lOS-ANGElfj> * *^1 ft % i I 3 i I fe ^ > ? ^ ^ I I I % l g * I i; rJ- ^j ^ME-U I lU < ' %13^ 5 S i able to have a good deal of society in a quiet way more, probably, than falls to the lot of the daughters of most in- cumbents with slender incomes; and as we are intimate with all the gentry round, I am sure that none of those we care about knowing will turn a cold shoulder on us because we have, without any fault of our own, what is called 'come down in the world.' Those who like us for ourselves will continue to do so; those who only cared for us because of our garden parties and dinners can be very well dispensed with. We have always been a very happy family, and, if we choose, can be the same in the future. As to Yorke, I must myself take charge of his education in future." " Thank you, father ! " Yorke said quietly. He was about to say something more, but he checked himself. " Of course we must give up the idea of going to the skat- 4 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA ing party in Sir William Morton's park to-morrow," Mrs. Harberton said. " I see no reason for our doing so," the rector said gently. " We can't sell our horses and carriage in twenty-four hours, and I should certainly prefer to go. It would be but a bad example to our neighbours if it were seen that we are broken in spirit by a worldly misfortune. Many of them know that my income was chiefly drawn from the bank. I am always preaching patience and contentment to our congregation, very many of whom have suffered heavily from agricultural dis- tress, and what I preach we can practise, and without under- valuing the advantages of money, we can show them that we have no idea of grieving over its loss. One of my greatest regrets is that in future we shall be somewhat stinted in our means of helping our neighbours." The next day, accordingly, the rector, his wife, and daugh- ters drove over to the skating party, and although a few knew how great was the change effected in their circumstances by the crash at the bank, the majority believed that the report that the greater part, if not the whole, of the rector's private property had been swept away, had been grossly exaggerated, for there was nothing in their manner or appearance to afford any indication of their changed position. Yorke said that he would rather stay at home, and, when the others, started, went to the stables, and patted and talked to the horses. He had ridden all of them; for, three years before, he had been promoted from his pony, and in his holidays took long rides with his father. He had learned also to take the horses over hurdles erected in the field behind the house, and, under the instruction of his father's coachman, who had once been a stud groom, had acquired an excellent seat. " And what are you going to do, Master Yorke ? " the man asked, for he had already heard from Mr. Harberton that circumstances had occurred that would oblige him to give up his carriage and horses, but that he would try to find him another situation. A CHANGE OF FORTUNE 6 " I am not going back to school, that is quite settled. Of course it is a beastly nuisance, but it can't be helped. My father says that he intends to teach me himself; but, what with parish work, and one thing and another, I know it would be a very tiresome job for him. But even if he did, I don't see that it would be of any great use to me. Of course I cannot go up to the University now; I am not altogether sorry for that, for, you know, my father always wished me to go into the church, and although, so far, I have said nothing against it, I don't feel that I am in any way cut out for the job. Anyhow, I don't like the thought of being a drag on his hands, for after I had done with work with him there would be a terrible difficulty about getting me a berth of some kind. " I would rather do anything 1 in the world than be a clerk and be stuck in an office all day. That is the worst of going to a public school, you get to hate the idea of an indoor life. I would rather a hundred times go to sea or enlist in the army, when I am old enough; at any rate in the army I should see something of the world and keep myself, and at the end of my five years' service might find some opening. Then there is my father's cousin out at the Cape. When he was here last year, I know he offered to take me out with him. Of course father would not hear of it then, there was no reason why he should; but things have changed, and I don't see why I should not go now. I am getting on for six- teen, you know, and can ride and all that sort of thing, and I shot regularly last winter, and brought down some par- tridges too." " Not many, master," the man said with a grin. " No, not many," the boy admitted ; " still, it was my first year, and I had only a single barrel ; father himself said I did very fairly, and that he had no doubt that I should make a good shot in time." " I have no doubt that you would, Master Yorke," the man said heartily. " You have learned to ride well, and a man with a good seat on a horse is generally good behind a gun." 6 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA Yorke Harberton was, as he said, nearly sixteen, and was a typical public-school boy straight and clean-limbed, free from all awkwardness, bright in expression, and pos- sessed of a large amount of self-possession, or, as he himself would have called it, "cheek;" was a little particular about the set of his Eton jacket and trousers and the appearance of his boots ; as hard as nails and almost tireless ; a good specimen of the class by which Britain has been built up, her colonies formed, and her battle-fields won a class in point of energy, fearlessness, the spirit of adventure, and a readiness to face and overcome all difficulties, unmatched in the world. His thoughts were turned into a fresh channel by his conversation with William, and he strolled away with his hands deep in his pockets and his mind busy. " Well, Yorke, what have you been doing with yourself ? " was his father's first question when he returned. " I don't know that I have been doing anything, father." "Which does not mean that you have been in mischief, I hope?" " No," the boy laughed, " I haven't. I went to the stables first, and since then I have been walking about the garden." " That is quite a new amusement, Yorke, especially in winter," one of his sisters said in a tone of astonishment. " Fancy you walking round and round the g'arden ! Wonders will never cease ! " " Well, it is quite as sensible, anyhow, Lucy, as tearing about the grass playing lawn tennis on a hot summer's day." Like most boys of that age, Yorke, though very fond of his sisters, regarded them as mere girls, and especially ob- jected to being in any way, as he considered, patronized by them. " But you know, my dear," his mother said gently, " it is not often you do walk about the garden by yourself, so it was natural that Lucy should be surprised." " Quite natural, mother," Yorke admitted frankly. " Well, I have been thinking over something." A CHANGE OF FOKTUNE 7 " And what conclusion have you arrived at, Yorke ? " his father asked. The boy hesitated. "I will tell you after breakfast to- morrow," he said, " it is too long to talk about now." Then he asked questions about the afternoon they had spent, and the subject was not alluded to before him until the next morning, although he was the chief topic of conversation be- tween his father and mother that night. * The boy has something in his head," Mr. Harberton said. " There can be no doubt that this very unfortunate business affects him more seriously than the rest of us. To us it means a quieter life, less gaiety, and a little pinching; to him it means a great deal more it is a change in his whole prospects, a change in his career. I think that would have come anyhow; Yorke has never said that he disliked the thought of going into the church, but the mere fact that it was a topic he always avoided is quite sufficient to show that his heart was not in it. I should in no case have exercised any strong influence in the matter, for unless a man feels he has a call to the vocation it is better that he should not enter it. Now, I should be still more unwilling to put any pressure whatever upon him. Certainly I shall not be able to afford to send him to college, unless he could gain an open scholar- ship that would go far towards paying his expenses. But of that I see no prospect whatever. " Yorke is no fool, but he has no great application, and his school reports show that, although not at the bottom of his form, he is never more than half-way up. If viewed merely as a worldly profession, the church is now the worst that a young man can enter. The value of the livings has long been falling off, owing to the drop in value of tithes and land. The number of curates is immensely larger than that of livings, and the chance of preferment, unless through powerful patronage, is but slight. In other professions a man's value is in proportion to his age. In the church it is otherwise. No incumbent likes having a curate older than 8 WITH ROBERTS T6 PRETORIA himself, and a man of fifty will obtain less pay than one of five-and- twenty ; and I see no prospect whatever of any improvement. While some classes have become more wealthy, the landed gentry, who may be considered the best supporters of the church, have become poorer, owing in part to the fall in the value of land, and to the very heavy death and succession duties. It would need much national effort to make any real improvement in our condition, and I see no hope of such a national effort being made. I should not be greatly surprised if, as a result of his cogitations to-day, Yorke tells me to-morrow that he has made up his mind to give up all idea of entering the church." " I should be sorry," Mrs. Harberton said almost tearfully; " I have so looked forward to it." " I doubt whether he would have gone in any circum- stances," her husband said, " and I certainly should not have urged him to do so had he expressed any reluctance. It is in my opinion the highest and noblest career that man can adopt, but it must be only taken up with the highest motives. Yorke is a good lad, but neither studious nor serious in his disposition. Possibly, had I kept him at home and had a tutor for him, he would willingly have fallen in with our jhopes and wishes ; but it was on that very account that I sent him to a public school. There is nothing more unfortunate than that a man should too late discover that he has mis- taken his avocation. As it is, his decision, if it is his decision, has been quickened by this crash. The path to the church is no longer easy for him, and I fancy that while we were away to-day he has been laying his own plans for the future." " He is so young to have any plans at all, John." " He is nearly sixteen," the rector said decidedly, " and a public-school boy of that age has learned to think more for himself, and to be more independent, than one two years older who has always been kept at home, or perhaps educated with two or three others by a clergyman. I have always A CHANGE OF FORTUNE 9 taught him to be self-reliant, have let him ride my horses, and generally act on his own devices. As long as I was in a position to maintain and advance him in any career he might choose, I had a right to a very considerable influence over him. I still retain the right to advise and to warn; but I should no longer oppose his wishes, providing that these were not altogether impracticable." " You would not let him go to sea, surely ? " his wife said. " All boys seem to want to go to sea." "I should certainly be sorry if he set his mind on that. He is too old for the Eoyal Navy, but I could afford to pay the usual premium required for his entry as an appren- tice, as it is called, in a good firm of ship-owners. I should be sorry, because we should see him so seldom; otherwise, personally, I have no objection to the life. I had a younger brother in the merchant service. He died a few months before I married you. But his death had nothing to do with the sea service; he liked it very much, and never re- gretted having entered it. However, we can wait till we know what Yorke says in the morning." When breakfast was over, the rector said: "Now, Yorke, come into my study and we will have a grand council. Now, sit down comfortably," he went on, " and tell me exactly what you have been thinking of. It is only natural that you should have considered seriously the changes that this unfortunate affair has necessitated, and as you have plenty of common sense, we will gladly hear your views about it." " It is evident that I cannot go back to Rugby, father." "I fear that is the case, Yorke. I don't see how it could be done. I shall have but a very small balance left after pay- ing the calls that will be made upon me, and I must set apart a portion of my income to insure my life for the benefit of your mother and sisters, in case I should be called away. At the same time that need not necessarily deter you from carry- ing out your plan of entering the church. I took a second class at Oxford, and could work with you at home and push 10 WITH EOBEBTS TO PRETORIA you forward, and I have no doubt that our bishop would ordain you when the time arrived." "Thank you, father," Yorke said quietly, "but the more I think of it the less willing I am to enter the church. I don't think that I am fit for it, and I am sure that I should never make a good clergyman. I cannot fancy myself work- ing for years, perhaps, among the poor in some manufactory town. I meant to tell you so before long in any case. I am sorry, because I know that you and the mater have always wished it." " That is so, but I should not press you, Yorke," his father said. " In the church, above all other careers, a worker must be a willing worker, and his heart must be in it. If it is not, he is far better out of it. You have not surprised me at all. And now let us consider that settled. I suppose you have been thinking of something else ? " "I have been thinking of all sorts of things, father. I thought about going to sea, but I am not sure that I should like it. Besides, I want to get on ; I want to be a help instead of a burden not, of course, at first, but in something where there is a chance of making one's way, and in case in case You know what I mean, father? I might be able to pro- vide a home for the mater and the girls." " Quite right, Yorke," his father said encouragingly. " Of course you are very young yet, and I am, so far as I know, a strong and healthy man. Still, life is always uncertain, and even if I am spared for many years, it is hardly likely that I shall be able to make any great provision for them. Certainly, I shall not be able to afford to insure my life for any adequate sum for their comfortable maintenance. I shall do my best. Still, I am in hopes that in the meanwhile your sisters will be married and provided for. Well, what were you thinking of, Yorke?" "I was thinking that as my cousin, Herbert Allnutt, offered last year to take me back to the Cape with him for a year or two, it would be a good thing to go out there. If I A CHANGE OF FORTUNE 11 were to stay with him for a couple of years, I should have got to know the country. You see, as he has been out there for so long, he must have lots of friends, and he would be able to give me plenty of introductions. He is near the railway from Cape Town, and he must know people up in the mining district, so I might get a good berth through him. What sort of post, of course, I cannot guess; but from what one hears, a young fellow who is steady, and so on, is sure to make his way. Of course I should never think of settling down to farming, as he has done, but there must be plenty of other openings. Out there, at any rate, I shall be able to earn my own living to start with, which is more than I could do here, and I would a thousand times rather lead that sort of life than take a place as a clerk." Mr. Harberton was silent for a minute or two. " The greatest objection I see to it," he said at last, " is that the state of things there is very unsettled. Ever since the Jameson raid, matters seem to have been getting worse. That expedition was a very unfortunate one. It was ill- advised and premature, but it was the outcome of great wrong. There is no doubt that the Europeans in the Trans- vaal are abominably treated by the Boers. Still, now that Chamberlain has taken up the matter, something must be done, and no doubt when the white colonists are placed on the same footing as the Boers, matters in the Transvaal will be greatly improved. Your cousin was saying that there are gold-fields yet untouched, because the amount of extortion on the part of the Boer people, the necessity for large bribes, the tremendous taxation, and the cost of powder and other matters, which are the subject of monopolies, are so great, that all fresh industries are stopped, and the existing ones crippled. When these are abolished, as they must be sooner or later, there will be an immense impetus to business. "It may be two or three years before matters are placed upon a proper footing, and by the time you are old enough to avail yourself of such chances, things may have settled 12 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA down, and there will be a rush of immigration. I do not know much about these matters, but I believe that steady and energetic young men, acquainted with the country, will have great opportunities. From what your cousin said, the Boers have for years been quietly building fortifications and collecting arms; but I can hardly think they will be mad enough to defy the demands of England for the fair treatment of the class they call Uitlanders, especially as the latter were guaranteed all rights of equality by the last treaty. Well, I will think it over, Yorke. It is quite a new idea to me, but at the first blush I am not inclined to reject it. There can be no doubt that a young fellow, fairly well edu- cated, energetic, and above all, steady and well-conducted, has a far greater chance of making his way in South Africa than he would have in older, or at least more established, colonies. It would be a great advantage to you to have two or three years' experience there before you set out for yourself, and the benefit of Allnutt's introductions would, no doubt, be considerable." A week passed before the subject was resumed. Yorke felt almost like a culprit. His mother and sisters had evidently been told about his project, and went about the house with faces far more gloomy than those they had shown when they first heard of the bank failure. Yorke felt that the girls, at any rate, highly disapproved of his plan, and kept out of their way as much as possible. At last he was called again into the study, and on this occasion his mother was also present. " We have talked this matter over very seriously, Yorke," his father began, " and although at first your mother was very much against the idea, she has come to see that it is probably the best that could be done under the circumstances. She acknowledges that she would be less anxious about you than if you were at sea. She sees, also, that with your somewhat restless disposition, and the ideas with which you have been brought up, you would really never be happy in a Londoa A CHANGE OF FORTUNE 13 office, even if we could obtain a berth there for you. In that way I have no influence whatever; besides, you are two or three years too young for it. We have therefore agreed, that, at any rate for that time, you could not do better than be acquiring experience in South Africa. By the time you are eighteen you will be better able to estimate your chance of getting on there. " You will then have acquired a knowledge of the world, so that, should you decide to come home, no harm will have been done, for you will not be too old to make a fresh start in some other direction. I am sure your cousin will be glad to see you, his invitation was a very hearty one. I hope you may remain with him ^or some time; but should you not do so, I have no doubt Lc will make comfortable arrangements for you elsewhere. I say this because I am sure, that though personally he would in all ways do his best to make you happy, I do not think he is a very strong man, and I fancy, from words that he let drop, that his wife is the head of the partnership. She is a Dutch woman, and her family are, as he told me, among the leaders of what is called the Africander party. What their wishes and intentions may be I really don't know, for I have scarcely given a thought to the matter, and seldom read the Cape news. However, I know that they hold that the Dutch party ought to be predominant at the Cape. However, this need not affect you, and certainly you could have no occasion to take any interest in the politics of the Cape for some years to come. " Well, my boy, it is a very grave step to take ; but I own that it does appear to me the best that is open to you, and should it turn out otherwise, you will have plenty of time to remedy it. I shall pay fifty pounds into a bank at the Cape in your name, so that if at any time you decide that you have made a mistake, you can take your passage home again, and you will certainly be none the worse for having spent a year or two out there." " Thank you both heartily, father. I hope I sha'n't come 14 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA back like a bad penny. I feel sure that the life will just suit me; and when I have once learned to make myself useful on a farm I shall have no difficulty in getting employment else- where, if, as I hope will not be the case, I do not get on well with Mr. Allnutt's wife." "Your father says the climate is very good, Yorke," Mrs. Harberton said tearfully. " It seems to me a terrible thing for a boy like you to go out there alone; but going to