, I remember that, my boy," rejoined his uncle, with a kindly pat on the shoulder. "But I remember, too, that you had just had a very hard and exhausting struggle in the boat race you won, and were scarcely in fit condition to rescue people from drowning. Well, now, we'll get your luggage off the ship, drive up to the International Hotel, have some lunch, and then look about the town. I have some business in Cape Town which will keep me two or three days. During that time we'll have a look round, and you shall see what there is to be seen."

      Mr. Blakeney was as good as his word. He showed Guy the sights of the old Dutch town, one of the most picturesque cities in the world. They drove round by the wonderful Victoria Drive, thence home by Wynberg and Rondebosch. At Wynberg they had a look at Great Constantia, the Government wine farm, a fine old Cape mansion, once the abode of the Cloete family. At Rondebosch they paid a visit to Groot Schuur, and Guy was shown the various trophies and curiosities of Mr. Rhodes's well-known mansion. Another day they went over the Kloof to Kamp's Bay; and on yet another they climbed the four thousand feet of Table Mountain, and from that magnificent altitude gazed over one of the grandest scapes by sea and land to be witnessed in any part of the world.

      On the fifth day after Guy's arrival they took the up-country train, and after spending two days and nights on the rail, and passing Beaufort West, the Orange River, Kimberley, and Vryburg, reached Mafeking. During the journey Guy Hardcastle was never weary of gazing at the strange and varied scenery that unfolded itself before his eyes. He noted the wild mountain country through which they climbed before reaching the plateau of the Great Karroo. He watched the barren and seemingly illimitable vastness of the flat, red Karroo plains; saw wild springbucks and tame ostriches; and feasted his eyes on the huge chain of mountain, the magnificent Zwartberg, which for scores of leagues reared its mighty ramparts to the south of the plain country, until lost in the dim distance a hundred miles away to the eastward. He noted, too, the extraordinary clearness of the atmosphere. Hills and mountains that were, as his uncle assured him, forty or fifty miles away, appeared in this sparkling and translucent atmosphere little more than a dozen or fifteen miles distant.

      "Yes, Guy," added his uncle, "you'll find this clearness of the atmosphere rather troublesome at first, when you begin rifle-shooting. The game on the plains are much farther off than newcomers can believe; and the consequence is that, until they get used to our conditions of light and atmosphere, sportsmen fresh to the country invariably underestimate their distances, and fire far short of the buck, or whatever it may be they are aiming at. By the way, have you ever fired a rifle?"

      "Yes," replied the boy quietly, "I have had some practice with the Martini-Henry at butts, and did pretty well for a beginner; and, as you know, I've used a shot-gun ever since I was twelve years old. I began with small birds and rabbits; two years ago I shot partridge with father-he was home that autumn; and last year I was grouse-shooting with our cousins, the Forsters, in Northumberland.

      "By the way, uncle," he went on, "I've brought out a sporting Martini-Henry rifle, as you told me. That and the ammunition are packed up in the long case with my saddlery and the rest of my outfit. Here's my shot-gun," he continued, taking down a gun-case from the rack above, undoing it, and extracting from it a handsome double-barrel. "It's a beauty, isn't it? Father gave it me two years ago on my birthday. It's a 'Cogswell and Harrison,' and a first-rate shooter."

      Mr. Blakeney was a keen sportsman, and naturally took an interest in every kind of firearm. He took the gun, which Guy had meanwhile put together, examined it carefully, handled it, balanced it, and standing up in the first-class carriage, which they had to themselves, put it up to his shoulder two or three times.

      "Yes, it's a very pretty gun, well built and finished, Guy," he remarked. "You'll have plenty of opportunity of using it at Bamborough. We have lots of feathered game: partridges, pheasants (both of them a kind of francolin), koorhaan-that