Four
days a week he had spent in the mines, for his father intended him to
follow in his footsteps, and he had worked by turns with the miners
below and the engineers on the surface, so that he might in the course
of a few years be thoroughly acquainted with all the details of his
profession.
The last two days in each week he had to himself, and with three or four
lads of his own age went for long rides in search of sport. A couple of
hours every evening were spent in study under his father's direction. He
was quiet in manner, and talked but little. He deeply resented the
position in which the British population in the Transvaal were placed,
the insolence of the Boers towards them, and their brutal cruelty
towards the natives. The restraint which he so often found it necessary
to exercise had had no slight influence on his character, and had given
a certain grim expression to the naturally bright face. Many had been
the discussions between him and his friends as to the prospect of
England's taking up their cause. Their disappointment had been intense
at the miserable failure of the Jameson raid, which, however, they felt,
and rightly, must some day have a good result, inasmuch as it had
brought out the wretched position of the Uitlanders, who, though forming
the majority of the population, and the source of all the wealth of the
country, and paying all the taxes, were yet treated as an outcast race,
and deprived of every right possessed by people of all civilized
nations.
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