a relation is not like going among strangers, and I know you liked Mr. Allnutt when he was here." " Yes, I thought him very jolly, and I am sure I shall get on capitally with him. Of course I had no fancy for going out when he spoke to me, because things were different; but I thought of it at once when I began to wonder what would be the best thing for me to do." "I should have liked you to stay at home for a time, Yorke," his mother said, with a quiver in her voice, " but your father is of opinion that as you are to go, the sooner you go the better." "I think so, mother. The horses will be sold next week, and I should only be idling about the house and doing no good; and it would be just as painful saying good-bye three months hence as it is now." " Yes, and we should be looking forward to it all the time. Besides, we want you to see if you like the business, and whether you think that you will be able to get on ; and if you don't, we want you back again in time for anything that may turn up. Therefore, in all respects, the sooner you go the better. I don't suppose there will be much trouble about your outfit. You will want two or three suits of rough, strong material, coats made like shooting- jackets, with big pockets, also flannel shirts and a good supply of stout boots and strong stockings coming up to the knees. You had better have your trousers made knickerbocker fashion, and get a couple of pairs of soft leather gaiters. " I will get you a double-barrel small-bore gun, they are A CHANGE OF FOBTUNE 15 coming into fashion now; and though I would rather have a twelve-bore, they say the smaller ones make very good shoot- ing, and they are a good deal lighter to carry. It will be time enough for you to think of getting a rifle in a couple of years, if you decide to stay there. Besides, as everyone seems to use rifles out there, and no doubt you will practise at a mark Mr. Allnutt will lend you one. We will drive over to Yeovil this afternoon and get you measured for the clothes. Mother will go with us to see about the shirts, and so on. To- morrow I will write to Donald Currie's people and secure a second-class berth for you. The more occupied we are the less time there will be for fretting. I shall lose no time in writing to your head-master stating why I am obliged to take you away. I dare say you will have letters to write to your chums." From that moment all was busy. In spite of the assurances that the Cape was a warm climate, the girls applied them- selves to knitting comforters and mittens. There was a general overhauling of Yorke's clothes, as white shirts and English clothes would probably be required on Sundays. "We shall not get you any more things of this sort," his father said. " It is of no use your carrying about more clothes than you want, and it is likely that you will outgrow those you have before you wear them out. I shall give you a letter to post to Mr. Allnutt as soon as you land, and then you can stop two days at Cape Town before starting, and won't come upon him altogether by surprise. I hope you will get on well with his wife there is no fear of your getting a hearty welcome from him but I shall tell him that if, after you have been with him a short time, he finds that his wife is not pleased with the arrangement, as his cordial invitation was given without consultation with her, he should take you to some nice people English, of course where the work you might do in the first place would be considered an equivalent for your board for, naturally, whether you stay with him or anyone else, you will have to work." 16 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA "Certainly, father; that is what I am going out for. If T wasn't to work, I might as well stop here and idle my time away as at the Cape. I suppose one of the first things to do will be to learn Dutch and something of the native lan- guage, for although in farming one might be able to get on well without it, one would certainly want it if one were going into any business in the mining regions. I will get a Dutch grammar if I can before I start, and learn as many words as I can on the voyage." " It might be very well worth your while, Yorke. I believe that the language spoken is a sort of dialect they call taal. Still, it is founded upon Dutch, and anything that you can learn of it would help you." " Well, I shall make a point of working hard at it, father. My own idea is to go up to Kimberley or Johannesburg, when I have been out a couple of years, with an introduction from Mr. Allnutt to some store-keeper or manager of mines there, and then work my way up. Of course I don't expect to make much money for a time, but I shall certainly lay by every penny I earn over and above keeping myself." "Whatever you do, don't be too sanguine, because if you do you will assuredly meet with severe disappointment." "I don't mean to, father; once I get into a thing that seems likely to turn out well, I will stick to it patiently. There is one comfort I have read that out in the colonies men do not care what they turn their hands to ; no one thinks the worse of a young man for doing any honest job, so that he keeps himself straight. I mean to keep myself straight. I am determined that I will never touch liquor of any kind unless I am ill, or under extraordinary circumstances." " You could not make a better resolution, Yorke. I believe that in the colonies, even more than here, drink is the bane of too many young men, and it is certainly an obstacle to suc- cess with all. I know your cousin, when he was here, said nineteen out of twenty of the young fellows who go to the bad, after arriving full of hope and energy, owe their down- (M839) A CHANGE OF FORTUNE 17 fall solely to drink. The life at the back stations is lonely, there is an entire absence of amusement, and it is especially dull of an evening. The temptation, therefore, to take drink to cheer up the spirits is strong, and when he has once yielded to it a man is almost sure to go from, bad to worse. ' In my experience,' he said, 'I have known of no instance where a young man who resisted all temptations to drink was a com- plete failure. He may suffer very heavily from droughts, and have misfortunes over which he has no control, but he can keep his head afloat and so do fairly well in the end.' The native spirit, that is to say, the Boer spirit Cape smoke it is called is vile, and is simply liquid poison. However, the Dutch are not a drunken set, and do not very often drink to excess; perhaps the very badness of the liquor keeps them from it. That being the case, Yorke, it is evident that you cannot be too careful, and it would be a comfort both to your mother and me to know that you have set out with a stern resolution to avoid liquor except, of course, in case of illness or in exceptional circumstances, such as a long journey in a pouring rain, when a small amount of spirits may prevent bad consequences. But Mr. Allnutt said that even then it was more effective if you stripped, poured some of it into your hand, and thoroughly rubbed yourself with it." " That is a good idea, father, and I will try it under euch circumstances." A week later, after a tearful parting from his mother and Bisters, Yorke went up to town accompanied by his father, who took him on board one of the Castle Line steamers, and remained with him until she went out of dock. The voyage was altogether uneventful. There were several young fel- lows, sons of gentlemen, going out in the second class. Yorke was three or four years younger than any of them, but they all took to him, and he had a pleasant time. For three or four hours a day he worked steadily at Dutch, and received a good deal of assistance in the pronunciation from a Dutch gentleman returning home from a visit, who took an interest (M839) B 18 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA in the boy who so steadily sat apart from the rest and studied his language. Yorke also made the acquaintance of several of the third-class passengers, miners, carpenters, and other workers, who had been back to the old country to see their friends, and from them he learned a good deal more of the colony than he had hitherto known. "I don't say that it is not necessary to learn Dutch," one of them said in answer to a question, " if you are going into a store or mean to farm, but in the towns it is not much needed, for we and the Dutch don't have much to do with each other. Very few of them are engaged at the mines or even in the stores. They treat us as dirt under their feet. But the general idea is that it won't be very long before there is a change. England is a long while making up her mind to see us righted, but she will do so some day. When she does, she will find it a tougher job than she expects. For the past four or five years they have been importing arms and ammunition of every sort. No one can understand out there why England does not put a stop to it. She will certainly pay heavily for it in the future. The Boers have an idea that we cannot fight. That is a big mistake, you know, but with such a great country, with hills big hills, too and passes, and that sort of thing 1 , the Boers, who are mostly good shots, will be able to make a desperate resistance, even if it is only the Transvaal. But there is a general idea that the Orange Free State will join them, and in that case it will be a big job, especially as there are Dutch all over Cape Colony, who likely enough will rise also. People in England do not seem to have an idea what a big place South Africa is. Why, it is as big as England and Scotland and Ireland and France all thrown together, and you can count your miles by the thousand instead of the hundred. All these fellows, too, have horses, any number of them, and men marching on foot would not have a ghost of a chance of catching them. I tell you it will be a big business if it ever begins." ON A DUTCH FARM 19 CHAPTER H ON A DUTCH FARM THE voyage had passed so pleasantly that Yorke was quite sorry when it was over. The acquaintances he had made were all going up-country, a few to farms where they had friends, but the greater part to Kimberley or Johan- nesburg, where they thought they would be sure to find some- thing to turn their hands to. Three or four were going on to Durban, having friends or relatives in Natal. On landing Yorke was almost bewildered by the crowd of laughing, shout- ing men, for the most part blacks, though there were many whose red fezzes showed them to be Mohammedans, mostly Malays. All of these were offering to carry luggage, or recommending rival hotels or boarding-houses. Fortunately Yorke had arranged with one of his friends to go to the same hotel. Pushing their way through the throng, they hired a vehicle somewhat resembling a hansom in appearance, and bearing in large letters its name, " Old England," and were driven to the hotel which one of the ship's officers had recommended to them. " There is no mistake about our being abroad, Harberton," Howard, Yorke's companion, laughed. " What a mixed crowd, Kaffirs and Malays, whitey-brown mixtures, Dutch- men and British ! But even without them, the vehicles are as un-English as possible. They are certainly ahead of us in the way of traction-engines; that fellow dragging two wag- gons behind it is the third we have seen. The tram-cars are more like ours, but the row they keep up with those gongs is enough to frighten any well-conducted horse. Look at that funny two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a pair of horses. I suppose it is what they call a Cape cart; you see it has a hood. I don't think I ever saw a two-wheeled trap with two horses before. Evidently Dutch is the language here, for 20 WITH EGBERTS TO PBETOBIA even the Kaffirs and Malays jabber in it. I rather wish now that I had followed your example, Harberton, and tried to learn enough to make a start with. It makes you feel like an ass if you can't ask for the simplest thing and get under- stood in a country under your own flag." After reaching the hotel, Yorke made enquiries of an English clerk as to the hour at which the trains for Kim- berley left. He found there were only two a day, and that the morning one arrived at Brakpoort Station, his destina- tion, a distance of some four hundred miles from Cape Town, at twelve o'clock on the following day. The letter to Mr. Allnutt had been left open, so that he could give that gentleman some idea of when he might be expected. The clerk told him that Brakpoort was a comparatively small place, but that he would have no difficulty in hiring a cart there to drive him out to the farm, which lay eighteen miles west, being about midway between the station and the town of Eichmond. Yorke now added a line or two indicat- ing the time at which he would arrive at Brakpoort, closed the letter, and went out and posted it. After having done this he walked about for a time. The town impressed him favourably. Some of the old Dutch houses still remained, but their appearance was scarcely pic- turesque. .Their fronts were of almost unbroken flatness, and distinguished only by their superabundance of windows. The shops were excellent, and far superior to those of Yeovil. The articles were all European, and he looked in vain for anything that had the appearance of native manufacture. If he had found any small distinctive articles he would have bought them to send home to his mother and sisters. Howard, who was going up to Kimberley, told him that evening that, instead of starting as he had intended to do on the following morning, he would wait another day. "It will be pleasanter for us both," he said. "It is slow work travelling with half a dozen fellows whose language one does not understand, and I know the Boers are not ON A DUTCH FAEM 21 inclined to be civil. While you were out, I was chatting to a man who had just come down from Pretoria, and he says that everything there looked very gloomy. Of course our people have had their hopes raised owing to the fact that their case has been taken up at last by the home authorities. They are convinced that Kruger, who, by all accounts, is one of the most obstinate and conceited old brutes that ever lived, will never give way an inch, and that, in fact, he will fight rather than do so. Indeed, they believe that he is bent on forcing on a war; and the Boers say openly that in another year the Rooineks will have to go Rooineks means English. So it will be much more pleasant for us to travel together. I heard you just now trying to talk to that coffee-coloured servant, and I saw that you were able to make him understand a little, so if we want to ask any questions about stopping-places, and so on, you will be useful." "Dutch seems hard when you first look at it," Yorke said, " but you soon see that most of the words are really very like English, though they are spelt differently. One of my books is a sort of conversation book, with questions and answers on useful subjects, such as you are likely to meet with when you are travelling, when you are at a hotel, and so on. Of course they put a ' J ' where we put an ' I/ and it puzzles one at first, but I think that in a month or two I shall begin to get on fairly well with it." " Well, if what they say is true, we shall have a lively time of it before long; but though they brag a great deal, I can hardly believe they will be mad enough to go to war with us. If they do, it will put a stop to business for a time, and, as Kimberley is close to the frontier, we shall bear the brunt of it." They started by the train arranged, carrying with them a basket of provisions for the journey, having been warned that this was absolutely necessary, as, except at one or two of the stations, there was nothing whatever to be had. In the old waggon days, their informant had told them, every 22 WITH EOBEBTS TO PBETOMA traveller had to provide himself for the whole journey, and the custom had become so general, that it would hardly pay speculators to set up refreshment places except at the princi- pal stations. Even these could only rely upon the custom of Europeans, as the Boers are far too parsimonious to think of buying provisions when they can carry their own with them. They went to the station early so as to secure corner seats. The carriage filled up at starting, but several left at the sta- tions nearest to the town, and after travelling for a couple of hours, only four remained in the carriage besides them- selves. These were all Dutch. They carried on a very ani- mated conversation among themselves. " I think it is just as well that we don't understand them," Yorke said quietly. " I can only catch a few words here and there, but I am sure they are running us down. I don't mean us, but the English in general." " Then it is quite as well we don't understand them, for 1 certainly should not sit quiet and hear them abusing us ; and as there are four of them, all big fellows, a quarrel might have very disagreeable consequences. I was warned down at Cape Town that if I wished to live in peace and quiet I must keep in with these fellows ; and if it is bad here, it must be a great deal worse for our people up in the Transvaal." The journey was for the most part uninteresting; but there was some superb scenery at the Elex River, and through a series of grand slopes where the line crosses a mountain range. Sometimes the country was hilly, but it was bare of trees; farmhouses were sparsely scattered about; the vege- tation was all parched up, for it was now the middle of summer, and no rain had fallen for a considerable time. "Unless the cattle have learnt to eat sand," Torke said with a laugh, "I don't know how they can exist; and yet the land seemed rich enough for the first part of the jour- ney." " I believe it is very rich where it is cultivated, and either ON A DUTCH FARM 23 wells are sunk, or dams constructed in narrow valleys or dips to catch the water. I believe the vineyards and orchards lying in the districts north of the Cape are extremely rich, but as a rule the Boer farmers are too ignorant to make improvements. They are cattle-raisers rather than farmers. The British settlers are, for the most part, men of insufficient capital. Some day, no doubt, when the country is more thickly settled, and there are better markets, there will be a very different state of things. I have no doubt that artesian wells would furnish an abundant supply of water in most places, and with them and irrigation and the planting of trees, it will be a splendid country. Where there are plenty of trees, the rainfall always increases; and what is of almost equal importance, the ground round them retains the mois- ture, instead of the rain rushing off and being carried down in torrents before it has had time to do much good. How- ever, I have no idea of farming; but I am sure that anyone with capital coming out, and planting a few hundred acres of trees near Kimberley, would make a bigger fortune than by investing in mines." " He would have to wait a long time for his money," Yorke said. " Yes, but he could raise vegetables between the young trees; and my uncle, whom I am going to, says that vege- tables fetch a tremendous price at Kimberley." After a weary journey of twenty-eight hours they arrived at Brakpoort. " Here you are, Harberton ! " " Well, I hope we shall meet again. I am sure to come up to Kimberley, sooner or later." " If you do, don't forget that I have given you my uncle's address, and you are sure to find me there, or, at any rate, to find out where I am." It was but a small wayside station, and Yorke felt some- what desolate after he had shaken hands with his friend and got out with his portmanteau and bag. The feeling was 24 WITH EGBERTS TO PRETORIA speedily dispelled, for hurrying towards him he saw Mr. Allnutt. " How are you, Yorke, my boy ? " his cousin said, as he grasped his hand. " I am glad to see you, though I am sorry to hear of the cause that has sent you out here. I only received your letter this morning 1 . Luckily I had sent a Kaffir over yesterday for a parcel. I started ten minutes after I got it, and only arrived here a quarter of an hour ago. I thought that you might have some difficulty in getting a cart to carry you so far. We shall have to wait two hours to give the horses a rest, for I have driven fast, and the road I don't suppose you would call it a road is very heavy." " It is very kind of you to come over to meet me," Yorke said, much affected with the heartiness of the reception. " I should certainly be very glad of a drink, for it was so terribly hot yesterday and this morning, that, though we thought we had laid in a good supply of water, we finished it all at our first meal this morning." , "Well, we shall get a very fair lunch at this store here. These stations are used, you see, by people for many miles round. Your father tells me that you are all well at home, but, I suppose, greatly upset at this bad business." " No. Of course it will make a lot of difference to us, but I think they troubled more about my coming away than they did about the loss of the money." "Well, lad, a year or two of our rough life will do you good, and they won't know you when you go back to them." "Is Mrs. Allnutt quite well, sir?" "Yes," the colonist said, "she is very well, Yorke; she always is well." But the lad detected a change in the tone in which he spoke. "I hope it wasn't a disagreeable surprise to her, sir, my coming so suddenly upon you ? " "No, it was not. She was surprised, of course, but I am sure that she will make you comfortable. My wife is a good ON A DUTCH FARM 25 woman, a very good woman; but, you see, she is Dutch, and she does not take to nev ideas suddenly. I have no doubt she will be just as pleased as I am at your coming, when she gets to know you, and will feel that, having no children of our own, you will be a great acquisition, and brighten us up very much. There