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However these things may have been, it is certain that he had emigrated
to Natal under a cloud, and equally certain that his relatives at home
were content to take no further interest in his fortunes. During the
fifteen or sixteen years which he had spent in or about the colony,
Hadden followed many trades, and did no good at any of them. A clever
man, of agreeable and prepossessing manner, he always found it easy to
form friendships and to secure a fresh start in life. But, by degrees,
the friends were seized with a vague distrust of him; and, after a
period of more or less application, he himself would close the opening
that he had made by a sudden disappearance from the locality, leaving
behind him a doubtful reputation and some bad debts.
Before the beginning of this story of the most remarkable episodes
in his life, Philip Hadden was engaged for several years in
transport-riding--that is, in carrying goods on ox waggons from Durban
or Maritzburg to various points in the interior. A difficulty such as
had more than once confronted him in the course of his career, led to
his temporary abandonment of this means of earning a livelihood.
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