breadth of the ridge of the southern spur of the Tandjes Berg, softly
outlined in blue some forty miles distant on the western horizon, when
I, Edward Laurence, having taken a long afternoon ride round the farm to
assure myself that the sheep were being properly looked after, arrived
within a mile of my home--the long, white, one-storey thatched house
picturesquely perched yonder on a mound which formed one of the southern
spurs of the Great Winter Berg.

The house--which, together with the farm of two thousand five hundred
and sixty acres, was known as Bella Vista--was the property of my
father, Henry Laurence, ex-colonel of the --th King's Own Regiment of
Dragoon Guards; and he had purchased it some fifteen years prior to the
date upon which this story opens, having been so severely wounded during
the battle of Waterloo as to necessitate his retirement from the army.
His retirement, of course, left him without an occupation; and as he was
then still quite a young man, being only thirty-three years of age, as
soon as he had recovered from his wounds--so far as recovery then seemed
possible--he began to cast about for something to do. It was at this
juncture that he made the acquaintance of a Miss Violet McKinnon, the
lovely daughter of an impecunious Scottish laird, and fell desperately
in love with her; and as my father happened to be a strikingly handsome
and attractive man his affection was speedily returned, and marriage
quickly followed. To marry under such circumstances was perhaps
something of an imprudence, for my father had nothing but his pension,
while his bride--sixteen years his junior--had nothing but her
trousseau; but the pair turned a deaf ear to all advice and
remonstrance, with the result just mentioned, when of course it became
more imperatively necessary than ever for the ex-colonel to discover
some means of earning a living, especially as I was born within a year
of the date of the marriage. The state of his health demanded that the
occupation chosen should enable him to live an outdoor life: and farming
at once naturally suggested itself.

Then, in the nick of time, he made the acquaintance of a Mr William
Arbuckle, a friend of his father-in-law, and a South African sheep
farmer, home for a holiday; and this man strongly urged him to emigrate
to South Africa and take up sheep farming. The idea powerfully appealed
to my father from the very first, and the upshot was that, after due
enquiry in