is one thing I must warn you about: she is prejudiced, I must admit that. You see, almost all the people round us are Dutch, and of late there has been what I may call a nasty feeling among them. There is an associa- tion called the Africander Bond, and its object, as far as I can see, is to establish the supremacy of the Dutch in Africa. It is doing a lot of harm. Until a short time back, the English and Dutch got on very well together, and as far as supremacy goes, the greater part of the members of the assembly were Dutch, and almost all the officials. We did aot mind that. No doubt the colony would have gone ahead a good deal faster if our people had had more voice in affairs, for it cannot be denied that the Dutch hate changes of any kind, and would like the world to stand still. A Dutchman would still rather travel in his lumbering waggon, and take a week over it, than make a railway journey of a few hours. That gives you a fair sample of their dislike to change. Of course I am accustomed to these things, and keep quiet when my neighbours come in and set to work talking over affairs, and discussing the possibility of a great Dutch Republic over the whole of South Africa. It does not worry me. I know well enough that England will never let them have it; but I don't tell them so. I like peace and quiet, and I say nothing; and you must say nothing, Yorke. That is the one thing that I have to impress upon you. Never argue with my wife on that subject. She is a g'ood woman, but, naturally enough, being Dutch, she thinks as her countrymen do. That is the one rock ahead; if you steer clear of that, we shall get on capitally." By this time they were seated in a large room at the store eating their lunch, while a Kaffir boy was squatting near the 26 WITH EGBERTS TO PRETORIA four horses, which were munching mealies. Mr. Allmitt had come out a young man to the Cape thirty years before. He was of an easy disposition, and did not succeed; he was therefore glad to obtain employment on the farm of a large Dutch farmer. The latter had an only child, a daughter of sixteen years old, who, before the good-looking young Englishman had been there many months, fell in love with him, and announced to her father her intention of marrying him. The old man ravcC. and stormed, shut her up for a time, and even threatened to beat her. Finding that she was still obstinate, he sent lier for two years to a school in Cape Town. This had no effect whatever. She returned with very enlarged ideas as to the decencies of living, and wanted, as he said, to turn the house upside down. Finding it impossible to bend her to his will, he gave in. She had kept up a correspondence withAllnutt, who had, of course, been discharged r.s soon as the farmer had discovered his daughter's fancy for him. He had not been insensible to the advantages of the posi- tion. Her father owned large numbers of cattle and horses and an extensive tract of land watered by a stream that, ex- cept at very dry seasons, was always full. He had been working at a farm near Colesberg, and on the receipt of a letter from her announcing that her father was willing to sanction the match he at once returned and married her. A year later her father died, to Allnutt's great reKef, and hia wife at once set to work to transmogrify the interior of the house, and to equip it in the fashion which she had learnec to value at the Cape. The great stove which had before been in use was re- moved and replaced by an open fire, and the room fitted with carpets and English furniture. The upstairs rooms were simi- larly altered and furnished, curtains were hung at all the windows, and though outside the house retained the appear- ance of an ordinary Boer homestead, the interior had the appearance of the house of a well-to-do British colonist ON A DUTCH FARM 27 Once a year Mrs. Allnutt and her husband had gone down to Cape Town, and remained there for a month; this had kept her in touch with civilization. Out of doors the farm was managed entirely by her husband, but inside the house she was absolute mistress. After giving the horses an hour's rest, Mr. Allnutt and Yorke started in a Cape cart, the Kaffir taking the reins, while they sat on the seat behind him. Mr. Allnutt chatted pleasantly as they drove, and although the road crossed the veldt, it was not uninteresting. Yorke was surprised when the farmer pointed to a house on a low nek between two hills and said, " That is my place, Yorke. It is two miles away yet, but I am on my own ground now. Eoughly, the farm contains nearly six square miles of level ground and two of hill ; it is worth a good deal more than when I took it. I saw that if it had water it would support three times as many cattle as there were on it, and I dammed the stream up in the hills and brought water down, and have irrigated three or four hundred acres. It took a lot of work, but Kaffir labour is cheap. I cut the grass twice and make hay of it; six months in the year I let the cattle feed on it, and it has fully answered my expectations, and every year repays me all the expense of carrying the job out. The Dutch farmers around come here and admire, and envy the green pasture when their own is burnt up, but though they see the advantage well enough, there is not one of them has attempted to imitate it." " It must have been a big job fencing it in," Yorke said. " Yes ; I could not do that the first year, but the aloes and prickly-pear of which it is made grow very quickly. The farm itself is enclosed by barbed-wire fencing. The law obliges every settler to fence his land." As they drove up to the door Mrs. Allnutt came out. Her two years at Cape Town and her subsequent visits there had prevented her from falling into the loose and slovenly way of \ the ordinary Boer farmer's wife. She was a large woman 28 WITH BOBERTS TO PRETORIA and somewhat stout, but her dress was neat and well-fitting. She had a strong but not unpleasant face, and welcomed Yorke with more geniality than he expected. " You are welcome," she said. " It is a long journey for you to have made alone. Were you sent out here, or did you come at your own wish ? " "It was my own proposal," Yorke replied. "I could not remain idle at home, and I was too young to go into any business there. I am fond of outdoor exercise, and as Mr. Allnutt, when in England, had kindly invited me to come over, I thought it would be best for me to accept his offer, and to learn something of the country and its ways before I made a start for myself." " You were quite right," she said. " Certainly a stay here for a time will do that for you. But come in. Of course you will find our ways a little strange at first, but you look sen- sible, and I have no doubt you will soon feel at home." After what Yorke had heard of the mode of life of the Dutch farmer, he was surprised to find, when he entered the house, an air of English comfort pervading it. The room prepared for him was such as he would meet with in the house of a well-to-do farmer in England; the furniture was good and substantial, muslin curtains hung at the windows. Look- ing out, he saw that the whole back of the house was covered with roses in full bloom, and that there was a small but pretty garden behind; round this was a large orchard apple, pear, peach, and other fruit trees. He had seen nothing like this in any of the farmhouses they had passed on the road. On returning down-stairs, after indulging in a good wash, he expressed his thanks to Mrs. Allnutt for the comfort of his bedroom, and his admiration for the gorgeous show of roses in the garden. " Yes," she said, " I saw the gardens of many of the Eng- lish mansions round Cape Town, and I made up my mind to have something like them here. My neighbours at first all thought it a terrible waste of labour, but I do not as a rule ON A DUTCH FAEM 29 care much for other folks' opinions; and though I do not pretend to like your people, I do not see why we should not adopt their customs when we see that they are better than our own especially when so many of our people living 1 near Cape Town have taken to them." "Everything looks very nice and comfortable, Mrs. All- nutt, and if I had not looked out of the window I should not have known that I was not at home." " Can you ride ? " she asked abruptly ; for although her residence at Cape Town had taught her to appreciate the modes of life there, she did not like being thought, even in such a matter, to copy the British, and chose to consider that they were those of the better class of her own people as, indeed, was the case. " Yes, I can ride," Yorke said. " I am very fond of it." " Can you shoot ? " " I have begun," he said. " You see, I have been at school, and it is only during the winter holidays that I have had any chance, and just the last fortninght of the long holiday in summer." " But how is that ? " she asked. " Why do you not shoot all the year round ? " " Because it is a close time up to the 1st of September, and there is not much shooting after January; people begin to hunt about that time." " Yes, game is protected here also." Yorke had told his cousin that he had begun to learn Dutch, and was very anxious to get to speak the language well, and on the latter telling his wife, she nodded approvingly. " You will have plenty of opportunities, for Dutch is the language of the house. Sometimes I speak in English with my husband, because I wish to keep it up, but he speaks Dutch as well as I do. But as the Kaffirs speak our language, and do not understand English, it is much more convenient to speak that language. You had better get Hans," she went on, turning to her husband, " to go about with him; in that way 30 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA he will soon learn to speak Taal. He is very little use to me about the house ; he is very lazy, and if it wasn't for his father having been killed on the place, I would not keep him a day." Hans had taken the horses when the cart drew up. He was a rough, slouching lad of about Yorke's age, loosely built, and altogether unkempt and slovenly; his father, who had been Mr. Allnutt's head cattleman, had been thrown from his horse and pitched on his head, breaking his neck instantly. Hans Smidt, who was ten years old at the time, having no relations, had been taken on at the house, and was supposed to aid in looking after the horses there, watering the garden, and doing odd jobs. He was now receiving the same wages as the Kaffir labourers, although, as Mrs. Allnutt declared, a Kaffir boy was worth a dozen of him. For the next few days Yorke rode about the farm with his cousin, inspecting the herds and getting a general idea of the place. "You will save me a good deal of trouble, Yorke," his cousin, who objected to trouble of any kind, said. " You can ride down twice a day and see that the Kaffirs are doing their work and preventing the cattle from straying too far away. Beyond that you can amuse yourself as you like. There are a dozen young horses which want breaking in. I see you have a good seat, and you will, no doubt, be able to manage that. There is no shooting about here, though you can occa- sionally get a deer among the hills. Still, it is just as well that you should learn to use a rifle. Every man in this coun- try is a fair marksman, and, even when there is little chance of coming upon g'ame, often rides with his rifle slung across his back. I am sure you would not like to be beaten by any of the Dutch lads. They are not such good shots now as they used to be when game was plentiful, and of course shooting is not so important here as it is in the Transvaal, where every man may be called upon at any moment to go out on com- mando against the natives. Still, it is the accomplishment on which Boers pride themselves, and you may find it useful ON A DUTCH FABM 31 if you stay in the country. For if one is to believe all these Dutchmen say, there is likely to be a lot of trouble out here before long." "Not in this part, I suppose, uncle," for so Yorke had taken to call his cousin. " I know there may be a row in the Transvaal, but surely not here ? " " I don't know, Yorke. If it begins in one part, there is no saying how it will spread. I believe that if the Transvaal begins war, the Orange Free State will join. They have not a shadow of grievance. They are wholly independent of us, and have always been quiet and peaceful, and there does not seem to be any of the ill-feeling against the English that prevails in the Transvaal. Still, there is never any saying; and I believe that Steyn, their president, is a very ambitious man. This Africander Bond is doing a great deal of mis- chief in Cape Colony, and although the Dutch element have it pretty nearly their own way, I doubt if they will not join the Dutch across the Orange River if these rise." " But what is it they really want ? " Yorke asked. " They want to be masters here altogether. They see the gold mines and diamond mines prospering enormously, and they think that if they could drive us out, all this wealth would come into their hands. They dream of one great Re- public, and of their flag waving everywhere. I don't say that they would drive the English out altogether; their talents and energy would be useful to them, and, as in the Transvaal, they would make them pay all the taxes of the country. Kruger would, of course, be President of the Republic, but he is an old man, and Steyn would naturally be his successor. That is why he may be expected to drag the Free State into the matter should there be a row." "But they can hardly think that England would consent to let them go?" " That is what they do think, Yorke. Since that Majuba business, and the fatal surrender afterwards, they despise us altogether. They do not believe for a moment that we shall 32 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA fight, and they are positive that if we should venture to do so, they would thrash us without the slightest difficulty. They have accumulated enormous stores of rifles and artillery, and believe that, as they licked us so easily when they were unpro- vided with these things, it will be a mere walk over now. Kruger will keep up a correspondence with Chamberlain until everything is absolutely ready, then he will break off negotia- tions, and there will be war that is, if England is bold enough to venture upon it. That is the Boer idea of things, Yorke. You will hear it openly discussed up at the house. Even in the farms round here there are stores of ammunition hidden away, and if war does begin, and a material advantage is gained, you will see the whole country on fire from Cape Town to Pretoria. " Of course, there are many of the Dutch of the better clasa who would far rather let things remain as they are at present. They have no ground of complaint against us; they are free to elect their own representatives, and to make their own laws; the British authority is little more than nominal, and we have not five thousand soldiers in this colony or Natal. It seems to me that the peril is a very serious one. There is nothing to prevent twenty-five thousand Boers marching into Durban, and another force of the same strength capturing Cape Town. Each force would be swollen as it went. Every man would be mounted; they would be armed with the best rifles that money could purchase, and they are good shots. They would need no transport, for they would seize the cattle of the British colonists, and plunder stores as they went. I ask you, what could five thousand infantry do against such a force?" "It certainly looks bad, uncle much worse than I thought." " As far as I am concerned, Yorke, it would, I think, make but little difference to us; and as for my wife, she would hoist their flag as they came along, and probably ride herself to welcome them. So I may take it that they would not in- ON A DUTCH FABM 33 terfere with anything here; and personally I should be no worse off, for the Assembly at Cape Town could hardly be more Dutch than it is at present. The only change that I should feel would be, that on holidays we should have the Kepublican flag flying on the flagstaff instead of the Union Jack, which would be a bitter pill to swallow." "But the British colonists would join the troops, surely?" " The British colonists are neither armed nor organized. I have no doubt that many of the younger men would try and make their way down to Cape Town, and join any force that was raised there. But all that would take time; and even if twenty thousand joined here and in Natal, what use could they be against an insurrection over a million square miles, with a great nucleus of well-armed men ? " "Well, uncle, at any rate I will steadily practise shooting; and if, as seems likely, trouble is really coming on, I shall go down to Cape Town and try to get into a new corps that is being raised." "Well, Yorke, I shall not try to dissuade you; I have no legal authority over you; and if I were a young man, that is what I should do myself. But if you wish for any peace and quiet here, you must keep your intentions to yourself, and, above all, hold your tongue when you hear treason talked up at the house. My wife has taken to you much better than I expected. But though she, from having been at school at Cape Town, and going down there pretty often, and reading a good deal, has much better ideas of the power of England than most of her countrymen, she believes that England will not fight, and that even if it does, it will soon see the impos- sibility of reconquering such a tremendous country as this. And really, I cannot disagree with her after what we saw in the last war, and from what we know of the preparations the Boers have made." " I think she is wrong, uncle. I don't say that we may be able to reconquer the whole of South Africa, but I feel sure that, whatever it costs, England will hold the Cape and Dur- 34 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA ban and the other seaports, for they are of immense import- ance to her." " Let us say no more about it, lad. It is causing me a deal of trouble; so I hold my tongue, for I can't afford to be on bad terms with all the neighbours, and in constant hot water at home. There is any amount of ammunition in the house, so you can practise as much as you like, and there are plenty of spots among the hills where you can do it quietly, and so far away from the house that there would be no chance of being heard. Of course you could occasionally fire near, for it would seem only natural to my wife that you should like to learn to shoot when everyone else does. This will be the last day that I shall ride with you; but always take Hans. He may look like a fool, but I don't think he is one. He is slim, as the Dutch say, that is, he is crafty. If he could turn his hand to anything, he would have to do a good deal more work than at present. He is like the monkeys, you know. They say they could talk well enough if they liked, but they know that if they did they would be compelled to work." Hans' face brightened up greatly when he was told that he was freed from all other duties, and was to consider himself entirely at Yorke's disposal a young Kaffir being at once engaged to perform the work he had previously done and henceforth no complaint could be made of his laziness. Whatever the hour at which Yorke wanted to start, the horses were ready for him, and the boys were often out on the veldt before anyone else in the house was moving. Yorke threw himself into his work with ardour, for it suited him admir- ably. There were the cattle to look after, and sometimes long rides to be undertaken in search of animals that had strayed. The horses gave little trouble. A few bundles of freshly-cut grass were carried to them every morning, and with the stream handy to them they had the sense to know that they could do no better elsewhere. Several Kaffir labourers cut the corn-cobs and carried them up to a large shed near the ON A DUTCH FARM 35 house, while the stalks and leaves were piled into a stack for mixing with the hay in the winter. On many farms all this was burnt as fuel, but the colonist had, soon after he became master of the farm, planted fifty acres of fir-trees on the slopes of one of the valleys, and the clearings of these furnished an abundant stock of firewood, and indeed added materially to the returns of the farm by the sale of the surplus to neighbours. Every day Yorke practised for an hour with the rifle, fir- ing, not at a target, which, with its white square, resembles nothing that a soldier would have to aim at in a battle, but at some mark on a stone on the hillside, or a block of wood of the size of a man's head, half hidden in a tussock of coarse grass on the veldt. This block Hans always carried with him when they were going shooting. Yorke practised judging distance on level and broken ground, both from the saddle and on foot, guessing it as nearly as he could, and then step- ping it. At the end of four months he could judge vei'y closely the distance of any abject he saw up to seven or eight hundred yards, and was tolerably sure of hitting it. He had practised, too, shooting from the saddle. After he had been there a short time Mr. Allnutt, seeing that he could sit any horse on the farm, had given him one of his own, which was as yet unbroken. Yorke took great pains in training it, teaching it to halt when at full gallop, to remain immovable while he fired from the saddle, or, standing by it, used it as a rest for his barrel. It would lie down when he told it, and come at his whistle. Its sire was an English hunter which Mr. Allnutt had bought to improve the strain of his horses, so that it was a faster, as well as a more powerful, animal than the native-bred horses, while possessing an equal amount of hardiness and endurance. " I think it is the best I ever bred," he said to Yorke three months after the latter had arrived at the