THE CHANCE ENCOUNTER 171 



chance encounter ? Last October three of us, 

 walking to our fishing ground, were overtaken by 

 a horse and carnage. A genial " Jump in, 

 gentlemen !" greeted us. We jumped in. We 

 chatted gaily, and the distinguished-looking man 

 who had put his carriage at our disposal made us 

 thoroughly at our ease. He put us down near 

 our fishing beat. It appeared that this was one 

 of the big landowners of the district. " Thank 

 you, squire, from three strangers in the land ! " 

 Some people, travelling life's round, seem rarely 

 to run across old friends in unexpected places 

 or to renew old acquaintances just by accident. 

 But the world is a small parish after all, and to 

 others of us chance meetings seem to be a matter 

 of course. We are always knocking-up un- 

 expectedly against somebody whom we have 

 met before or who has come from, or been in, 

 similar parts. I have come across Shropshire 

 folk all over South Africa, even on the borders 

 of Swaziland. A Scotsman of my acquaintance 

 now a leading architect in South Africa was 

 going over a mine on the Rand with a party 

 of friends. Underground he came across a miner 

 whom he felt sure he had met somewhere before. 

 A few questions confirmed it. In the miner the 

 architect had recognized an old acquaintance from 

 his own village in Fifeshire, though he had no 

 idea that he had come to South Africa. He 

 remembered, too, that the miner used to have 

 a beautiful tenor voice, and that one of his 

 tavourite solos was " It with all our hearts " from 



