what he had previously earned, to retire comfortably from the business
in favour of his eldest son.

The sudden acquisition of riches in this way was by no means uncommon at
that time, for the "Fields" were amazingly prolific, and having been
discovered at a crisis of commercial depression, were the means, not
only of retrieving the fortunes of South Africa, but of advancing her to
a condition of hitherto unparalleled prosperity.

Mrs Scholtz--by that time grown unreasonably fat--eyed the diamond with
a look of amused contempt; she evidently did not believe in it. Patting
the hand of her former charge, she looked up in his laughing face, and
said, with a shake of her head--

"Ah! Junkie, I always said you was a _wonderful_ child."

Sitting on a bench in front of the house--no longer domestics, but
smoking their pipes there as "friends" of the family, who had raised
themselves to a state of comparative affluence--George Dally and
Scholtz, now aged men, commented on the same diamond.

"It'll make his fortune," said George.

"Zee boy vas always lucky," remarked Scholtz; "zince I began to varm for
myself I have not zeen so big a stone."

"Ah! Scholtz," returned his friend, "the hotel business has done very
well for me, an I don't complain, but if I was young again I'd sell off
and have a slap at the `Fields.'"

"Zat vould only prove you vas von fool," said Scholtz quietly.

"I believe it would," returned George.

In regard to the Scotch party at Glen Lynden, we have to record that
they continued to persevere and prosper. Wool became one of the staple
articles of colonial commerce, and the hills of the Baviaans River sent
a large contingent of that article to the flourishing seaport of the
eastern provinces.

Of course the people multiplied, and the sturdy sons of the South
African highlands did credit to their sires, both in the matter of
warring with the Kafir and farming on the hills.

Sandy Black stuck to his farm with the perseverance of a true Scot, and
held his own through thick and thin. He married a wife also, and when,
in later years, the native blacks made a sudden descent on his
homestead, they were repulsed by a swarm of white Blacks, assisted by an
army of McTavishes, and chased over the hills with a degree of energy
that caused them almost to look blue!

Andrew Rivers, being a man of progressive and independent mind, cast
about him in a state of uncertainty for some years, devoting himself