farm. "And I chose it for you especially, because I saw at once that you 36 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA would do it credit, and that some day it might be of the utmost importance to you to be well mounted. As to myself, it does not make any difference whether I ride a mile slower or a mile faster an hour; and on the whole, I prefer going a mile slower. Besides, you see, as a relation of mine I wish you to do me credit, and I like to take the conceit out of some of these Dutch lads, who think so much of themselves. I don't know when I was more pleased than when you beat Dirck Jansen yesterday by twenty lengths. He was always boasting that he had the best horse in this part of the colony. Of course you had the advantage of being at least two stone the lighter; but they don't take any account of weight out here. Besides, I could see that if you wanted to, you could have beaten him by twice as much. Between ourselves, I don't think your aunt was quite as well pleased as I. He is a great favourite of hers, and moreover is her cousin. How- ever, we needn't mind that, except that I fancy you have made an enemy, and may have trouble with him by and by. These Dutch don't often forgive an injury; if they cannot avenge it at once, it rankles in their minds till they see an opportunity for wiping it out." CHAPTEE HI A QUARREL AS time went on Yorke felt his position increasingly un- comfortable. The Dutch farmers became more and more aggressive in their talk. They regarded war as certain, and spoke so scoffingly of the courage of the British soldiers, and of the easiness with which they would be defeated and driven out of the country, that Yorke found it well-nigh impossible to hold his tongue, and had often to leave the room to prevent himself from breaking out. A QUARREL 37 " I am sorry, lad," his cousin said to him one day. " It is a trial to me, and I myself have sometimes to leave while they are talking. I can't well quarrel with these people, as 1 have to live among them; but I hope the time will come when I shall have the satisfaction of seeing a mighty chang'e in their tone." "I don't mind the rest so much," Yorke said; "they are middle-aged men, and they certainly believe what they say. You have been so long with them that you are almost re- garded as one of themselves, and they certainly do not take any notice of my being present, and have no thought of hurt- ing my feelings. But it is different with Dirck Jansen; he has been unpleasant ever since I came, and now he seems bent upon picking a quarrel with me. He talks at me when he is saying insulting things about our soldiers and our people. Tf I stay here, one of these days I shall have a desperate row with him, which is just what he wants." " I am afraid it is so. I have noticed it myself, and have even spoken to my wife about it; but she is prejudiced in his favour, and says that he speaks no more strongly than every true Afrikander should speak. Besides, what good could come of your having a quarrel with him ! He is nearly nineteen, two years older than you are, and a big powerful fellow. It is what he is trying to do, and nothing 1 would please him better than for you to give him the chance of thrashing you." " He is a great deal stronger and bigger than I am, uncle ; but I don't suppose that he has the slightest idea of boxing, and I can use my fists pretty well. I might get thrashed, but I certainly should not be thrashed easily. However, I am anxious not to have a row, and the sooner the war begins and I can enlist the better. I have stood as much as I can do, my patience has pretty well come to an end. I should not have put up with so much but for your sake." It happened unfortunately that Dirck Jansen came over next day with four or five other farmers. The house was a 38 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA favourite resort, for Mrs. Allnutt was far more hospitable than was the custom, and always produced a bottle of spirits when she had visitors, and the inducement of a free drink is one that few Boers can withstand. " The news is good ! " Dirck Jansen shouted boisterously as they rode up. " We hear there is no doubt that Steyn will go with the Transvaal, and they say that Kruger will very soon stop fooling the Kooineks, and that he has got every- thing now ready for kicking them out of South Africa. I should advise you to be packing up at once, young fellow. You won't have much time when we get your soldiers on the run." " Wait till you get them on the run," Yorke replied. " It will be time enough to begin to brag then." " Brag ! " the other said scornfully. " What can fellows who don't know one end of a gun from another do against us?" " There are a good many who know more than that, as you will find to your cost, Dirck, if you are man enough to go out and try them. There are some who can shoot straight, any- how." " Yourself, for instance," Dirck said scoffingly. " I hear you have been popping away among the hills, but I have not heard of your bringing in much game." "I don't care about shooting at things that can't shoot back in return. But maybe I can shoot as straight as some of you can do." " Do you mean myself ? " Dirck replied angrily. "Yes, I mean yourself among others, Dirck Jansen." " Will you try ? " Dirck shouted as he dismounted. " Certainly I will. I 'am told you are the best shot in the neighbourhood; and if you can't beat me, who have only taken to it lately, you may acknowledge that those who shoot worse than you will have no great chance against Englishmen who shoot a great deal better than I." A QUABBEL 39 "You see, all of you, this insolent young fellow has chal- lenged me to a trial of skill," Dirck said to his companions. " I would not have condescended to compete with him, for there is no credit to be gained in beating such a boy; but he wants taking down, and I am glad to have the opportunity of doing it. Now, Mr. Allnutt, I will leave it to you to settle the distance and the mark. I say anything between a hundred and five hundred yards; but two hundred is the general distance we have for our matches." " What do you say to two hundred, Yorke ? " " That will suit me very well, though I should prefer a thousand." The Boers had all dismounted. " Then let us go out behind the house, Mr. Allnutt," one of them said, " we can easily choose a mark there." Yorke went into the house to get his rifle and soon joined them. They went a short distance, and then the Boer said, " That rock there is about two hundred yards away, it will make a very fair mark." " It would be difficult to judge which is the centre," Yorke said, " and might give rise to dispute." " That is so," the Boer said gravely. " I saw an empty tin in the yard, the bottom of that will make a very good bull's- eye." Mr. Allnutt shouted, "Hans!" The lad was standing at the gate of the yard looking after them. He had heard the conversation, but dared not follow them. "Hans, wrench the top off that tin by the kitchen door and bring it here." They then walked on to the rock, where, in two or three minutes, Hans joined them with the top of the tin. It had been a two-pound tin, and the circle was some four inches across. "It will stand very well on this projection on the face," the Boer said. " It will then be as nearly as possible in the centre." 40 WITH EOBEBTS TO PRETORIA. " But it will tumble down every time it is hit." " Hans will stand near and pick it up again," Mr. Allnutt said. " It had better be fixed," the Boer remarked. " There is a little crack in the rock, a nail driven through the tin would hold it there. It is better to do the thing properly." Dirck laughed. " By all means do it properly, though I cannot see why we should trouble about such a farce as this." Mr. Allnutt paid no attention to this speech, but said, " Go and take a hammer, Hans, and a good-sized nail, and cut the bottom out of another tin and bring that here too. If three or four holes are made, the question may arise as to which is the last." The lad ran off. "Now, Mr. Van Laun, while he is away we may as well arrange as to how they had better shoot how many shots each shall fire, whether they shall shoot alternately, or one fire his shots at one of the pieces of tin, and then the other take the new target. I think that will be the best, then no dispute can arise." "I agree with you. Hovr many times shall each fire?" After discussion it was agreed that each should fire ten shots. " Now, it will be fair," the Boer said, " to toss up for who shall fire first. What do you say? Heads shall mean Dirck, tails your lad." " Do you mean, whichever wins is to have the choice ? " " No, which ever wins fires first." The coin was spun in the air. It came down " heads ". When Hans returned one of the discs of tin was nailed up at the spot arranged, then Mr. Allnutt stepped two hundred yards. Dirck unslung his rifle, and filled the magazine. Hans stood three or four yards from the rock; he knew that there was little chance of either of them missing the stone. Although Dirck had so far treated the affair as almost a A QUARREL 41 joke he was not disposed to be careless, for the quiet and com- posed air of his young antagonist seemed to show that the latter must be at least a fair shot or he would never have carried the thing so far. As soon, therefore, as he had loaded his rifle, he took his place with greater seriousness and gravity than he had hitherto manifested. He put the gun up to his shoulder and then lowered it again. " Is there any time-limit ? " he asked. The Boers and Mr. Allnutt consulted together a moment, then the latter said, " We have agreed that there may be half a minute between each of the first five shots, a limit of two minutes for reloading, and then half a minute between each of the last five shots." Dirck again raised his rifle to his shoulder and almost in- stantaneously fired. There was a clang. Hans ran forward and pointed, with a stick he had cut, to a spot near the edge of the tin. As soon as he retired again the rifle cracked. The ten shots were all fired well within time. Hans took down the tin and ran with it to the group, and then, going to the rock, fastened the other there. Seven of the bullets had hit the tin fairly, another had cut a semicircular bit out of the edge, the other two had been outside the circle. The holes were dotted about all over the tin, but, with one exception, none was within an inch of the centre. "That is very good shooting," Mr. Allnutt said. "Four inches are not much of a mark at two hundred yards." " I have done better," Dirck said carelessly, " but I fancy it is quite good enough for the purpose." Yorke now took his place at the firing-point. There was not a breath of wind blowing, and, as he had practised so often at a similar mark, he felt pretty confident that he could ck> better than Dirck had done. He shouted to Hans, "Do not trouble to point out where the shots strike. I would rather fire quicker." The first five shots went off at intervals of only about ten seconds. He reloaded quickly, and again fired rapidly. 42 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA " You have not overrated your shooting," the Boer who had taken the lead in the matter said. " Every shot hit." They walked up in a body to the target. As they neared it they uttered exclamations of surprise. The ten shots had all fairly struck the tin. " It is a trick, an infamous trick ! " Dirck exclaimed furi- ously. " That boy must have punched the holes before he put the tin up. It is not the one he showed us as he went along." " It is a lie," Yorke said, " and you know it. I thought it wasn't in you to take a licking in good part. Fellows who boast so much very seldom stand being collared." With a howl of rage Dirck pointed his rifle at him, for- getting that he had not reloaded it. He pulled the trigger, but as there was no report, he threw the gun down with an oath and flew at Yorke. The latter stood steadily, and as his assailant was on the point of closing with him, struck out with his right fist, throwing his whole strength into the blow; it caught Dirck just on the point of the chin, and he went backwards as if he had been shot. It had all passed so rapidly that the others had no time to interfere. In a mo- ment they ran in. " I am sorry this has happened, sir," the leading Boer said to Mr. Allnutt. " Dirck has been wrong altogether. He was the aggressor, and was fairly beaten by your lad, who is cer- tainly a marvellous shot. He has been more thoroughly beaten now. If his rifle had been charged, he would have shot his opponent, so he richly deserved the punishment he has got. You had better take your lad away now; we will see to Dirck." Then he turned, and, as Yorke walked off with the colonist, assisted the others to raise Dirck, who was half-stunned by the blow, on to his feet. "You have behaved shamefully, Dirck Jansen," he said sternly when he found that the young man could understand him. "You have brought discredit upon yourself and us. You have been beaten at shooting by a mere boy, and instead YORKE PROVES HIS METAL. A QUARREL 43 of taking it fairly and in a good spirit, you first accuse him of playing a trick upon you, and then try to murder him. And now, big as you are, he has knocked you silly. We are ashamed of you. Hans, go and fetch Mr. Jansen's pony. Now, Dirck, you will mount and ride off at once, and I will tell Mrs. Allnutt that you will not come to the farm again for some time, and why." There was a murmur of approval from the others, and Dirck stood sulkily until Hans arrived with his horse; then he picked up his rifle, slung it over his shoulder, mounted, and rode off without a word. The others walked to the house. " I am sorry to tell you, Mrs. Allnutt, that Dirck Jansen has behaved scandalously. He had a fair trial of skill with your husband's young cousin, and the lad beat him hollow. Then he falsely accused him of an unworthy trick, levelled his rifle, and pulled the trigger. It would have been murder had not, happily, the rifle been unloaded. Then he rushed to seize the lad, and was knocked senseless by him. I have apologized, and my friends here join me in the apology, to the young fellow, for the gross conduct of Dirck Jansen, and we trust that you will not receive Dirck in your house so long as the lad remains here." " It seems hardly possible, Mr. Van Laun, that Dirck should have behaved so. He must have been grossly insulted to begin with. I hear that the shooting arose out of a quarrel." " It was not exactly a quarrel, though both were angry. Dirck began by saying rough things to your lad, who was not to be blamed because he spoke up for his countrymen, just as I should have done, or any other Dutchman would have done, had an Englishman spoken so of our people." " I am sorry to hear what you say, Mr. Van Laun," Mrs. Allnutt said somewhat stiffly. " I cannot but think that Dirck must have had great provocation." "Dirck is a hot-headed young fool, cousin, and though I am as nearly related to him as you are, I say so without hesi- tation; and for my part, I am not altogether sorry that this 44 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA young English lad should have given him a lesson. The fact that he is perhaps the best shot round here has cocked him up altogether unduly. He had it in his heart to commit murder to-day, for it would have been murder if there had been a cartridge in his gun; and though it would have been hard to testify against one of my own blood, I must have said BO in open court had he been tried for the act. However, I hope we shall hear no more of it, and that the lads will not meet again till Dirck has come to his senses. He will laear the truth from all of us who were present at the affair, and may be all the better for finding that he is not such a fine fellow as he thought he was." Mrs. Allnutt did not reply. It was evident that her sym- pathies were entirely with Dirck. The farmers did not stop, but, mounting their horses, rode off. Mr. Allnutt went out into the yard, and, as he expected, found Yorke talking in the stables to Hans. The latter was in high glee, for he hated Dirck Jansen, who had sworn at him many a time when he did not bring his horse round as quickly as he had expected, and was once on the point of laying his whip about hia shoulders when Mr. Allnutt, coming out of the house, and seeing what was about to happen, had arrested the blow by saying sternly, " Drop that, Dirck, you are not master here yet. Hans is my servant and not yours; neither you nor anyone else shall touch him." Yorke and he were still talking" when Mr. Allnutt entered and motioned to Hans to go outside. " This is an unfortunate affair, Yorke, very unfortunate. I do not consider that you were in any way to blame, but that hardly makes it less unfortunate. Here you have beaten a fellow was proud of his skill with the rifle; your shooting certainly astonished me, for although I knew that you had used a tremendous lot of cartridges in the past six months, I had no idea that you had done it to such good purpose. In. the next place, you have floored him as neatly as I ever saw a jnan knocked down, and have done it with half a dozen of his A QUARREL 45 own friends looking on. In the third place, you have brought him into disgrace with them, and as the story will soon get about, it will be a terrible blow to his pride. " Now, I have never liked Dirck. He is a very bad type of the Dutchman in these parts, though, I have no doubt, he would pass muster in the Transvaal. He is rude and over- bearing; and although a man may be all that, and yet at bottom a good fellow, I don't think Dirck is so. He will never forgive you, and unless I am greatly mistaken, he will try in some way to get even with you, and will not care what steps he takes to do so. Now, you know, lad, you have been talking for some little time p % ast of going 1 down to Cape Town, and joining a corps newly got up there, when the war breaks out, which I am afraid it will do very shortly. I tell you frankly that, sorry as I am to say so, I think it will be better for you to do this speedily. I don't mean to-morrow or next day, but shortly. I am also sorry to say that this affair will not make matters more comfortable at home. You know my wife is very fond of Dirck, and it will take a great deal to make her believe that he could be wrong in anything. Van Laun spoke out straight to her, and said that the fellow was altogether to blame; but I could see that her sympathies were nevertheless with him, and she believes that you were at fault in the matter." " I would go to-morrow, uncle," Yorke said ; " but it would look like running away. I will stay at home for another week, and then I will go. I don't mind whether aunt is displeased with me or not. I am conscious of having done no wrong, and if she shows me that I am no longer welcome I shall tell her quietly that she will only have to put up with me for another week. It may be unpleasant, but I am not going to disappear as if I were a culprit, and afraid of Dirck Jansen." " All right, Yorke ! I can quite understand your feelings. I am heartily sorry, but I feel that you could not hope to be comfortable if you stayed here. I am sorry now that I asked 46 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA you out here, but at the time I did not foresee that this ill- feeling on the part of the Dutch would become so deep and bitter. Had I done so, I would not have asked you, knowing that my wife is as prejudiced as her neighbours." "You need not be sorry, uncle, that you invited me here. I have had a pleasant time and I have learned a great deal. If I had not been out here I should be slaving at Greek and mathematics at home, whereas now, if war breaks out, which seems almost certain, I shall have a most exciting time of it, and when it is over I may see some way of making a start for myself." Mrs. Allnutt did not appear at supper. "Will you tell her, uncle," Yorke said, after talking the matter over for some time, " that I shall leave this day week, and that if my presence is obnoxious to her I will take my meals apart. I am awfully sorry that my presence here should inconvenience her, but I really cannot go away as if I had been sent off in disgrace, or were afraid to meet Dirck Jansen again." " Quite right, lad ! I hope that your aunt will be in a better state of mind to-morrow morning; but when once she takes a thing into her head she is, between ourselves, as obstinate as a mule. Well, whatever she may think of this quarrel, angry as she may be at it, she cannot but feel, after what Van Laun said, that Dirck brought it upon himself. She is a fair-minded woman when she is cool, and I have no doubt, before you go, she will be really sorry; for although I acknowledge that her affections are very strongly devoted to Dirck, she has certainly during the time you have been here taken to you a good deal, and she has several times said it was wonderful how little trouble you were in the house." " She has always been very kind, and I am really very sorry that, however innocently, I have incurred her displeasure. You know that this is so, uncle, and if there were any place near which I could go to without seeming to run away, I A QUABBEL 47 would leave at once rather than stop here where I am not wel- come." " Don't trouble about it, Yorke. I invited you here, and I ask you to stay. If my wife, in the teeth of what her own friends tell her, chooses to consider you to have been in the wrong, I can't help it, and no one else can. I shall not at- tempt to argue the matter with her. I know that presently she will see that she has acted very unfairly towards you, and I hope that she will even in time recognize that Dirck Jansen is by no means what she thinks him. It matters not to me whom she leaves the farm to, but I should not like to see it go to him." " But would you not have it, uncle ? " u