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bed. To-morrow I'll show you round the farm,
and we will have a talk about business. Good-night to you, Captain
Niel. Good-night!"
CHAPTER III
MR. FRANK MULLER
John Niel woke early the next morning, feeling as sore and stiff as
though he had been well beaten and then wrapped up tight in
horse-girths. He made shift, however, to dress himself, and then, with
the help of a stick, limped through the French windows that opened
from his room on to the verandah, and surveyed the scene before him.
It was a delightful spot. At the back of the stead was the steep
boulder-strewn face of the flat-topped hill that curved round on each
side, embosoming a great slope of green, in the lap of which the house
was placed. It was very solidly built of brown stone, and, with the
exception of the waggon-shed and other outbuildings which were
roofed with galvanised iron, that shone and glistened in the rays of the
morning sun in a way that would have made an eagle blink, was
covered with rich brown thatch. All along its front ran a wide verandah,
up the trellis-work of which green vines and blooming creepers trailed
pleasantly, and beyond was the broad carriage-drive of red soil,
bordered with bushy orange-trees laden with odorous flowers and green
and golden fruit. On the farther side of the orange-trees were the
gardens, fenced in with low walls of rough stone, and the orchard
planted with standard fruit-trees, and beyond these again the oxen and
ostrich kraals, the latter full of long-necked birds. To the right of the
house grew thriving plantations of blue-gum and black wattle, and to
the left was a broad stretch of cultivated lands, lying so that they could

be irrigated for winter crops by means of water led from the great
spring that gushed out of the mountain-side high above the house, and
gave its name of Mooifontein to the place.
All these and many more things John Niel saw as he looked out from
the verandah at Mooifontein, but for the moment at any rate they were
lost in the wild and wonderful beauty of the panorama that rolled away
for miles and miles at his feet, till it was bounded by the mighty range
of the Drakensberg to the left, tipped here and there with snow, and by
the dim and vast horizon of the swelling Transvaal plains to the right
and far in front of him. It was a beautiful sight, and one to make the
blood run in a man's veins, and his heart beat happily because he was
alive to see it. Mile upon mile of grass-clothed veldt beneath, bending
and rippling like a corn-field in the quick breath of the morning, space
upon space of deep-blue sky overhead with ne'er a cloud to dim it, and
the swift rush of the wind between. Then to the left there, impressive to
look on and conducive to solemn thoughts, the mountains rear their
crests against the sky, and, crowned with the gathered snows of the
centuries whose monuments they are, from aeon to aeon gaze
majestically out over the wide plains and the ephemeral ant-like races
who tread them, and while they endure think themselves the masters of
their little world. And over all--mountain, plain, and flashing
stream--the glorious light of the African sun and the Spirit of Life
moving now as it once moved upon the darkling waters.
John stood and gazed at the untamed beauty of the scene, in his mind
comparing it to many cultivated prospects which he had known, and
coming to the conclusion that, however desirable the presence of
civilised man might be in the world, it could not be said that his
operations really add to its beauty. For the old line, "Nature unadorned
adorned the most," still remains true in more senses than one.
Presently his reflections were interrupted by the step of Silas Croft,
which, notwithstanding his age and bent frame, still rang firm
enough--and he turned to greet him.
"Well, Captain Niel," said the old man, "up already! It looks well if you
mean to take to farming. Yes, it's a pretty view, and a pretty place too.

Well, I made it. Twenty-five years ago I rode up here and saw this spot.
Look, you see that rock there behind the house? I slept under it and
woke at sunrise and looked out at this beautiful scene and at the great
veldt (it was all alive with game then), and I said to myself, 'Silas, for
five-and-twenty years have you wandered about this great country, and
now you are getting tired of it; you've never seen a fairer spot than this
or a healthier; be a wise man and stop here.' And so I did.