coming over his face. "And the wild bucks have gone, and those days, and
we are here. But we will be gone soon, and only the stones will lie on
here, looking at everything like they look now. I know that it is I who am
thinking," the fellow added slowly, "but it seems as though it were they
who are talking. Has it never seemed so to you, Lyndall?"

"No, it never seems so to me," she answered.

The sun had dipped now below the hills, and the boy, suddenly remembering
the ewes and lambs, started to his feet.

"Let us also go to the house and see who has come," said Em, as the boy
shuffled away to rejoin his flock, while Doss ran at his heels, snapping at
the ends of the torn trousers as they fluttered in the wind.


Chapter 1.III. I Was A Stranger, and Ye Took Me In.

As the two girls rounded the side of the kopje, an unusual scene presented
itself. A large group was gathered at the back door of the homestead.

On the doorstep stood the Boer-woman, a hand on each hip, her face red and
fiery, her head nodding fiercely. At her feet sat the yellow Hottentot
maid, her satellite, and around stood the black Kaffer maids, with blankets
twisted round their half-naked figures. Two, who stamped mealies in a
wooden block, held the great stampers in their hands, and stared stupidly
at the object of attraction. It certainly was not to look at the old
German overseer, who stood in the centre of the group, that they had all
gathered together. His salt-and-pepper suit, grizzly black beard, and grey
eyes were as familiar to every one on the farm as the red gables of the