No. It was a curious arrangement. The old man left his farm to her, and her children after her if she should have any; if not, she had the power of leaving it at her death to any of the descendants of his married sisters whom she might choose. But it was at her death to be valued, and should it under my management have increased in value, the increase was to be estimated by a firm of Dutch valuers whom he named, in Cape Town, and I was to receive either in cash, or as a mortgage upon the farm, the sum which they fixed as the increase in its value. The old man saw that I had g'ood ideas and that I should improve the place, and he said to me a short time before his death, ' I should not like myself to see all these changes that you tell me you wish to make, but I have no doubt that they will increase its value. It is fair that, if my daughter dies before you, you should have the benefit of the work that you have done, so I have had the farm valued, and it will be valued again by the same firm if she dies before you, and you will receive the difference. Does that seem to you to be fair ? ' " ' Quite fair,' I said. " ' It will be the same thing during her lifetime. I have set down what the farm has brought me in for the past twenty years. She is to receive the average rental and to be its 48 WITH ROBEBTS TO PRETORIA mistress. As I warned you before you married Her, I will have no Englishman master here; but you may have the use of one-third of the income to be laid out in improvements. It is to be as a loan to you, and to be repaid from the extra profits of the place.' "I thought the arrangement, although curious, was very fair. I need hardly say that the income is now four times as great as it was when the old man died. The money I used for improvements has long since been paid off, and I have laid by a very considerable sum. My wife and I never talk about money matters. She has the amount that was annually made by her father, with which she runs the house, and spends as she likes. She neither asks what the farm now brings in, nor interferes with me in any way, so that we get on very well together. If she dies before me, I shall, in addition to what I have laid by, have a heavy mortgage on the farm; and be- tween ourselves, it is morally certain that Dirck Jansen, if she leaves it to him, will never be able to pay the interest, for he will work on the old grooves, so far as he works at all, and in a couple of years after he takes possession I shall foreclose and have the farm put up to auction, in which case I hope that some Englishman will buy it. I should certainly not remain in the colony after her death. " These are the plans I had formed for myself, Yorke, and when I was in England, and invited you to come up, it was with a vague idea that some day you might possibly succeed me here. The mortgage which I shall hold over the property is larger than anyone would be likely to bid for the farm, and I thought that I might therefore purchase it in your name. But since you have been here, I have seen that this would not do. In the first place, you would never be contented to settle down here, you have too much energy to take to the life of a farmer; and this quarrel with Dirck would alone render that plan impossible. There is an enmity already established; and if he, after coming into possession of the farm, were turned out by you, he would become your deadly enemy. A QUABBEL 49 and would assuredly Have the sympathy of his relations, and, indeed, of all the Boers around. Therefore I shall not par- ticularly care who buys the farm and pays off my mortgage. "I have been very much pleased with you ever since you came here, and what was two years ago only a vague idea is now my fixed intention, and you will be my heir at my death. I have no nearer relation, and I have not felt attracted to- wards anyone whom I have met, except your family. Of course, I may die before my wife. In that case, my claim to the estate for the improvements I have effected will drop, though, of course, the sum I have laid by will not be affected. My opinion was asked on this subject when the old man made his will, and I willingly agreed to it, because it seemed to me a fair one; and besides, there was no one at that time whom I cared particularly to benefit after my death." Yorke, who was greatly surprised at what Mr. Allnutt said, began to thank him for the kindness of his intentions to- wards him, but the latter said : " There is no occasion at all for that. I must leave my money to someone, and as I like you better than any of my other relations it is only natural that you should be my heir. It may be a good many years before you benefit largely by it. I am only some three or four and twenty years older than you are. I live a healthy outdoor life, and I may, for aught I know, go on till I am eighty. However, now that I regard you as my heir, of course I shall give you a helping hand when you need it, and when these troubles are over, and you have learned the ways of the country, and are able to start a business with a good chance of success, I shall be ready to give you a thousand pounds to set you up in it. Or, if you decide that you would like to return home and settle in England, you will have that sum to pay your expenses at college, and such further sum as may be required to maintain you until you are in a position to keep yourself. There, do not let us say anything more about it now, my boy. I should advise you not to go outside the farm until you leave. The Boers seldom forgive an in- (M839) D 60 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA jury. Certainly Dirck Jansen will not be an exception to the rule, and, if he has a chance, will attempt to do you harm. For example, he might pick a quarrel with you, which might come to a shooting affray, and although you may be a better shot than he is, he would not hesitate to fire first. We had an example of that to-day, so you must keep out of his way till you go. He certainly will not come here for the next week, after what Van Laun, who may be considered the head of his family, said. Now, lad, I feel tired after this unusual ex- citement, so we may as well go off to bed." Yorke did not get to sleep for some time. He was natu- rally excited as well as surprised at the news of his cousin's intentions towards him, and felt that it would make an im- mense difference to him. In the most favourable circum- stances, he could not have hoped to save a sum that would enable him to start for himself, or to obtain a share in any established business. Now, his cousin's generous offer would enable him to begin to climb the ladder as soon as he was qualified to do so. As to the alternative of returning to England and going to the University, he set it aside at once. He liked the life in South Africa, and would not have cared to take up that of a student again, with the prospect of be- coming a hard-working curate in a poor neighbourhood, or years of waiting for briefs as a young barrister. With a business out there, he might soon be able to help them at home, to supply his sisters with pocket-money, and, most pleasant of all, to be able to present his mother with a carriage, and a pair of horses, such as they used to drive before. With such pleasant thoughts in his mind he at last fell off to sleep, and in the morning, after as usual partaking of a bowl of milk and bread, started for his ride round the farm with Hans in attendance. Three days passed quietly. Mrs. Allnutt had so far re- laxed as to come down to meals, and although she spoke as little as possible to Yorke, she was at least civil. On the fourth morning he took his rifle and went up the valley to A QUABREL 51 practise for the first time since his contest with Dirck. Hans was some little distance behind him. As he was on the point of dismounting, he caught the gleam of a rifle-barrel behind a rock two hundred yards away. He did not hesitate for an instant, but threw himself from his horse. The action saved his life, for, as he did so, a shot was fired, and the ball went through his hat, slightly grazing his head. As his feet touched the ground he fell with his face towards the rock, unslinging his rifle as he did so and letting it fall in front of him, still grasping it close to the trigger. With an almost imperceptible movement he brought the butt to his shoulder, and then lay perfectly still. His face was downward, and from a short distance seemed to be on the ground, but in reality he was able to look under the brim of his hat. For two or three minutes he lay thus, then he saw Dirck Jansen cautiously look out from behind the rock. For a minute he did not move, then he slowly rose and pointed his rifle at some object behind Yorke. The latter did not doubt that he was taking aim at Hans. The moment the thought struck him, he fired, and Dirck dropped his rifle, which ex- ploded as it touched the ground, and fell forwards. A few seconds later Hans galloped up. " Are you hurt, master ? " he exclaimed. " I heard the shot, and thought that you had not waited for me, until I saw you lying there. I then caught sight of Dirck, and saw him point his rifle at me. I thought I was dead; for although you beat Dirck, he is a fine shot, and at three hundred yards could not have missed me. Then I saw your rifle flash." " It is a bad business, Hans. He tried to take my life, and thought that he had succeeded. It was a near shave, as you see; the bullet went through my hat. But I was in the act of dismounting 1 , and he fired an inch or two too high." He put his hand on the top of his head. When he looked at it was covered with blood. " It is just as well," he said, as Hans uttered an exclama- tion of alarm. "It is only a graze. If he had missed me 52 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA altogether, my story might not have been believed. Now, let us go and see what has happened to him. I hope I have not killed him. If I had had time I should have aimed at his shoulder, but I knew that in another instant he would have fired at you, and I just sighted him and pulled the trigger." They went over to where Dirck was lying. He had been hit high up in the chest. " Three inches farther up and I should only have broken his collar-bone," Yorke said regret- fully. " Even as it is, I hope that he may recover. These Mauser bullets do comparatively little damage if they do not hit a vital point. It is certainly so with game. Now, Hans, lay him down as before. I will ride back to the farm and send back help to bring him in." Yorke returned to his horse, mounted it, and rode back at full speed. Mr. Allnutt had just risen and come out into the yard. " What is it, Yorke ? " he asked in alarm on seeing the lad's pale face and a small stream of blood running down his face. Yorke related what had happened. " The young scoundrel ! " the colonist exclaimed indig- nantly. " Well, at any rate you are not to blame, Yorke ; but it is a desperately bad business. Fortunately you have Hans to prove that your account of the attempt at assassination is true, and you were perfectly justified in shooting; but still, it will make the feud worse than ever. I trust sincerely that his wound will not prove mortal. I will send off a mounted man at once to Eichmond for a surgeon, and will go out with four Kaffirs to bring the unfortunate young fellow in. Then I will ride over with you and Hans to Van Laun's; he is a justice of the peace. You can make your deposition before him, and I will give my guarantee to produce you if Dirck should die. Having done this, you had better start at once for Cape Town, and when you get there telegraph your ad- dress to me, so that I can send for you if necessary." "Very well, uncle, that will certainly be the best way. A QUARREL 63 I could not stop here now. I trust most earnestly that he will recover. If I had had time to take aim I would only have disabled him, but I knew that if I did not fire instantly he would have shot Hans." " No doubt he thought that he had shot you through the head, and intended to rid himself of the only witness. I do not pity him one bit, whatever happens to him. He was a murderer in intention, and if he has failed, it is not his fault. I think that even my wife will have her eyes opened now as to his real character. That he should have aimed his rifle at you before in the heat of passion was to some extent excusable; but this was an attempt at premeditated murder, and if he recovers he ought to have a few years in prison. However, that will be for you to decide." "If I were coming 1 back to live here I would certainly prosecute him, for he might make another attempt with better success ; but, as it is, I shall not move in the matter. I will go out with you and the Kaffirs now. I could not be hang- ing about here doing nothing until he is brought in." On arriving at the spot they found that Dirck was still alive, though unconscious. He was carefully placed on the hurdle that a Kaffir had brought with him, and was taken back to the house, Mr. Allnutt going on before to tell his wife what had happened. He came out of the door as Yorke arrived with the bearers, saw Dirck carried upstairs, and then came down again. " I will leave him there in her care," he said ; " she will see after him. She did not make any remark when I told her what had happened, beyond saying, 'Is there any proof as to the truth of this story ? ' ' There is this for proof,' I said. 'Hans heard one shot, and one shot only, fired as he rode up, then he saw Dirck rise and take aim at him. Then, as Yorke fired he saw him fall. The first shot that was fired was fired by Dirck, and the proof is that the ball went through Yorke's hat, and the lad is bleeding from a scalp wound there. 'As the affair happened on our farm there could have been 54 WITH BOBERTS TO PRETORIA no quarrel between the two lads, for Hans was but a short distance behind when the first shot was fired; and as Dirck fell nearly three hundred yards from the spot where Yorke was lying they could not have been near enough for them to have had words. What is more, he saw Dirck rise from be- hind the rock where he had been lying hid, and when he pointed that out to me I found the empty cartridge lying there.' She then only said, ' Bring him up here ; he is my cousin.' Now we will ride over to Van Laun's. We shall have time to do so before the doctor arrives; it is only a quar- ter of an hour's gallop." Ordering Hans to follow him he mounted and galloped off with Yorke. Mr. Van Laun looked very grave when he heard the story. " Unfortunate lad," he said ; " this is the result of his un- restrained passions. Now, Mr. Harberton, will you please write down your account of the affair, and I will swear you to it. Then I will get you to retire, and will have Hans in.'' When the two statements had been sworn to he called Yorke in again. " Of course," he said, " If Dirck dies there must be an enquiry into this. In any case, there must be an enquiry, if you insist upon it. Mr. Allnutt will give us his surety that you will appear if he dies." "I should be well content to drop the matter, sir, if Dirck lives, as I sincerely hope he will. It is a most unfortunate affair, and greatly to be regretted. However, related as he is to Mrs. Allnutt, I certainly have no wish to press the mat- ter against him. I am going away from here, and am not likely to return unless I am obliged to do so. And for my aunt's sake, if for no other reason, I should regret extremely to bring so heavy a charge against one to whom she is so attached." " I thank you, sir. I am the unhappy fellow's uncle, and for my own part and that of the family I feel deeply indebted to you for your forbearance. I am glad, however, that you A QUABBEL 55 are about to leave, for the ties of blood here count for a great deal. Although we older men see his fault in the gravest light, there are hot spirits among the young men who might, in spite of the fact that he had been utterly in the wrong, take up his quarrel. I will now ride back with you and hear the surgeon's report." This turned out to be favourable rather than otherwise. Without being able to give any decided opinion, the surgeon said that if all went well, and no fever set in, Dirck might recover. " The ball," he said, " has gone right through, and has undoubtedly passed through the upper part of the lung; but the wound is so small that it will probably heal up with- out leaving any after effects. If, however, fever sets in, I do not disguise from you that the result may be fatal, although I regard the probabilities as being altogether the other way. As the bullet has passed through there is little for me to do. He must be kept very quiet, and given cooling drinks for some days. I shall ride over and see him to-morrow. If he is going on well, he will be able to take a little nourish- ment in the way of soup in the course of two or three days." The news was an immense relief to Yorke. He felt that had the affair happened again he could not have acted other- wise; but the thought that he might have taken life was very painful. If it had been done in the course of a battle he would have thought comparatively little of it, but this was altogether different; and although Dirck had been exception- ally rude and discourteous to him, and he would have liked to give him a good thrashing, he would have given much rather than be the cause of his death. When the surgeon had left, and Mr. Van Laun, after a few words with Mrs. All- nutt, had also ridden off, the colonist said: " Now, Yorke, the sooner you are off the better. You will, of course, take Bob. He is the best horse on the farm, and I don't think you will get any better in the colony. And in the work you will have to do, your life may depend upon the speed of your horse." 66 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA. " Will you let me take Hans with me? " " He has been speaking to me about it. He is most anxious to go with you. Of course, he is free to go whether I like it or not; but indeed I shall be glad to know that he is with you. He has brightened up wonderfully since you came, and there can be no doubt that he is devoted to you." " Thank you ! Of course I cannot say whether I shall be able to keep him; that will depend on what corps I join. If I enlist in the line, I should hardly think they would take Hans; but if I join a Colonial corps, they may do so, for loyal Dutchmen would naturally be accepted. At any rate, I shall do all I can to keep him with me." "And now, as to your traps, Yorke. First, I suppose you will ride down ? " "It would certainly be most pleasant; besides, if I went by train there would be a bother about getting a horse-box." " Quite so. Well, I will pack up all your things to-morrow, and send them to Cape Town in a day or two, marked ' To be left till called for,' so that you will find them at the goods station when you arrive there. You may as well leave the rifle here. It would be all very well carrying it as you go through the country districts, but it would hardly do to ride with it into Cape Town. I have another of the same kind, and will put it in for Hans. I have a long box that will hold them very well, and can pack with them some of the clothes you have bought since you have been here, and which will certainly not go into the portmanteau you brought with you." Hans was delighted when he heard that he was to accom- pany Yorke. No time was needed for his preparations. " You are to take the horse I usually ride, Hans," Mr. All- nutt said ; " he may need a spare horse for his work, and it is as well that while you are with him you should be well mounted, so as to be able to go at the same pace as he. Put the saddle on at once; it is nearly twelve o'clock, and you have a long ride to Victoria West, where, of course, you will A QUARREL 67 sleep to-night. Come in with me, Yorke, I will put that cold meat on the table and you can sit down and eat something. All these things have put breakfast out of our heads, and you have had nothing since you rode off at six o'clock." "I don't feel hungry, uncle." " Oh, nonsense ! You must eat." As soon as he had kelped Yorke he cut off a large chunk of meat and a slice of bread and carried them out to Hans. " That is right, lad," he said, when Yorke had made a good meal, for he had found his appetite when he once began to eat. " Now, put this cheque into your pocket, it is for one hundred pounds; you may want to get uniform, and may in any case have to wait some little time before you can arrange matters. Here are twenty pounds for your expenses on the road. In the envelope with the cheque is a note to the manager of the bank, authorizing him to allow you to draw on me up to another hundred pounds should you require it. There, I don't want any thanks, lad. You know how we stand now, and the sooner you are off the better." " Do you think my aunt would like me to say good-bye to her? I should certainly like to do so. She has been very kind while I have been here." " I will ask her, Yorke, but I don't think she will. How- ever, it is just as well to make the offer." Eather to Yorke's surprise, Mrs. Allnutt came into the room a minute later. " Good-bye, Yorke ! " she said gravely. " I cannot say, after what has happened, that I am sorry that you are going, but I am very sorry for the circumstances that have caused you to go. You have been very nice in the house since you came. I had thought, before you arrived, that I should not like it, but it has made things pleasant, and I came to like you. Good-bye! I hope you will do well. Some day, perhaps, I may see you again, if not here, perhaps at Cape Town." " Good-bye, aunt ! I am very much obliged to you for the kindness you have shown me since I have been here. I 58 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA cannot say how sorry I am that things should have turned out as they have. No one can possibly regret it