Although not a brilliantly clever boy, he was possessed of quite average brains. He was, in addition, a steady and consistent worker, with the result that he was now in the highest form in the school, on the modern side, and a prefect. A thoroughly good stamp of an English schoolboy, excellent at work, keen at games, good tempered, reliable, and steady, Guy Hardcastle was undoubtedly all round the most popular boy in the school. He owed not a little of his popularity to his character, which was strong, simple, and always to be relied upon. His schoolfellows knew that he hated meanness and lying; that he was the foe of the bully and the sneak; that the side he took was the side always of truth and honour and duty. In his own house his force of character and his steady example had insensibly created within the last year or so a vast improvement in the whole tone and spirit of the community of fifty boys; and his house-master, Mr. Brimley-Fair, well knew how valuable an ally he had in the boy, in those directions where the precepts and admonitions of the master are not always able to penetrate. Guy Hardcastle expected at this period to have another year of school life. After that time it was his father’s intention to send him to the School of Mines in Jermyn Street, London, to prepare him for the profession of a mining engineer, which he himself followed. The fateful news that Guy received came to him one morning in a letter which, by the handwriting, postmark, and stamp, he knew was from his Uncle Charles, in British Bechuanaland. The first few lines read by him as he sat at breakfast turned his ruddy cheek pale. He read no further, but thrust the letter into his pocket, hurriedly finished his meal, and went to his study. There he took out the letter again, and, sadly and with a clouded brow, perused the contents, which were as follows:-- "BAMBOROUGH FARM, NEAR MAFEKING, BRITISH BECHUANALAND, _May 4, 1896._ "MY DEAR GUY,--I am grieved indeed to have bad news to send you--the worst, in fact, that I could possibly have to write. Your dear father died two months since at Abaquessa, some two hundred miles up country from Cape Coast Castle, where, as you know, he was at work opening up a mine. This is a sad blow for us all, more especially for you, who lose your nearest and dearest relative, and one of the best and kindest of fathers. I need not tell you how much I mourn his loss. He was a very old and dear friend of mine, and the fact that he married my sister, Helen, rendered our friendship yet a closer one.