d one of the most
popular men in the whole Brigade. When on the trek one of the
transport waggons stuck fast hopelessly in an ugly drift, and no
amount of whip-leather or lung-power sufficed to move it. One waggon
thus made a fixture blocks the whole cavalcade, and is, therefore, a
most serious obstruction. But Mr Wainman had not become an old
colonist without learning a few things characteristic of colonial
life, including the handling of an ox team. He therefore volunteered
to end the deadlock, and in sheer desperation the Padre's offer was,
however dubiously, accepted. So off came his tunic; this small thing
was straightened, that small thing cleared out of the way, then next
he cleared his throat, and instead of hurling at those staggering oxen
English oaths or Kaffir curses, spoke to them in tones soothing and
familiar as their own mother tongue. Some one at last had appeared
upon the scene that understood them, or that they could understand.
Then followed a long pull, a strong pull, a pull altogether, and lo as
by magic the impossible came to pass. The waggon was out of the drift!
"Brave padre," everybody cried. His name means "waggoner," and a right
good waggoner he that day proved to be. This skilful compliance with
one of the requirements of the Mosaic laws helped him immensely in the
preaching of the Gospel. He became all the more powerful as a minister
because so popular as a man. In many ways his mature local knowledge
enabled him to become so exceptionally useful that he received
promotion from a fourth to a third class acting chaplaincy, and the
very officers who at first deemed his presence an infliction combined
to present him with a handsome cigarette case in token of uttermost
goodwill. You can't tell what even a chaplain is capable of till you
give him a chance.

[Sidenote: _Three bedfellows in a barn._]

When Mr Wainman first reached his appointed quarters, the wounded were
being brought in by hundreds from the Colenso fight; later on he
climbed to the summit of Spion Kop, "The Spying Mountain," to search
for the wounded, and to bury the dead that fell victims to the fatal
mischance that having captured, then surrendered that ever famous
hill; and at night he slept in a barn with a Catholic priest lying on
one side of him and an Anglican chaplain on the other--a delightful
forecasting that of the time when the leopard shall lie down with the
kid, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together