more than I." Five minutes later Yorke and Hans mounted and started on their journey. CHAPTEK IV THE ULTIMATUM NOW, Hans," Yorke said as they dismounted in front ~ of the hotel at which he had stopped when he came through Cape Town, " the first thing after you have put the horses in the stable, given them a good rub down, and seen that they have had their feed, will be to go to some little barber's shop and have your hair trimmed. Have it cut short like mine. When you have done that, have a thorough good wash. You are more particular in that re- spect than you used to be when I first knew you, but there is room for a lot of improvement; and as you have made up your mind to follow my fortune whatever it may be, it is as well, at any rate when you join, to look clean. Here are five pounds, go to an outfitter's and get a decent suit of clothes clothes that will fit you, you know, aud not look as if they were made for a man fifty inches round the waist. Look about you as you go through the streets. You will see plenty of young Dutchmen who have oome in from farms, and you will find they wear very different- looking clothes from those you were accustomed to. Get things of the same sort. Or no; I think that it would be better for you to come to me after you have got yourself tidy, and I will go with you." "That will be better, Master Yorke; I should never be able to choose for myself." "Very well, give me the money, then, less five shillings. Be sure you tell the man to cut your hair quite short; it THE ULTIMATUM 59 won't hold the dust so much then, and will give you quite a different appearance. Don't come back again for three or four hours. I want to learn what is doing here, and see what openings there are. Get yourself a good meal somewhere." The hotel was almost full, but Yorke was able to obtain a room. He changed the clothes that he had worn and put on a suit of tweeds he had kept for special occasions, and then went down to the dining-hall. As he ate he listened to the conversation at the tables round him. He learned that large numbers of British officers had been quietly arriving, but that they were as yet in ignorance of the work they had been sent out to perform. At present the greater portion were waiting for orders, but it was believed that most of them would be employed in the work of superintending the transport on the railway, and that if war really broke out, many would be placed in command of the bodies of volunteers to act as scouts, which would doubt- less be raised in the colonies. Everything was still doubtful, and Yorke heard fears ex- pressed that Kruger would back down at the last moment. He made up his mind that he would do nothing hurriedly ; he had money enough to keep him for a considerable time, and it was better not to make a choice that he might afterwards regret. There were sure to be opportunities directly the matter came to a crisis. Among the officers were many civilians, men who had come down from Johannesburg, and these he found were almost unanimous in their opinion that Kruger and his advisers were all bent on war. These occupied several tables, and the ladies with them were dressed in the latest styles of fashion, and wore an extravagant amount of jewellery. He guessed the husbands to be mining potentates and speculators, men whose fortunes were already assured, and who could afford to contemplate the worst that could happen without anxiety. After he had finished his meal he went out, and stood on the steps of the hotel until Hans came up. He would hardly 60 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA have known him, for he looked, for the first time in Yorke's experience, thoroughly clean, and the change made by this, and the loss of the long unkempt hair that had fallen to his shoulders, was almost startling. In spite of his loose, ill- fitting clothes, he looked bright and alert, although somewhat shamefaced at his altered appearance. " I have done as you told me, Master Yorke, but I feel so queer that I hardly know myself." " That will soon pass off, Hans ; and you look a hundred per cent better. Now, let us go off to one of the stores." Here he found no difficulty in obtaining a suit that fairly fitted his follower. It consisted of a corded velveteen shoot- ing jacket, and breeches of the same material; brown stock- ings of a colour to match; a waistcoat to be put on when the evening's cold set in ; four flannel shirts, and a couple of dark- blue silk neck-ties. From the same store he procured two pairs of strong laced boots. A wide-awake of the ordinary size completed the attire. Hans had already, at Yorke's or- ders hired a room for himself, and his new purchases having been put in a bag, he carried them off to it. Yorke remained outside for a quarter of an hour, and Hans then rejoined him in his new clothes. u I am quite sure, Hans, you might ride up to the house, and neither your master nor mistress would know you, but would take you for some young farmer stopping on his way down country to ask for a night's hospitality." " I don't know how I look, Master Yorke, but I don't feel comfortable at all. There doesn't seem room for me to move in these clothes." " Nonsense, Hans ! They are loose everywhere, though not so baggy as the others. By the way, you had better keep the others; you would be less likely to be noticed in them if you entered a strange place than you would be now." " I don't care about being noticed," Hans said. " I would have as much right to be there as anyone else." Yorke laughed. "Well, Hans, as you have agreed to go THE ULTIMATUM 61 with me and you know very well that my intention is, if possible, to get some job with our army I can see that there might be plenty of occasions when you might be gping into places with me where we should not wish to be noticed." A day or two after his arrival, as Yorke stood on the door- steps hesitating which way he should go, a young officer who was entering stopped and looked hard at him. " Hulloa ! " he said, " you are Harberton, are you not ? " " Yes, and you are Parkinson." " What in the world brings you out here ? Why, you were quite a youngster when I left the old school to enter Sand- hurst two years ago, and now you are ne'arly as tall as I am ! " " I have been out here six months." " What have you been doing ? " " I have been at a farm up-country belonging to a cousin of my father. As to what I have been doing, I can only say I have been riding, and shooting, and learning to speak Dutch." "And have you learnt to speak it?" " Yes, I can speak it well enough to pass as a Boer in a short conversation." "Well, come and sit down in the garden behind the hotel and tell me all about it. I suppose you are wanting to get up to the front wherever that may be and as I came out with a good many men who will be employed in organizing and transport, and other jobs of the sort, I may be able to help you, if I know something about what you have been doing out here." Yorke told his old school-fellow why he had left Eugby and come out, his life at the farm, and the events which had led to his leaving it suddenly. " You have done awfully well," Parkinson said when Yorke had finished his story, " and you deserve to get on. Anyhow, if I can help you, I will." Three weeks passed quietly; as yet nothing was settled. Kruger's replies to Mr. Chamberlain's despatches were more 62 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA and more unsatisfactory; still, the general feeling at the Cape was that he would back down at the last moment and grant the terms of suffrage for which the colonial secretary was pressing. The refugees from Johannesburg were not of this opinion. " We believe he means to fight," said one of a group gathered in the billiard-room, " and I hope with all my heart that he will now do so. What does it matter to us whether he gives the suffrage to men after a five years' or seven years' residence. In the first place, he has always broken his engagements, and if he were to agree to a five years' suffrage, he would devise some means for cheating us out of it afterwards; besides, not one in twenty of the Uitlanders would take the trouble to claim it. In the first place, they would know that the members they might return for the few towns where they are in a majority would be swamped by the representatives of the country districts; and in the next place, they know that if they took the oath to the Transvaal Government, they would forfeit the right of complaining to England of any ill-treatment, and, whatever their position, might be commandeered and sent off to fight Swazis, or any other savages, at a moment's notice. No, no; the thing is begun now, and it had best be carried through, whatever it costs. It will have to be settled some day or other, and the sooner the better." There was a general chorus of assent. "I only hope," another said, "that there will soon be an end of all this talk. It has been going on for nearly a year now, and we are not one day nearer to a conclusion. Trade is at a stand-still, and the Boers are not fools enough to buy goods when they expect to be able to grab them without payment, as they will do directly the war begins." Hans had during his rides and talks with Yorke completely imbibed the latter's opinions. As a farm servant he had previously heard little or nothing on the subject, and was therefore quite ready to accept his companion's views as to the dispute, especially as he was serving under an English THE ULTIMATUM 63 master against whom he had no cause of complaint. At Cape Town he found nothing to alter his opinions. The loyal part of the population, which formed the large majority there, were far more outspoken than the Africanders, and the sight of the soldiers in the streets, of the flags waving on the public buildings and on the ships of war the same flag as he had seen hoisted on the farm on holidays confirmed his feeling of loyalty, and he was prepared to follow Yorke in whatever service he might engage. One morning 1 when Yorke came down to breakfast he saw that something unusual had happened. Instead of sitting down to the meal, the residents were standing in groups, talking excitedly. He went up to Parkinson, who was looking delighted, and asked : " What is the news ? " " Splendid, Harberton ! Kruger has sent in the most in- solent ultimatum that ever was drawn up, demanding an entire surrender of our claims and the withdrawal of our troops, and giving only forty-eight hours for an answer. Of course that means war. The old fox has been fooling us until he was absolutely ready to begin. I expect he will be crossing the frontier at once, and certainly we have no troops that can stop him out here. There are enough in Natal to make a fight of it ; but he will have it all his own way in Cape Colony until we get troops out from England. By that time they will have raiding parties all over the country; and there is no doubt that they will be joined by thousands of Dutch farmers. This ultimatum is a glorious thing. No one can say that we forced the war upon them. It puts a stop to all these negotiations and settles the question. It has got to be fought out now; and, thank God, we have not got a government that will permit another Majuba surrender. I expect we shall have hard fighting for a time." "What would you advise me to do, Parkinson? I don't care in what capacity I go up. I should not like to enlist in the infantry, because I should lose the advantage that I have in being a good rider and being able to speak Dutch. 64 WITH EGBERTS TO PRETORIA But I would enlist in any capacity in which Dutch would be useful." " I have no idea what any of us are going to do yet. No doubt some general orders will come from home to-day, and I expect that most of us will be at once sent up the line to see about forming depots, to guard the bridges, and things of that sort. At any rate, there is not much chance of your getting to know anything definite for a few days. Butler and all the heads of the departments will be too busy to go into details. Certainly one of the first steps will be to organize a transport train; without that we should be tied to the rail- way." The news had already spread through the town, and the excitement in the streets was great. Most people believed that war must come sooner or later, but the sudden outbreak was altogether unexpected. There was, however, a feeling of relief that matters had come to a head at last, and that Kruger had placed himself so hopelessly in the wrong by his insolent defiance. Still, there was an uneasy impression that the course he had taken was, in his own interests, a wise one. England had been caught altogether unawares. It was true that a few thousand officers and men had been quietly sent out during the past few months; still, there was no force that could hope to withstand the fifty or sixty thousand mounted men with whom the Boers could at once invade Cape Colony and Natal. No doubt was entertained that the Orange Free State would join the Transvaal. Steyn was known to be a most ambitious man, and to be in the closest communication with Kruger, and among those staying in the hotel who had come down from Kimberley, or who had connections there, it was re- garded as certain that one of the first movements attempted by the Boers of the Free State would be to try to capture Kimberley, which lay close to their frontier line. In the evening Yorke again met Parkinson. " A party of Engineers are going up to De Aar, a big depot is about THE ULTIMATUM 65 to be formed there. They take with them a lot of Kaffirs, to mark out the ground and clear it. I am glad to hear that there are a biggish lot of stores already collected here. Only one train a day will be open to the public, and I expect that will soon be stopped. I tell you what I will do, Harberton. I will take you to Colonel Pinkerton. I believe he will be going up to-morrow to inspect the line, and prob- ably will for the present take command all along it. He came over in the same ship with me, and is a very good fellow. I will tell him who you are, what you can do, and what you want to do. At any rate, his advice will be worth having." " Thank you very much ! " Parkinson moved away towards a party of officers talking together, waited till they broke up, and then went up to one of them. They talked for two or three minutes, then he turned and motioned to Yorke to come up. " So you are a school-fellow of Parkinson's ? " the officer said. "Yes, sir; we were at Kugby together, but he was very much my senior." " So you want to do scouting business, to carry despatches, and generally make yourself useful. He says that you are a good rider and an excellent shot, and that you talk Dutcli well." "Fairly well, sir; well enough, I think, to pass as a Boer in any short conversation." " And you have a Dutch lad with you upon whom you can rely?" " Yes, sir, I can rely upon him absolutely." " There is no doubt that you would be very useful. You know a good deal about the sentiments of the Dutch?" " Yes, sir, at least of the Dutch for twenty miles round Richmond and Brakpoort; they are almost to a man hostile, and I fancy from what I heard it is the same in most dis- tricts." "I will think the matter over; there is no hurry for a few (M 839) I 66 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA days. If the Boers advance to-morrow, when the time they have given us is up, and push straight on, which would cer- tainly seem to be their best policy, we cannot move forward, but shall have to stand wholly on the defensive till reinforce- ments arrive from home; and to take stores up-country will simply mean their falling into the hands of the Boers. If I go up I shall certainly be glad to take you with me. Your boy would be invaluable in the way of obtaining information, if he is as sharp as you say he is trustworthy, but I see a difficulty in employing you both as civilians." There was great satisfaction in Cape Town when the news came that government had announced in the House that arrangements had already been made for the instant trans- port of seven thousand men from India. Two days later Yorke received an invitation to breakfast with the colonel. He found a third person at the small table that the officer had secured. "This is Mr. Harberton," the latter said, "the young gentleman of whom I was speaking to you, Major Mack- intosh. Major Mackintosh is in command of one of the local volunteer corps here, and at my request, Mr. Harberton, he has arranged to give you a commission in his corps, and to allow you to be seconded for service as one of my assistants. I think that will meet all difficulties. While on service you will, of course, receive the pay of your rank, and an allowance for horse and forage. Your boy must also enlist in the corps, and will similarly obtain leave to go as your servant ; he will, while on duty, draw the pay and rations of a private." " Thank you indeed, sir," Yorke said gratefully ; " ard thank you also, Major Mackintosh; this is more than I had ever ventured to hope for." " I had the more pleasure in granting the colonel's re- quest," the officer said, " inasmuch as I am myself a public- school boy. I am an Etonian, and can quite understand your eagerness to take part in this business. I have large numbers of applications for enlistment, and I have no doubt that as THE ULTIMATUM 67 matters progress several fresh corps will be raised. My staff of officers is nearly made up, but I have no difficulty in grant- ing you a commission, as when you are seconded for other duties it will leave a vacancy, so that it is a mere matter of arrangement. I will send in your name to-day to Sir Wil- liam Butler. You had better attend at once at the orderly room, with your Dutch servant, to be sworn in, and then get your uniforms. I dare say you know what they are." "Yes, sir; I saw the corps march through the streets the other day." " Of course you will not want a full-dress uniform, Mr. Harberton," the colonel said ; " and you will take up your civilian clothes, both those you stand in and the dress of a Dutch farmer; and your servant will do the same, and will, of course, dress as a farm hand when he is away on any scout- ing expedition." " Certainly, sir. I suppose I can bring my rifle with me ? " "Yes; what rifle is it?" "A Lee-Metford, sir." " That is right ; it would be of no use taking up one that would not carry government ammunition." " How long have you been in the colony, Mr. Harberton ? " the major asked. "Six months, sir." " You have done well to learn the language so quickly." " The cousin with whom I was staying, sir, married a Dutch lady, and as he had been out here twenty years, Dutch was generally spoken in the house. I spent my whole time in riding and practising shooting, and I always had this Dutch boy with me. He talks English, but we talked when together in Dutch, as I was anxious to learn it." " I suppose you were accustomed to ride before you came out here?" " Yes, my father kept three horses, and bred them so that I learned to ride as far back as I can remember." 