I
left Cape Town two years ago--"

"Ah, you have resided in Cape Town. Then you will know something of
what our trials and discouragements have been. But no one but the
missionaries themselves can really enter into them."

"I wish you would give us your experiences," said Lavie. "As you say,
in the colony there is a very confused and imperfect knowledge of your
proceedings: and there is, besides, so large an amount of prejudice on
the subject, that even those most favourably inclined towards you, have
heard, I doubt not, a most unfair version of it."

Warley eagerly seconded this proposal, and the stranger, who seemed
willing enough to comply with their wishes, began his recital.

"I should tell you first," he said, "what perhaps you have guessed--that
I am, by descent, half English and half Dutch. Our family name was
Blandford, and we were owners of large property in one of the southern
counties; but it was forfeited in consequence of our determined
adherence to the house of Stuart. After the unfortunate issue of the
attempt in 1745, we were obliged to leave England, and took up our
residence in Holland; where my father married the daughter of a Dutch
merchant, named De Walden, whose name he thenceforth adopted.

"As the hopes of the restoration of the exiled family grew ever less and
less, my father entered with more interest into his father-in-law's
business. The latter carried on a brisk trade with the Cape of Good
Hope, and thither I was sent, when barely twenty-one, as one of the
junior partners in the house. I resided for many years at Stellenbosch,
occasionally passing months together at Klyberg, a large farm in the
north of the colony, not far from the Gariep, or the Orange river, as it
has since been named."

"Not very far from where we are now, in fact," observed Lavie.

"It was nearer to the west coast than this," said De Walden, "by some
hundreds of miles, and the country was very fertile. Both at
Stellenbosch and Klyberg we employed a great number of Hottentots as
slaves. Our treatment of them I shall remember with shame and grief to
the last day of my life!" He paused from emotion. And Lavie said--

"You were not different, I suppose, in your treatment of them from your
neighbours?"

"Unhappily, no. But that is small comfort. It seems wonderful to me
now, with my present feelings, how I could have accepted without
questioning, as I did, the opinions of those about me on the subject