brother of hers--offered me a wage sufficient to keep her going if I
would give up the Church and join him. I was already studying. I could
have pushed through on my own; but I couldn't have supported her. So I
had to go. That was the beginning of my Colonial life. It was
five-and-twenty years ago, and I've never been Home since."

He turned his horse quietly round to continue the ascent. The road was
steep. They went slowly side by side.

Crowther went on in a grave, detached way, as though he were telling the
story of another man's life. "I kicked hard at going, but I've lived to
be thankful that I went. I had to rough it, and it did me good. It was
just that I wanted. There's never much fun for a stranger in a strange
land, sonny, and it took me some time to shake down. In fact just for a
while I thought I couldn't stand it. The loneliness out there on those
acres and acres of grass-land was so awful; for I was city-bred. I'd
never been in the desert, never been out of the sound of church-bells."
He began to smile again. "I'd even got a sort of feeling that God wasn't
to be found outside civilization," he said. "I think we get
ultra-civilized in our ideas sometimes. And the emptiness was almost
overpowering. It was like being shut down behind bars of iron with
occasional glimpses of hell to enliven the monotony. That was when one
went to the townships, and saw life. They didn't tempt me at first. I
was too narrow even for that. But the loneliness went on eating and
eating into me till I got so desperate in the end I was ready to snatch
at any diversion." He paused a moment, and into his steady eyes there
came a shadow that made them very human. "I went to hell," he said. "I
waded up to the neck in mire. I gave myself up to it body and soul. I
wallowed. And all the while it revolted me, though it was so sickeningly
easy and attractive. I loathed myself, but I went on with it. It seemed
anyhow one degree better than that awful homesickness. And then one day,
right in the middle of it all, I had a sort of dream. Or perhaps it
wasn't any more a dream than Jacob had in the desert. But I felt as if
I'd been called, and I just had to get up and go. I expect most people
know the sensation, for after all the Kingdom of Heaven is within us;
but it made a bigger impression on me at the time than anything in my
experience. So I went back into the wilderness and waited. Old chap, I
didn't wait in vain."

He suddenly turned his