68 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA "You left school early, for you cannot be past seventeen yet?" "Yes, sir. My father is a clergyman, and had a good private income, but the Birmingham and Coventry Bank, in which his money was all invested, went to smash, and as the living was by no means a rich one, I had to leave school. I had been invited here by my cousin, when he was in England a year before, and it was thought that I could not do better than to come out to him, and after being with him for a time, try to make my own way." u And so you left him because you thought war was coming on?" Yorke smiled. " Not exactly, sir, though I had made up my mind to do so if there was war ; but I really left him be- cause of a row with a Dutch cousin of my cousin's wife. I think it was partly jealousy at my being established at the farm, but the actual quarrel was about shooting. He was very proud of his marksmanship, and I beat him in a trial of skill. Two days afterwards he shot at me when I was out riding. He put a ball through my hat, and made sure he had killed me; but I returned the fire, and hit him. I was afraid at first that I had killed him, but he was not dead when I came away. Fortunately, Hans, my boy, was with me, and was able to prove that he fired the first shot; but my cousin said that I had better leave at once, for the affair would create an ill-feeling among his friends, and my life would not be safe. So off I came. My cousin provided me well with money, so I thought that, before deciding upon what to do, I would wait and see if war really broke out; but in any case I thought of enlisting in a cavalry regiment. I might get a commission some day, and if I didn't, a few years in the ranks would perhaps do me good. I could buy myself out when I was able to see some other way to earn a living." " That was as wise a determination as you could have taken under the circumstances," the colonel said. " A few years in the army does no man any harm, if he is steady and well-con- THE ULTIMATUM 69 ducted; and if well educated, as you are, he is certain to get his stripes in a couple of years. The life of a non-commis- sioned officer is by no means an unpleasant one; and there is always a chance of getting a commission, though this is not a very bright one, as so many young fellows who, having failed to pass, enter the ranks with the hope of getting one some day." Then the talk turned to the probable course of the war. The two officers agreed that if the Boers contented themselves with holding the passes into Natal, and threw their force, which was estimated at fifty thousand, in five divisions, each ten thousand strong, into Cape Colony, they could sweep the whole country up to Cape Town before any force could arrive from England to arrest their progress, and that in their advance their numbers would probably be doubled by recruits from the discontented portion of the Dutch population. "I am in great hopes that they will besiege Kimberley," the colonel said. " Our having of the diamond mines there has always been a sore point with the Free State, and one of their reasons for joining the Transvaal undoubtedly is to obtain possession, which I feel sure they will not do. Then possibly a considerable force of the Transvaal men may knock their heads against Mafeking. It is the nearest point to Pre- toria, and it was from there that the Jameson Eaid started. They may take that. Baden-Powell, who is a first-rate man, went up to take the command there ten days ago. He is sure to defend the place till the last, but even if he does but hold out for a fortnight, the time gained will be invaluable to us. Time is everything. But in any case, I fear that it is going to be a very big job, certainly a great deal bigger than any- thing we have had since the mutiny. " If we could but get all the Boers together, fifty thousand men might do it. As it is, we may want double that number, though I do not think the home government has any idea that such a force will be requisite. We made the usual hideous mistake of not being ready, and the still greater one of allow- 70 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA ing the Boers to obtain enormous quantities of rifles and am- munition. When our government were first warned of what was going on, they should have put their foot down, and told Kruger bluntly that, as he could be arming in this tre- mendous manner only for war with us, we should not allow the importation of arms into the colony." " They could have got them up through Lourenc,o Mar- ques," the major said. " Well, then, government should have gone a step further. They should have told Portugal that, although we did not wish to quarrel with her, we insisted upon her refusing to allow arms to be landed at Lourengo Marques, that we should send a military officer as our consul there to inspect all im- ports, and that we should station a ship of war there to sup- port him, as it would be impossible for us to allow the port to be used as a centre through which military munitions, in- tended to be some day used against us, might be passed up- country." " But if Portugal refused, as she no doubt would, to submit to such a high-handed action, she would probably have been supported by several European nations certainly by France in her present mood, possibly by both Russia and Germany." " In that case," the colonel said, " we should have had two alternatives: either to fight the lot of them with our fleet, which we could do; or else to send five thousand men up into the Transvaal to Komati Poort, and so to prevent the arms entering from the Portuguese frontier. The Boers were then comparatively unarmed, and if, as is likely, they had chosen to fight, we should have had a fairly easy job. The Queen has sovereign rights there, and it is no great stretch of sovereign rights to quarter troops in the country. However, I have no doubt they would have fought ; after our surrender at Majuba, they thought, and still think, themselves invin- cible. But the affair would have been mere child's play to what it will be at present. It was a difficult problem, no THE ULTIMATUM 71 doubt, for a British ministry to face, but it ought to have been faced. It was a question of grasping the nettle. With such a majority as they have got behind them, stronger men would not have hesitated to do so. A fire can be put out easily enough when it once starts, but if it is left alone till it has got a big hold, there is no saying what may happen when there is a strong wind blowing." "Now, Hans," Yorke said, after having told the news to his follower, " you have to do credit to yourself and me, to try and look smart when you are in uniform, to keep those long arms of yours from swinging about, to hold your head up, and to walk briskly and smartly." " I will do my best, Master Yorke," Hans said with a grin ; " but I don't think I shall ever look like those soldiers I have seen walking about the street, especially those chaps with trousers that look so tight. I can't make out how they can sit down." " Those are the cavalry, Hans ; you won't be expected to look like them. I fancy the corps here wear white in summer ; but that is certainly not a good colour for campaigning, and the major said that there was some talk of dyeing them a sort of light brown, that wouldn't show the dirt, and would not want so much washing, and, above all, would not make such a conspicuous mark for an enemy. It is the same sort of colour as the regular troops wear here in summer, and I ex- pect that in a short time they will all take to it instead of scarlet." "Well, I don't care nrach how they dress me, so long as they let me go with you, Master Yorke." After going to the head-quarters of the corps, and being sworn in, Yorke went to the tailor who had the contract for the uniforms. He found that Major Mackintosh had just come in, and had ordered that no more uniforms should be made for members of the corps until they heard again from him, which would be the next morning, as he had summoned 72 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA. a council of the officers. Yorke and Hans were, however, measured and the tailor promised to put their uniforms in hand directly he received the major's instructions to go on. Yorke had been invited by the adjutant to attend the meeting of the officers. He listened to the discussion, and, was glad to learn that khaki drill was generally approved of as the material for the uniforms of the corps, to be used with brown belts and accoutrements, and wide-brimmed felt hats of the same colour as the coats. He was introduced to the other officers by Major Mackintosh, who laughingly told them that they must make the most of him, as Colonel Pinker ton had requisitioned him for service. The following morning Hans was set to work drilling with a batch of other recruits. This was not necessary in Yorke's case, as he had for two years been a member of the Kugby Cadet corps, and therefore knew as much of drill as most of the officers. Thus, when in the cool of the evening the whole corps turned out, he was able to play his new part satisfactorily. Colonel Pinkerton had strolled down to wit- ness the drill. The gathering was a very motley one, for the men were not in uniform, and all classes were represented. " I was glad to see you knew your work," the colonel said to him on his return. "You did not tell me that you knew anything of soldiering." "I do not know very much, sir; but I was a member of the school corps for two years, and we flattered ourselves we were pretty smart. Of course many of the fellows were meant for the army, and were very keen about it. But I think we all took a good deal of pride in drilling well, and though I was not an officer, of course I knew where the offi- cers should be placed in each movement." " Well, you will not want it much while you are with me ; but when you are among soldiers it is as well to be able to show that you know the work of an officer. At present there is no idea whatever of the volunteers going to the front ; but there is no saying what may take place in the course THE ULTIMATUM 73 of a few weeks, if the Boers are sharp enough to take advan- tage of the situation." Three days later Yorke and Hans started with the colonel up the line. He had two young Engineer officers with him. The colonel's two horses and Yorke's were taken in a truck under the charge of Hans and the colonel's soldier servant. Trains of provisions and stores for Kimberley and Mafeking were being sent up rapidly, and depots formed at several points along the line. It had not been deemed prudent to send them very far until the plans of the Boers were apparent. The horse-box and the carriage in which the officers travelled were detached from the train at points that were considered important. Here they remained for a few hours, and were then attached to another train. While the colonel and his assistants examined the culverts and bridges, and made notes of their relative importance, Yorke made enquiries from British farmers as to the disposition of the Dutch population, and Hans resumed the clothes in which he had left the farm, and, under pretext of looking for a situation, entered into conversation with men of his own class. The reports naturally varied a good deal. The opinion of the English colonists was that although the Dutch sympathies might be strongly with the Transvaal Boers, few of them were likely to take any active steps to join them, unless they invaded the Colony in great force. Many of the young men, however, were missing, and it was generally believed that they had started to join their kinsmen in the Transvaal. Many of the better class of farmers who had been often at Cape Town, where not a few of them had received their education, were much better acquainted with the military power of Great Britain than were the mass of the Dutch population; and these, whatever their sympathies might be, were of opinion that in the long run her strength must over- power that of the Boers, and that an enormous amount of suffering and damage would result. They admitted that they themselves had nothing whatever to grumble at under the 74 WITH BOBEETS TO PBETOBIA. British flag, and acknowledged that the government of the Transvaal treated the Uitlander population there in a very different manner, and that had that government been ready to grant the same treatment to them as the Dutch of Cape Colony enjoyed, there would never have been any trouble. "I think it all means," the colonel said one day when they were discussing the reports brought in, " that if we thrash the Boers the Colony will remain quiet; if they gain any big success, the greater portion of the Dutch here will join them. But no doubt there will be trouble in getting the trains through; it is impossible to guard such an enormous length of line. The utmost that can be done will be to have detachments posted at all the bridges whose destruction would cause serious delay. We can hardly doubt that rails will be pulled up and culverts destroyed, for this can be done by two or three men working at night. But of course each train going up will carry a few rails and a couple of balks of timber, tools, and three or four railway men, and the repairs can be executed with only a very short delay." Four days after starting the party arrived at De Aar, which had been selected as the most favourable position as a base. At this place a line of railway from Port Elizabeth joined that from Cape Town. Seventy or eighty miles down the Port Elizabeth line were junctions at Naauwpoort and Mid- delburg Road, the former with the main line running up through the Orange Free State to Pretoria and Pietersburg, the latter joining the line from East London at Stormberg, north of which was a branch to Aliwal North, and another crossing the Orange River at Bethulie, and joining the main Orange Free State line at Springfontein. Whatever might be the intention of the Dutch later on, so far there had been no attempts whatever to meddle with the railway. The waggon trains loaded with stores went up in rapid succession, and on their way met almost as many crowded with refugees from the Transvaal, the Free State, and Kimberley. Miners and store-keepers, millionaires and mechanics, were THE ULTIMATUM 75 closely packed, with little distinction of rank, and Yorke and his fellow-officers frequently expressed their disgust that so many able-bodied men should be flying, when on crossing the frontier they might well have gone to Kimberley, Colesberg, and other places to take part in the defence of the towns. The first blow had been struck. An armour-plated train going up to Mafeking had on the 12th been fired at with guns and derailed. Lieutenant Nesbit and the soldiers with him had defended themselves gallantly, but had at last been obliged to surrender. From Natal the telegrams were of a still more exciting nature. The invasion of that colony began a few hours before the ultimatum expired, and it was ex- pected that the force under General Penn Symons would be attacked in the course of a day or two. The Loyal North Lancashires had passed them the day after they started. Four companies had gone on to Kim- berley, the rest had encamped at Orange Kiver station. Many mules and trek oxen had been sent up, and large numbers of Kaffirs, and the station at De Aar presented a busy scene. Wooden sheds had already been erected by the Engineers, and these were being filled with the more perish- able articles, such as sugar and tea; stacks of bags of flour and mealies, and of cases of tinned meat, were rising in the open, while everywhere were piles of stores of all kinds lying just where they had been thrown from the trucks on the sidings. An hour after Yorke's arrival the colonel was oc- cupied in fixing on a site for a battery. This was selected on the top of a rising mound near the station, and from this the guns, when placed in position, would sweep the surround- ing country. Tents were pitched for the party, and in these they speedily settled down. " Now, Mr. Harberton," the colonel said that evening, " it does not seem to me that at present I have any occasion for your services here. We shall trace the lines of the fort to- morrow morning; a train with four hundred Kaffirs will arrive this evening, and we shall get to work by breakfast 76 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA time. Then one officer and a couple of the sappers will be sufficient to look after them, while we shall attend to getting things in readiness for the arrival of more troops. So far the railway between this and Kimberley is still open, but it is certain that it will not be so for long. I think you can be most usefully employed in riding through Philipstown and Petrusville, and scouting between Zoutpans Drift and thence to Hondeblafs River and Colesberg Bridge. " Between these places there is, so far as I know, no ford, and we may assume that if the Free State men cross in any strength it will be at one or other of these points; but small parties may possibly swim the river and attempt to cut the line north. At any rate, it is well that we should learn what is going on, and get early information of the movements of any of the enemy's parties. I am in hopes that no combined advance on their part will take place till we have got our guns mounted, for at present we are certainly not in a position to offer any serious resistance to an attacking force. For- tunately the Free State men are not as well prepared for a contest as the Transvaalers, and we know by the fugitives who have come down that very many of them are altogether opposed to Steyn's policy. Moreover, it is probable that they will direct their first effort against Kimberley; but it is as well to be forewarned. " You can, of course, if you think proper, cross the Orange River in your Dutch disguise and gather news there. We can get very little reliable information from the fugitives, they seem to have swallowed every wild report in circulation; and if we were to credit their accounts we should believe that at least a hundred thousand Free Staters that is to say, pretty nearly every adult male were already under arms and on the march for the frontier. I have no faith whatever in such reports. I believe it far more likely that, as fast as they can be organized, a portion will march on Kimberley, but that their main force will go down through the passes in the Drakenberg to join the Transvaal force in Natal. That 4 I SCOUTING 77 think, is the point upon which they are concentrating their attention at present, and they intend to sweep us out of that colony before they undertake any serious operations on this side. I think you may as well start in the morning." CHAPTEE V SCOUTING I SUPPOSE you are feeling more comfortable, Hans," Yorke said as they cantered away from the camp on the following morning. " I don't know, Master Yorke ; I was getting accustomed to the uniform, and these things feel a bit loose, as if I could shake myself out of them." "I feel a good deal the same, Hans." "And so you propose going to the Free State, master? I think it is just as well that Dirck Jansen is laid up with that wound you gave him; if he hadn't been, I am sure he would have mounted and ridden to join Steyn's men directly war was declared, and it would have been very bad if you had run against him." "Very bad indeed, though I did not think of him at all. Yes, it is unfortunate now that I am known to so many of the Dutch farmers round Richmond and Brakpoort. I should say a good many of them will have joined the enemy. I don't suppose they ever noticed me very particularly, for I always kept out of the way as much as possible when they came, as I could not put up with their abuse of the English; still, some of them might recognize me. There is one thing, I always wore the shooting suits that I brought out from home; and these Dutch clothes I bought at Cape Town, when I knew the work I might have to do, have altered my appearance a good deal. I wish now that I had thought of buying 78 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA three or four of those wisps of long hair that one sees in the hairdressers' shops there; if I had fastened them inside my hat, so as to fall down all round on to my shoulders, it would have altered my appearance, just as cutting your hair short has changed you. I should have looked like a rough young Dutch farmer from one of the country districts." They rode on a little farther without speaking, and then he went on suddenly: " I have an idea, Hans our horses' tails are about the same colour. We might very well cut off about nine inches; that would give plenty of hair for our purpose. The only trouble would be fastening it into one's hat. We will stop at farm- houses as we go along, and when we get to an English settler's I will borrow a needle and thread from his wife. I will take out the inside lining of the hat, sew the hair in all round, except just in front, and then sew the lining on to it. That will keep it all tight." Hans laughed. " It will make you look very much like what I was before I visited the barber. No one would recognize you." The third house at which they stopped they found to be an English settler's. As they rode to the door, they were in the usual hospitable way asked to come in and have some- thing to eat. " I am English like yourself," Torke said, " and am serving as an officer with the force at De Aar, and I am going scout- ing to gather news of any movement on the other side of the Orange River. I may cross and go farther, but as I have been living for some time near Richmond, I may run against some of the rebel Dutch who have gone to join them, so I want to disguise myself." " Come in, sir ; we will do anything we can. When I saw you riding up, I certainly took you both at first for Dutch- men, but I see now that you are far more clean and fresh- looking than they generally are." " Have many Dutch joined them from the colony ? " SCOUTING 79 ^Not so many about here; but farther on they say a good many have gone from Colesberg and that district. But most of them are waiting for the Boer advance, then I think the greater portion of them will join ; from all I hear, it is an arranged thing, and the Boers reckon confidently on being joined everywhere by their own people. I am going to start to-morrow for De Aar, and shall sell all my cattle there, for if the Boers come, they will be sure to carry them all off. I hear the commissariat are buying them up for the use of the troops, and are giving fair prices for them, so I shall be no loser by it; and I shall sell my horses to them also. I have not got many sheep, but what I have I shall get rid of, then we will shut up the house, put the best part of our belongings into a waggon, and travel down quietly to Port Elizabeth, and wait there till the business is over, and if we find it likely to last, we shall go home for a holiday. It is fifteen years since we came out here, and we have been talking 1 of going to see the old folk for some time, so if I get a fair price for the animals, it would suit us very well." They were now in the house, and after taking a cup of coffee and some cold meat and bread, Yorke explained what he wanted. The colonist's wife was much amused at the idea, and undertook at once to do the sewing. Armed with a large pair of scissors, Yorke cut off about ten inches of the horses' tails. While he had been doing this, the woman had cut the lining out from the hat. The horse-hair was then distributed equally round it, and she was about to begin sew- ing it in when her husband said : " Wait a bit, Jenny ; I will put my glue-pot on the fire. The glue will hold the hair better than any amount of sewing, and if a bit happened to work out, it would look very awkward." " That would be capital," Yorke said. " I had my doubts whether sewing would be sufficient, but there is no fear that glue will fail to hold." Accordingly the glue was heated, and a band of it two inches wide laid on round the inside of the hat. Then the 80 WITH ROBERTS TO PEETOBIA hair was pressed into this, and the lining sewn in its place again. Yorke put on his hat, and, looking in a glass, joined in the hearty laughter of Hans and the colonist. The ap- pearance of the hair was perfectly natural, as it fell on to the collar of his coat in thick masses. " It is capital," the man said. " I. am sure no one would suspect that it was not real, except that, if they looked into it, they might think it was coarser than usual; but it is just the way many of the Boers wear their hair, and it certainly changes your appearance altogether. Your face might be all the better for being a little more dirty, but it is