coincidence ' reached out to make the ' impossible ' 

 a matter of fact. It is better to skip all that : for it 

 is not the story of Jock, and it concerns him only so 

 far that in the end it made our parting unavoidable. 



When the turn did come it was strange, and at times 

 almost bewildering, to realise that the things one had 

 struggled hardest against and regarded as the worst 

 of bad luck were blessings in disguise and were all for 

 the best. So the new life began and the old was put 

 away ; but the new life, for all its brighter and wider 

 outlook and work of another class, for all the charm 

 that makes Barberton now a cherished memory to all 

 who knew the early days, was not all happy. The 

 new life had its hours of darkness too ; of almost 

 unbearable ' trek fever ' ; of restless, sleepless, longing 

 for the old life ; of ' home-sickness ' for the veld, the 

 freedom, the roaming, the nights by the fire, and the 

 days in the bush ! Now and again would come a 

 sleepless night with its endless procession of scenes, 

 in which some remembered from the past were inter- 

 linked with others imagined for the future ; and here 

 and there in these long waking dreams came stabs of 

 memory flashes of lightning vividness : the head 

 and staring eyes of the koodoo bull, as we had stood 

 for a portion of a second face to face ; the yawning 

 mouth of the maddened crocodile ; the mamba and 

 its beady hateful eyes, as it swept by before the bush- 

 fire. And there were others too that struck another 

 chord : the cattle, the poor dumb beasts that had 

 worked and died : stepping-stones in a man's career ; 

 the * books,' the ' chalk and blackboard ' of the 



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