A Missing Hero Author:Alexander Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Breakfast was over in John Erle's comfortable abode. Madeleine bad called the children more than once to lessons, but they had not yet appeared, a... more »nd Mrs. Sutton, the housekeeper and gouvernante (for Madeleine was neither old nor experienced enough to manage an establishment, such as his, in her brother's opinion), had departed to visit storeroom and kitchen, when a man on horseback descended a low hill or upland which lay northeast from the farm, and made toward it, across the veldt. "Erle's lot has fallen on pleasant lines," he thought, as he came in sight of the house. It was built of brownish, grayish stone and roofed with time-mellowed thatch, and was sheltered at the back by a kopje (large hillock) covered with trees and rocks and thickly growing leafage. A wide stoop or veranda, a few feet from the ground, ran all along the front, right and left of the entrance. This served as an additional room or place of assembly. The rough, unbarked tree trunks which supported the cover of this annex were draped by vines and many colored flowering creepers with an endless variety of lovely blossoms that would have been the pride of aconservatory in England. Orchard and garden, thatched stabling, oxen kraals, stock yard and huts for the native laborers encircled the substantial dwelling, and beyond all, the wide stretching veldt, changing from light to darker green as the wind swept over it. To the left rose some richly wooded uplands, and far behind them, closing in the wild loveliness of the scene, a chain of lofty mountains uplifted their snow white crests against the deep, clear sky. Over all glowed the life giving radiance of the gorgeous morning sun. " For how many centuries has all this loveliness existed only for the wild beast, the giraffe, the buffalo ? H...« less