h a soft eye for a pretty ankle, and a hard fist for a foe--one
of those quiet chaps a man always likes to find close beside him in a row.
Driscoll almost weeps over him to me sometimes. "He's the devil's own at
close quarters," says the Irishman. "Never want a better chum when it comes
to bashing the enemy. If he could only shoot a bit 'straighther and talk a
bit sweether to the colleens he'd be perfect." All the same, I have, and
hold, my own opinion concerning the "talking." Many a smile which the
gallant Celt appropriated to himself as we rode out of a conquered town
seemed to me to belong of right to the rosy-faced Welsh lad on the
off-side. To hear these two men chatter over a glass of hot rum in my tent
at night one would think they had never faced danger. Yet never a day goes
by but one or the other of them has to run the gauntlet of Boer rifles;
whilst Jack Brabant, who is death on cigars or anything else that will emit
smoke, and who curls up and says little, has been near death so often that
it will be no stranger to him when it comes in all its finality.

Driscoll was in Burmah when the news came of the first disaster to the
Irish troops in South Africa. He threw up his business as lightly as a
coquette throws up a midsummer lover, and started for the war. At Bombay he
was stopped by a yard or two of red tape, and had to go back to Calcutta,
where he used his Irish tongue to such purpose that he got a permit to
leave India, and made his way to the scene of trouble. He first joined
General Gatacre as orderly officer. Later he was attached to the Border
Mounted Rifles as captain, and did splendid service at the battles of
Dordrecht and Labuschagne's Nek In the latter place he was the first man to
gallop into the Boer laager before the fight had ceased. Captain, then
Lieutenant, Davies was as close to his side as a shadow to a serpent, and
they only had fourteen men with them at the time. After this Driscoll,
whose skill as a scout had been remarked on all sides, was ordered to form
a body of fifty scouts to act as the very eyes of the rapidly moving
Colonial Division under General Brabant. This was promptly done, most of
the men picked being Colonial-born Britishers. Soon after the formation of
his band, Driscoll, with fifty men, attacked Rouxville from four sides at
once. Dashing in, he demanded surrender of the place, as if he had an army
at his back to enforce his demands, a piece of Irish impudent valour that