latter did not seem overjoyed at the news. In point of fact he was not.
Personally the presence in his house of the Transvaal delegate would
have afforded him the keenest gratification but that he knew as surely
as though he had been told that the latter's visit would be purely of a
political nature, and Stephanus De la Rey preferred to leave politics
severely alone. Not only that, but that his own conversion to the ranks
of the secret agitators was the motive of the visit he more than
suspected.

"Where did you hear that, Jan?" he said.

"Adrian told us, Pa. We saw him as we passed Friedrik Schoemann's. He
is coming up to-night too. _Ja_! you should hear him talk of the
Patriot. He heard him two nights ago at Jan Grobbelaar's. The Patriot
spoke to him too--to him, Adrian. He says in a month or two we shall
have driven all the English out of the country. See, Cornelis," turning
to his brother, "I wonder if that second post from the gate away yonder
were an Englishman how long it would be standing there," and he levelled
his long Martini as though to put the matter to the test. But the reply
which this demonstration elicited from their habitually easy-going and
indulgent father both surprised and startled the two youths, and that
mightily.

"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Jan, to stand there before me and talk
such wicked nonsense? Is that the sort of Christianity the teaching of
Mynheer, as well as of your own parents, has implanted in you, that you
can talk about shooting men--Christian men like ourselves, remember--as
you would talk of shooting buck? I have nothing to do with Adrian's
movements or ideas, although he is my nephew, but I have with yours; so
listen to me. There is a great deal of wild talk being flung around
just now, but I wish you to have nothing to do with it. Of course you
cannot help hearing it from time to time, there is too much of it
everywhere unfortunately; but I enjoin you not to take part in it. It
is shameful the light way in which such weighty and serious subjects are
discussed. When our fathers took up arms to defend their rights and
liberties and their lives they did so prayerfully and with the full
weight of their solemn responsibilities, and that is why they were
victorious. But now such matters are bragged and chattered about by a
herd of thoughtless boys. Leave them alone. The times are quite
troublous enough, and things may come right or may not, but the only