us.

"We've had a hard day;" he said, "let's go in to supper."

After the meal, even more silent than is habitual amongst us, where
talking at table is almost as bad form as making a joke with a minister
would be in Sloper's Scotland, our host told us that the English had
camped on the spot where they had fought, and that he did not think they
would march till daylight. It was best for us to sleep there that night,
and leave with him before dawn.

We agreed.

"Father, can I go too?" asked his son, aged thirteen.

"No, my boy, you must stay and help mother to manage the farm. It will
be a long while ere father returns."

"Oh, father! I'm too old to stay in the house, like an old woman.
Besides, I'm afraid they will make me prisoner."

"Do you think they catch children like him?" his mother asked anxiously.

"No, I don't think they are so cruel," I replied; "but one can never
tell."

"Well, they won't get the chance," said the plucky little fellow. "As
soon as I see them coming, I shall take my mare and go and hide in the
hills."

The mother did not say anything. She bore up bravely, as our women ever
do, Heaven bless them! Was it not but some ten miles from this very spot
that years before a handful of our pioneers had gained the victory at
Vecht Kop, when the women loaded the guns and handed them to the men as
the latter unflinchingly beat back the tremendous horde of maddened
blacks that flung themselves against the hastily drawn circle of
waggons. Does not one old lady still bear the scars of the nineteen
stabs she received on that day? Our women are women indeed, and worthy
mothers of the race that yet shall people all Africa and rule itself.

Do not think I am flying too high. The average Boer family numbers ten
children. Boys are in the majority. If at present we have thirty
thousand warriors (I am not counting the wasters), it follows that in
two generations we shall have three hundred thousand. Taking the
proportion then, as now, of ten to one, Britain will have to employ
against us in 1940 no less than three million men! And when that time
comes, the children of to-day will have the recollection of the
concentration camps and of a few other little trifles to strengthen
their backbone.

The concentration camps! Fit subject for Dante, who in the _Divina
Comedia_ portrays as no other can the maddened heart of a father doomed
to see his children waste away before his very eyes. There are many
relentl