th, and for old sakes' sake he
had driven down when he had a chance to come away. When he
reached the farm he had found Benson lying at his homestead
unconscious from fever. The natives who were waiting on him
seemed to think him in danger. They said he had been sick for
days. John had gone to bed early that night of his coming to the
farm a glorious moonlit night. But long before dawn he had been
roused by a Kaffir boy with the news that Benson had risen and
rushed out. They tracked his wanderings to that beautiful stretch
of woodland, and managed to house him in a garden-hut of grass,
close by a clearing among the trees. Either John or his native
boy kept watch over him day and night then. But when he awoke
with that happy fancy of being at home, John kept away the native
boy, and put away, as far as he could, all the distinctive signs
of Africa. That dream of being at home might be a real help in
tiding his friend over a very wretched time. There he camped
under the two great trees with the wild white-flowered bush so
like an English cherry-tree in full September bloom about him,
and wondered what the issue of that comfortable delusion of
Benson's would be. It could not be expected to last anyhow, now
that he was coming back to sense and strength.

Benson writhed as John finished his story. He went on with the
tale of his own black loneliness and grey home-sickness. The
glory of Kent and the charm of High Wood seemed to be gone like
the shadows of a dream already. What good had they done him after
all?

John felt miserable as he heard him out. 'Look here!' he said,
'I've been doing well at the store, and I've got a good many
cattle that I'd like to run on this farm, if we can come to
terms; and I'll try and drive down every month or other month,
and stay with you for a bit and see how they're getting on.'

Percy Benson's face grew bright again at that saying. He was very
weak, and prone to sudden ups and downs.

'Oh, do promise you'll come every month,' he said. 'Weeks are so
long, and the one mail-day a week comes always terribly slowly.
Do promise.'

John promised faithfully.

Next day they went back to the homestead, a dull little iron
building on a rather feverish site. 'If I were you,' said John,
'I'd build where you have been lying sick. I don't like the look
of this other place at all.'

'Yes, I shall build in High Wood; I want to call it so now.
It's a magical place, I think: I shall always feel s