of it a little travesty of a Union Jack was run
up on a stick, and when we rode up to the door a farmer came out,
smiling, rubbing his hands, sniggering--in a word, truckling. His talk
was like the political swagger of the music-hall or the butler's pantry.

"I'm John Bull to the core--eh? No damned Boers for me--eh? Ha, ha, wipe
'em out, gentlemen, wipe 'em out: old England's all right as long as
we've got gentlemen like you to defend us--eh?" (He took us for
officers.) "John Bull for ever--eh?"

And while he spoke someone inside the house played "God Save the Queen"
with one finger (incorrectly) on a harmonium. The incident had a more
unpleasant flavour than I can well convey; we went away feeling ashamed.

All this belongs to the dark side of the campaign; fortunately there was
another, how bright I cannot say, that went far to make one forget the
rest. For the soldier the whole moral question had been decided; his
duty was so clear that he never needed to hesitate. And his blood would
have been sluggish indeed who must not have been stirred to the heart by
these inspiring circumstances: whether in camp, where the population of
a town was housed and fed in an hour, every man charged with some duty
for the common benefit, the whole a pattern of social administration; or
on the march, with the scouts and patrols opening and spreading in
advance and covering every patch of ground for miles round, the sweep
and imposing measure of the marching troops, the miles of supply and
baggage waggons, each in its appointed place; or on the battlefield,
where troops were handled and manoeuvred as on a chessboard, where men
went to death with light hearts, lying for perhaps hours under fire,
stealing a piece of ground here or a bit of cover there, with one eye on
their officer and another on the flash before them, and perhaps a
thought in the middle of it all for someone at home--there, indeed,
where stern duties were faithfully fulfilled was set a great example.
Fortunately for some of us at home the men who direct and conduct our
battles are magnanimous, and one had the gratification of seeing, even
upon occasions so savage, little acts of courtesy and humanity rendered
on both sides that went far to take the sting out of a defeat.

And let there be no mistake about the Boers as soldiers. In spite of the
far too numerous abuses of the rules of civilised warfare by detached
and independent combatants--abuses, it should be remembe