Читать книгу The Gold Kloof - H. A. Bryden - Страница 1

It was a fine, hot July day on the banks of the Severn river at Tewkesbury, that quaint, old-world, and somewhat decayed town, which offers to the inspection of the visitor and the archæologist some of the most ancient and interesting buildings to be seen in any part of broad England. There was some stir on the banks of the river, for two public schools, one of them situate in the west of England, the other hailing from a Midland shire, were about to contest with one another in their annual boat race. From the Western school a considerable contingent of lads had come over; these were discussing, with the enthusiasm of schoolboys, the prospects of the races. On the banks, gathered near the winning-post, were also to be seen a number of other spectators, some from the town itself, others from the neighbouring country-side.

The fateful moment at length had come; the two boats were to be seen in the distance, their oarsmen battling with one another with all the desperate energy that youth and strength and an invincible determination could put into their task. As they drew nearer it was to be seen that the Midland school was leading by nearly half a length. A quarter of a mile remained to be rowed. Loud cries from the Western school resounded along the banks. Hope struggled against hope in every youthful breast; yet it seemed that if the oarsmen of the Western school were to make that final effort for which they were famous, it was now almost too late. But, no! the Western stroke is seen to be calling upon his crew; their flashing blades dip quicker, and yet quicker; they are well together, all apparently animated by the vigour and the reserve of force displayed by their leader. Foot by foot they diminish the lead of their adversaries, who are striving desperately, yet ineffectually, to retain their advantage. A hundred yards from the winning-post the Western lads are level; and as the post is passed they have defeated their adversaries, after one of the finest races ever rowed between the two schools, by a quarter of a length.

Amid the exultant and tremendous cheering that now greets the triumph of the Western school, both crews paddle to the boat-house and disembark. The boats are got out and housed, and all but the Western captain and stroke, Guy Hardcastle, are inside the boathouse, bathing and changing their clothes. Guy Hardcastle, a strong, well-set-up lad of seventeen, lingers on the platform in conversation with his house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, who has come down to congratulate him on his victory. He is a good-looking lad, fresh complexioned, with fair brown hair, a firm mouth, and a pair of steady, blue-gray eyes, which look the world frankly in the face, with an aspect of candour, friendliness, and self-reliance that most people find very attractive.

While master and boy are talking together for a brief minute or two, a sudden cry comes from the river, followed by others. They look that way, and see instantly the reason of the outcry. Some country people, rowing across from the other side, are evidently not accustomed to boating. Two of them attempt to change places in mid-stream: they are womenfolk; they become alarmed and shift in their places, the heavily laden boat is upset, and half a dozen people are struggling in the water.

Guy Hardcastle is nothing if not prompt. His resolution is instantly taken. He is in his light rowing kit, well prepared for swimming. Kicking off his shoes, he dives neatly into the water, and swims rapidly upstream towards the group of struggling people sixty yards away. Of these, three are clinging to the boat; one man is swimming for the shore with a child; the sixth, a girl of fourteen, has just sunk ten yards beyond the boat down-stream. Her danger is manifestly great and imminent. Boats are putting off from the bank, but they may be too late. Guy Hardcastle, surveying the disaster with cool eye as he swims that way, has concentrated all his energies on this drowning and terror-stricken girl. He is within fifteen yards of where she sank; and now, a few seconds later, just as the girl, now partly insensible, comes to the surface again, he grasps her firmly, turns her over on her back-a task of some difficulty-and, himself also swimming on his back, tows her towards the bank. It is not an easy task. The girl is no light weight, encumbered as she is with soddened clothing; the stream is strong, and Guy himself is by no means so fresh as he might have been, after that hard and exhausting race of a few minutes since. Still, with invincible determination, the plucky lad struggles with his burden towards the boat-house. Help comes unexpectedly. His house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, has foreseen his difficulties, and, jumping into a dingy, has rowed out to his assistance. Presently he is alongside.

"Here you are, Hardcastle," he cries; "catch hold of her side!"

Guy clutches with one hand at the boat's gunwale, and feels that he and his burden are now pretty safe.

"Now, hang on while I row you in," says Mr. Brimley-Fair, "and we'll soon have you all right."

Guy does as he is told, and in fifty strokes the boathouse is reached, and girl and rescuer are safe. A storm of cheering, greater even than that which greeted the winning of the boat race, now testifies to the gallantry of the boy's second feat and the relief of all that the girl is safe. Meanwhile, the remainder of the overturned crew have been rescued by boats rowed from the bank.

Arrived at the boat-house, willing hands hung on to the dingy while Mr. Brimley-Fair stepped out of her. Then, bringing her side gently to the platform, they grasped Guy Hardcastle and his burden and lifted them into safety. The girl was pale and insensible, but she breathed; a doctor was quickly in attendance; and after the usual restorative methods had been applied for a quarter of an hour, the patient came round, was carried to a neighbouring hotel, put to bed, and by the evening was well enough to be taken home.

After the doctor had taken charge of the half-drowned girl, Mr. Brimley-Fair turned his attention to Guy Hardcastle, still dripping from his immersion.

"Now, my boy," he said, kindly patting him on the shoulder, "you have done splendidly. That was a plucky thing to do. You remembered all your life-saving lessons-which some of the boys seem to think a bore-and deserve, and I hope will get, the Humane Society's Medal. But, medal or no medal, you did your duty and a brave thing, and we are all proud of you. Now go and get your clothes off and a rub down. You look tired and chilled, as well you may, after rowing that fine race and saving a girl's life. I've sent for some brandy, and you'll soon be all right again."

"All right, sir," said the boy, cheerful though shivering. "I shall be quite fit as soon as I get into my clothes."

The brandy soon arrived, and the lad was given a small quantity in some water. Thoroughly dried and rubbed down, he was, not long after, clothed and comfortable again, and quite equal to doing his duty by his adversaries of the recent boat race, who with his own schoolmates were loud in admiration of his latest feat.

The rival crews had some food together, under the chairmanship of Mr. Brimley-Fair; and later on, the Midland crew having been seen off at the station, the Western lads took train for their own school.

About ten days after these events, Guy Hardcastle received news that altered the whole course of his life. The son of a mining engineer, whose duties took him much away from England into distant parts of the world, the lad had had the misfortune to lose his mother at a very early age. He lived during his vacations with an aunt, a sister of his father's, a Miss Hardcastle, who lived at a quiet country house in the county of Durham. Beyond two families of cousins living in the same county, the lad had few other relatives in England. He had, however, an Uncle Charles, his mother's only brother, living in South Africa, who came home occasionally to England, and to whom he was greatly attached. In fact, next to his father, the lad looked upon his Uncle Charles as his greatest friend. Guy was now a month or two past seventeen. He had been four years at his present school, where he was an immense favourite. Captain of the rowing club, he had not time or opportunity to devote himself, as he would have liked, to cricket, and was not therefore in the eleven. But he was in the twenty-two. He was also a distinguished member of the football team, and a good athlete. At the last sports he had won the mile in the record time for his school of four minutes forty-nine seconds, and had, in addition, carried off the half-mile, the quarter-mile, and the grand steeplechase. Winning as well the long jump and throwing the cricket ball, he was easily victor ludorum in the school sports.

Although not a brilliantly clever boy, he was possessed of quite average brains. He was, in addition, a steady and consistent worker, with the result that he was now in the highest form in the school, on the modern side, and a prefect. 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: -

"BAMBOROUGH FARM, NEAR MAFEKING,

BRITISH BECHUANALAND,

May 4, 1896

"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. 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.