ss of dignity is, I take it,
the natural gift of a gentleman; and if the officer who devotes
himself to his men is high-minded and courageous, always ready to
ignore self, with the saving virtue of humour, he will earn not only
their respect and admiration, but their loyal and unswerving love.

CHAPTER XIII

GOAL-KEEPER

Baden-Powell was at Henley, preparing to enjoy the festivities of the
1899 Regatta in one of the pleasantest houses on the river, when a
telegram arrived calling him to the War Office. This was on Wednesday,
and the business the state of things in the Transvaal. On Saturday he
was on the sea, sailing away from the coast of England.

As we have said before, Baden-Powell keeps a khaki kit in perfect
readiness for emergencies ("he is terribly methodical," says one of
his brothers), and, therefore, when Lord Wolseley asked him how soon
it would be before he could start, the delighted B.-P. answered with a
very enthusiastic "Immediately." But ships are not kept in such easy
readiness as kits, and two whole days had to elapse before our hero
could set sail for the land where war was brewing. Those two days he
spent with his family and in paying farewell visits to his friends.
The Old Carthusian naturally bent his steps towards Charterhouse, and
sought out Dr. Haig-Brown in the Master's Lodge. "I hope they'll give
me a warm corner," he said, gripping the Doctor's hand. And then in a
few weeks this Old Boy was in his African corner, enjoying its
Avernus-like warmth.

The story of the siege of Mafeking is one of the most interesting an
Englishman can read about. One may truthfully say that it is the story
of a single man--our hero, B.-P. Good men he has had under him,
skilful officers and valorous troops; but all the daring, all the
gallantry, all the heroism would have been powerless in such a
situation without the unlimited resourcefulness of the intrepid
Goal-Keeper. With a handful of men he has held at bay in a small and
very exposed town as many as 6000 Boers, commanded at one time by the
dogged and unscrupulous Cronje. And not only this. With his small
force he has kept the enemy on tenterhooks all the weary weeks of the
siege, sallying out at night to fling his gallant men upon their
trenches, storming them in their lines by day, and actually giving the
large army besieging his little garrison a taste of cold steel.

In years to come, I suppose, only the imagination will be able to
realise