The Gold Kloof. H. A. Bryden
A thoroughly good stamp of an English schoolboy, excellent at work, keen at games, good tempered, reliable, and steady, Guy Hardcastle was undoubtedly all round the most popular boy in the school. He owed not a little of his popularity to his character, which was strong, simple, and always to be relied upon. His schoolfellows knew that he hated meanness and lying; that he was the foe of the bully and the sneak; that the side he took was the side always of truth and honour and duty. In his own house his force of character and his steady example had insensibly created within the last year or so a vast improvement in the whole tone and spirit of the community of fifty boys; and his house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, well knew how valuable an ally he had in the boy, in those directions where the precepts and admonitions of the master are not always able to penetrate.
Guy Hardcastle expected at this period to have another year of school life. After that time it was his father's intention to send him to the School of Mines in Jermyn Street, London, to prepare him for the profession of a mining engineer, which he himself followed. The fateful news that Guy received came to him one morning in a letter which, by the handwriting, postmark, and stamp, he knew was from his Uncle Charles, in British Bechuanaland. The first few lines read by him as he sat at breakfast turned his ruddy cheek pale. He read no further, but thrust the letter into his pocket, hurriedly finished his meal, and went to his study. There he took out the letter again, and, sadly and with a clouded brow, perused the contents, which were as follows: -
"MY DEAR GUY, – I am grieved indeed to have bad news to send you-the worst, in fact, that I could possibly have to write. Your dear father died two months since at Abaquessa, some two hundred miles up country from Cape Coast Castle, where, as you know, he was at work opening up a mine. This is a sad blow for us all, more especially for you, who lose your nearest and dearest relative, and one of the best and kindest of fathers. I need not tell you how much I mourn his loss. He was a very old and dear friend of mine, and the fact that he married my sister, Helen, rendered our friendship yet a closer one.
"Your father's agent at Cape Coast Castle has forwarded me all his papers and belongings, including two letters written to me by your father shortly before his death. From these two letters, and from Mr. Delvine's accounts, I gather that your father had had repeated attacks of the dangerous malarial fever which is so fatal on the West Coast. From the last of these he never recovered. In his last two letters to me, which I enclose for your perusal, he seems to have had a foreboding that he would not recover; and in the very last (the few lines in pencil, written the day before his death) he asks me to take charge of you and look after you till you are able to manage your own affairs. You know, my dear Guy, how glad and willing I shall be to do whatever I can for you, and what a pleasure to us it will be to see you out here, if it shall hereafter be settled that you come.
"From what your father has told me, he has left behind him some £2,000. This will, of course, come to you, under the terms of the will, at the age of twenty-one. Meantime, you are to have the interest for your maintenance. I need hardly point out to you that your father's death makes a great difference in your future prospects. He earned a fairly good income during his life, and had at one time saved considerably more money than he now leaves. Some unfortunate investments, and the very heavy expenses of that patent lawsuit in which he was engaged-trying vainly, as it turned out, to protect a very unique invention of his own in connection with the concentration and chlorination of pyrites-reduced his savings very considerably; and instead of some £5,000, which might have been looked for three or four years ago, you now only succeed, as I say, to about £2,000.
"In his last two letters your father, as you will see, told me that he had decided not to enter you into his own profession of a mining engineer. He had come to the conclusion that the life is too precarious a one; that although a man, if he is lucky, can occasionally make a big income, yet the prizes are few and the risks very great. The life is a hard one, as he points out. A mining engineer has to take his chance in all parts of the world; too often his work is cast in a pestilential climate, and, if he escapes death, his health and constitution are, as often as not, completely ruined by the time he reaches middle age. Your father believed-and rightly, as it turned out-that the West Coast mining on which he was engaged, handsomely though he was paid, would be the death of him sooner or later, and was very sorry he had accepted the appointment. However, he was under a contract, and could not well throw up his engagement; and the fever has, alas, proved, as it has for so many other good men, the death of him.
"He reiterated, as you will see, in both these letters, the wish that, in case of his death, you should come out here to me and learn farming. He says, very rightly, that the life is a healthy one; that a man can do fairly well if he is steady and sticks to business; and that he is convinced that you, with your open-air inclinations and active habits, would do very well in it. You will have enough to start you fairly when you are ready to take up land of your own. Your father knew, of course, that if you came out here, as I hope you may do, you would live with us at small expense-as a matter of fact I shall see that it costs you nothing-and that you would have a fair chance of learning stock-farming, and would be well looked after.
"Now, my dear boy, I want you to think over these things; to discuss them with your house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, whom I had the pleasure of meeting two years ago when I was home, and with your Aunt Effie, and make up your mind what you think you would like to do in the world. Your father has left me your guardian, but I don't want to press my own ideas too much. I want you to think over your father's wishes, and give me your own view of what you hope to do with your life. If you wish to stay on another year at school, I will see that the thing shall be managed. If, on the contrary, you desire to come out here to us, and take up the business of stock-farming, I think it will be better to leave after this term. I have written Mr. Brimley-Fair, pointing out your altered circumstances, and arranging that, if necessary, the usual quarter's notice shall be dispensed with. You will be going to your Aunt Effie's at the end of the term for your holidays. You and she must talk things over, and if you settle to come out here she will help you to fit yourself out and see you off.
"You will understand that I don't want to make a point of your throwing in your lot with me and taking to my business of farming out here. I want you to think well over the pros and cons. I don't know whether you have ever thought of any other line of life. I would remind you, however, that doctoring and the law require a long and expensive apprenticeship of five years at least before you can earn money for yourself; that you cannot afford an army career; and that you are now too old for the navy. From what I know of you, I don't fancy you would take very readily to the career of a bank clerk, or a clerk in a merchant's office.
"If you do settle to join us here, I can only say that we shall all have the very heartiest welcome for you, and that I shall do my best to fit you for the life of a South African farmer.
"Now, my dear Guy, I must finish. With our deepest sympathy in your heavy loss, and our kindest love, – Believe me, your affectionate Uncle, C. F. BLAKENEY."
From this letter, which, it may well be imagined, Guy Hardcastle read with the saddest feelings, he turned to the enclosures-his father's last letters to his Uncle Charles. He himself had received, three weeks since, a most kind and affectionate letter from his father, written only a week before the first of these two forwarded by his uncle. In this letter his father, although mentioning that he had been down with fever, had said nothing to his boy of the fears which he had expressed to Mr. Blakeney. Guy could see well enough now, as he read the two last letters, that his father had wished to spare him any anxiety. The perusal of these two letters received by his uncle, and the tidings of his father's death; the remembrances of the happy days that he had had with him; his unvarying good temper and cheerfulness and thought for him-all these things brought the tears welling to the boy's eyes. Sad was it, indeed, to think that he should never again set eyes upon that strong and active form; never look into those keen blue eyes; never be able to depend upon that firm mind and excellent judgment, which hitherto had always been at his disposal.
After dinner on the following day, Guy, instead of going out with his schoolfellows to their usual games, stayed behind in the house and waited for a summons from Mr. Brimley-Fair, who had already spoken a few kind words to him, sympathizing in his heavy loss, and telling him he would be prepared to talk over matters with him after a day's interval.