sunburnt, and will pass very well; only, you will have to bear in mind never to take off your hat." "I think I shall remember that," Yorke replied. "The Dutch farmers seldom do take off their hats even indoors." "I don't think that even Dirck Jansen would recognize you, Master Yorke," Hans said, " after always seeing you in what you call your Norfolk jacket and short gray breeches and stockings. He would not know even your figure. You used to look slim, but in that rough coat, fitting so loosely, your big trousers, and high boots, you look different alto- gether. I am sure that if I had met you, without knowing that you had disguised yourself, I should not have recognized you." "You would look all the better for having your eyebrows darkened a little," the woman said. " Your hair is much darker, and that would help to change your expression." The farmer found a cork, and after burning it, darkened Yorke's eyebrows and eyelashes, thereby greatly altering the expression of his face. "I will put that in my pocket," Yorke said, taking the cork, " then I can touch my eyebrows up from time to time as it wears off." After many thanks to his host and hostess, he again mounted with Hans, and rode off, feeling confident now that he could mix with the Boers without fear of detection. Two SCOUTING 81 days were spent in following the river on the line that he had been directed to take, and questioning the Kaffirs, of whom several bands were found living in little huts on its banks. They had seen no parties of men, nor, although news travelled fast among the natives, had they heard of any large gathering. On arriving at Zoutpans Drift they saw four Boers on the other side, evidently placed there as patrols. Yorke did not hesitate, but went boldly across. " Where do you come from ? " one of the men asked in Dutch, entertaining no doubt whatever that he was a young Boer farmer come to join. " Our farm is a few miles from Richmond. I hope we are in time for the fighting. Has it begun yet ? " " Not here, though there have been a few shots fired round Kimberley. But a big force is going down by Van Keenans Pass to help Joubert drive the Rooineks into the sea." " That is just the job I should like to join in." " Well, I expect you will be in time. By now, no doubt, they will have finished with the Rooineks at Dundee. Then they will wipe out those at Ladysmith, and after that it will be an easy job, for there are no soldiers to speak of at | Maritzburg. We shall make an end of them all this time, and ; it will be Africa for the Africanders, and no English allowed j here. Another party will be crossing at Bethulie in a day or two. All our people in that district are ready to join as soon as they do so ; but there won't be any fighting there, for there are very few troops at Port Elizabeth, and I expect they will embark in their ships directly they hear that we are coming. What are they doing out your side ? " " Not much at present. I hear a talk that more troops are coming out; but it is a long way off, three weeks' voyage, I heard." " As much as that ? " the other said in surprise ; " I thought England was close to the Cape. I am sorry to hear that, for I had made up my mind that after we had driven them out from here, we should go and take their country, just as they; (M839) , 82 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA have tried to take ours ; there would be good pickings for us all." " Grand pickings," Yorke agreed. " Well," the other went on, " I suppose we can get ships. France and Russia and Germany are all going to join us, and will be glad enough to arrange with us to send ships if we undertake to do the fighting." "No doubt they will be glad to do so," Yorke said, " Though I am ready to fight, I do not think I should care for the voyage. They say that people who go on board ships for the first time are always ill." " Well, we shall manage it somehow," the other answered. "No doubt; but I must be riding on. I shall go on to Bloemfontein, and I fancy I shall join the Natal force rather than the Colesberg one. I am reckoned a good shot in my district, and it is no use having a rifle and bandolier if one is not going to use them." 'So saying he touched his horse with his heel and rode off. Hans had been talking with the others. " Why have you cut your hair off ? " one asked. " Because it will save trouble," Hans replied, " and besides it is cooler, and we shall have it hotter down in Natal than it is here; my hat, too, was rather tight, and it makes a lot of difference getting rid of your hair. If we had gone through Richmond, I might have got a bigger hat there, and let my hair stay on. As it was, it was easier to cut it off and ha\ done with it." Yorke had told Hans to talk as much as possible, while himself said no more than was necessary. No one coi doubt for a moment that his follower was what he lool and his being so would divert any suspicion from himsel They slept that night at Fauresmith. The little town crowded with men who had come in in obedience to 01 After some difficulty they secured a room and then went and mingled in the throng. It was easy to see that there considerable difference of opinion among the men. THE LITTLE TOWN WAS CROWDED WITH MEN. SCOUTING 83 were noisy and boastful, but the majority were undoubtedly there against their will, and when these gathered quietly to- gether angry words were spoken against Steyn, who had, without the consent of the great body of burghers, plunged the country into war and caused them to be dragged from their homes and families. " We have no quarrel whatever with Britain," one said, " and she has never interfered with us in the slightest. Eng- lishmen have always been welcome among us. We have noth- ing to do with the Transvaal quarrel. Why shouldn't the Uitlanders have a vote, as our people have in Natal and Cape Colony ? Kruger has been working for it for years, and if as he says, and those fellows who are shouting over there think we can drive all the British out, it is the Transvaal people who will have all the power. We know how Kruger's gang has piled up money by monopolies. If the British go, it is we who will have to pay the taxes, and if there is to be any change, I would rather a thousand times come under British rule than under the Transvaal." "You are right, Friedrich," another said. "If they had not said I should be shot if I did not come with them I should not be here to-day. They have taken my son as well as me, and who is to look after the farm while I am away ? " " Besides," another put in, " if we drive the British out, who is going to keep stores? Where are we going to buy what we want ? There is scarce a place that is not kept by an Uitlander. What do we know of such matters? Where are we going to buy the goods to fill the shops ? Besides, it is not in our way. We are farmers and not shopkeepers. I consider it a bad business altogether, and there are many of us who would rather put a bullet into Steyn than into these English- men, who have done us no harm." Yorke found that the commando was going on to Edenburg, then by train across the Orange River at Bethulie into Cape Colony, where, they were told, every Dutchman would join them, for, except in Colesberg and some other towns, there 84 WITH ROBEKTS TO PBETOBIA were very few English in the district. He gathered that all the other commandos in the district were to move in the same direction, while those on the north and west were to go to Kimberley. There was no talk whatever of any large body going west. As darkness came on, the streets began to empty, some of the men going into houses where they had obtained lodging, but the majority, wrapping themselves up, law down by the side of their horses. Hans went into a store and bought some bread and cheese, for they had finished the things they had brought with them before they had crossed the river that morning 1 . "We will go back to-morrow the first thing," Yorke said when they had finished their meal in their room. "It is quite evident that they have no idea at present of any attack in force on De Aar. It will not do for us to cross at Zoutpans Drift; there would be no inventing a probable tale to account for our movements; and it will be a great waste of time to go down to Bethulie. There is the bridge near Colesberg, but that is a good bit out of our way, and very likely that will be guarded too. I was wrong not to have brought with me my English clothes, then I could have said that I was an English refugee from Bloemfontein, and there would have been no hindrance to our passing. As it is, I think we must make up our minds to swim the Orange River. As we came along the banks there were several places where the land sloped gradually down to the water's edge on both sides. It was the case two or three miles below the drift, and we will make for that point. We can follow the road for some distance without much risk of meeting anyone, for it is evident that the greater portion of the men have been com- mandeered, and the few who remain will have plenty to do on the farms. If we should have the bad luck to fall in with some small party, I can give out that I am carrying orders from the field cornet for the men at the drift to be very watch- ful, and if a British force is seen on the other side they are to ride off at once and bring the news here, and then telegraph SCOUTING 85 it to Bloemfontein. I do not know, by the way, whether that story would not pass us across the drift. I could say that the field cornet, whose name we luckily heard, said that we could do better service at present by crossing the drift and scouting on the other side than in going on, as there was not likely to be any fighting at present, especially as the train would certainly be so full at Edenburg that he would not be able to carry on his whole commando." Hans nodded. "All right, Master Yorke, I would rather do that than swim the river, for I never swam a stroke in my life. I am told you can cross rivers like that by holding on by saddles or horses' tails, but I have no wish to try it." " Well, we will start the first thing in the morning, before the Boers are about. They have not a very long march before them and are not to start till eight. We will be off at day- light." Going downstairs he told the woman of the house that he would pay her at once as he had to be off early. The horses had been fastened up in a little yard at the back of the inn, and there would be no difficulty in getting them out. Matters turned out as Yorke had hoped. The town was still asleep when they started, and although they met two or three Boers riding at full gallop to join the commando on the march, these paid no attention to them. Fortunately, at the drift, the men who had spoken to them the evening before had been relieved by others. " Who are you, and where are you going ? " one of the men asked. Hans as usual acted as spokesman. " We are going scout- ing on the other side. Field Cornet Hatjens said that the train from Edenburg would not be able to carry all his com- mando, and that some will stop at Fauresmith for another day or two. As we said we wanted to be doing something, he ordered us to ride here and scout towards the railway, and see if any trains with Eooineks were going north, and especially if guards are stationed along the line. I don't 86 . WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA suppose we shall find out much, but it will be something to do, and we shall have time, I expect, to join the others before they start. If we get any news it will be telegraphed from Fauresmith to Bloemfontein." Then, as if no further parley was necessary, they rode on into the water and were soon on the other side. It was a long day's ride to De Aar, but they got there late in the evening, and Yorke went at once to the colonel's tent to report. " Can I come in, sir ? " he said as he reached the opening of the tent. " Certainly, Harberton. Hullo ! " he broke off as the light fell upon Yorke's face. " Why, what have you been doing to yourself ? I recognized your voice at once, but if you had not spoken I certainly should not have known you." Yorke took off his hat. " A wig ! " the colonel exclaimed. " Where on earth did you get hold of it ? " " It is horse-hair, sir," Yorke replied, handing him the hat to be examined. " I thought it possible that I might be rec- ognized by some of the Dutch who knew me when I was at the farm, so I cut a good bit of hair off both of the horses' tails, and got an English colonist's wife to make the hat up as you see." " An excellent plan," the colonel said, examining it. "Naturally, it is coarser than it ought to be, but many of the Boers have very coarse hair, and the difference would not be observed in a casual inspection. It would certainly pass excellently after dark." " It passed well yesterday at Fauresmith." " At Fauresmith ! " the officer repeated in surprise. "Yes, sir. Finding that I could obtain no intelligence of any kind this side of the river, we crossed at Zoutpans Drift and went into Fauresmith, which was full of Dutch, a com- mando having assembled there. We mingled with them two or three hours and no one paid the slightest attention to us." SCOUTING 87 " You have done well indeed ; but before you tell me what news you have gathered, I will point out to you that no doubt these men were all bent on discussing the work upon which they were going to be engaged, and would scarce give a casual glance at a stranger, and that although your hair might pass unnoticed there among them, it would hardly be so were you entering any place where you might be ob- " served with suspicious attention. I think that the idea of a wig is an excellent one, and I should advise you to write down at once to Major Mackintosh, and ask him to go to the cleverest hairdresser in Cape Town and get him to make a wig imitating the long hair worn by the Dutch. Say that it is of the utmost importance that it should be as indis- tinguishable from the real thing as possible, as your life might depend upon its being undetected. He had best send it up directed to me, as you might be away." " I will do so, sir. I should not generally wear it, for most of the men I saw at Fauresmith had their hair quite as short as mine; many of them had almost a close crop. As we get farther north the chances of my meeting any of the men from round Kichmond would grow smaller, so there would be no occasion to alter my appearance ; and there would always be some danger of the wig going wrong. Still, I will certainly get one; it could be wrapped up very small, and if I should get into a mess, and they were hunting for me, it would change my appearance altogether if I could slip it on." " It certainly would do so ; but I do not think that you will be called upon to go in disguise when we once move on. We shall, of course, then have scouting parties ahead, and we shall get information from the Kaffirs, and sometimes, per- haps, from well-disposed colonists. And now, please tell me all about your journey, and what you have discovered. " That is most satisfactory news most satisfactory. This is the most important point at present. There can be no doubt that in a day or two all communication with Kimberley will be cut. off, and this place will become the base of our 88 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA advance for its relief. An immense amount of stores must be collected here before we can move forward. No doubt small bodies of Boers will be hovering about, but they are not likely to make an attack; and indeed I doubt if any force could do so successfully. Still, it is a great thing not to be obliged to spend half our strength on erecting strong earth- works, and to feel that we can work in security. At the same time, I am sorry that they are evidently going to invade the colony south of the Orange River. From what I have heard, the Dutch population round Colesberg, Steynsburg, and Stormberg are likely to join them almost to a man. The country is mountainous, and it will be difficult to drive them out of it. " Round Aliwal North a considerable portion of the popu- lation is British. They may be able to hold their own ; but if they cannot do so, they are sure to suffer heavily at the hands of the Boers, who will certainly combine plunder with patriot- ism. Among them there are a considerable number of Irish and American Irish, Germans, French, and Hollanders, ad- venturers of the worst kind, whom high pay and the hope of plunder have attracted, together with a miscellaneous riff-raff of the lowest class from the mining centres. The country Boers will be rough and vindictive enough, you may be sure, but this foreign scum will be infinitely worse ; still, I have no doubt some of the troops as they arrive will be sent on to Port Elizabeth, and will, we may hope, be able to make head against them. " By the way, we had news yesterday that Perm Symons had defeated them at Dundee, though with heavy loss on our side ; he himself is mortally wounded. General White doubts whether that force will be able to maintain itself, as the Boer3 are closing in all round him, and the line of railway from Ladysmith is already cut. The Boers have a tremendous advantage in being all mounted men, and, living as they will do on the country they pass through, they will be unencum- bered by supply trains, and will move three feet to our one. SCOUTING 89 The more I see of it, the more I feel that we have a trouble- some and difficult job on hand." The letter to Major Mackintosh was at once written and sent off by the train starting that evening, together with one from the colonel, stating the information that he had gained thanks to the daring 1 and enterprise of Mr. Harberton, who had in disguise entered the Orange Free State and gathered the intelligence he now sent from the men of the Boer com- mando at Faurcsrnith. Although Yorke had been absent but a few days, the changes at De Aar were wonderful. Never even in the days of the gold fever in California was so great a transformation effected in so short a time. De Aar had grown from a little village of some forty houses, two or three shops, a church and school, with a little camp, into a great military centre. Captain Mackenzie of the Royal Artillery was in charge of a separate camp, which grew daily. Here in a large kraal he had upwards of a thousand mules and as many horses, all of which had been broken in and trained for military service. Not far away was the Army Service camp. Here were men capable of every kind of work that could be demanded carpenters, wheelwrights, railway men, painters, plasterers, saddlers, and artificers of all sorts. Aided by Kaffirs working under their direction, camps and sheds were erected as if by magic, and in a couple of days a street of corrugated iron stores would spring into existence on the veldt. There was already a medical camp, with its Red Cross flag. The York- shire regiment had come up, and was under canvas on the other side of the railway. The Kaffir camp was also a canvas town, and here natives of many tribes, Basutos, blacks from Cape Town, mule-drivers and transport men, were clothed and fed. Breastworks had been erected by the troops and Kaffirs upon the hills around, and redoubts thrown up on the plains. On the morning after Yorke's return the colonel said to him : " I do not see any work to which I can put you here, 90 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA Mr. Harberton. After what you have done I think you will be far more useful in scouting than in any other way. I have been thinking the matter over, and have come to the conclu- sion that you cannot do better than get some Kaffirs to act under you. I will give you an order on the head of their de- partment to hand over a score of them to you. You can pick your men. They must, of course, be active and intelligent fellows ; and although you speak a little of their language, it would be better to pick out some at any rate who understand English or Dutch. Your friend Grimstone, whose wife made your wig, has just come into camp with three or four hundred cattle and a number of horses and ponies. He is at present in the supply camp arranging the sale of his cattle. Some of his horses are too light for transport purposes, but they are, like the Basuto ponies, rough and hardy. " Captain Mackenzie will no doubt buy all the animals suitable for his purpose, and I will walk across with you to his camp and get him to buy twenty ponies for your men. In this way you will be able to cover a considerable extent of ground, and give notice of any party of Boers who may ford the Orange River for I hear that the water is sinking fast, and no doubt it can soon be crossed at many points besides the ordinary drifts. You would always be able to buy a sheep for the men, for although the English colonists are rapidly coming in, of course the Dutch are remaining 1 . The men must carry ten pounds of flour apiece ; and if they have plenty of mutton it will last them for a week." Yorke was delighted with the offer, indeed nothing could have suited him better; and after going with the colonel and arranging for the Kaffirs and ponies, he went to have a chat with his friend the colonist. " I am glad to see that you got back safely," the latter said. " Did your disguise pass you all right ? " "Admirably. I went straight into the middle of a com- mando at Fauresmith, and learnt all that there was to learn SCOUTING 91 without exciting the slightest suspicion. I hope you are doing well with your cattle." " Excellently. I am getting a much better price for them than I could have obtained a month ago more, indeed, than at the best of times ; and I am told that all my heavy horses will be bought on good terms as remounts, but that the smaller ones are too light for this sort of work. I shall try and sell them to one of the Dutch farmers, but I can't expect to get much from them; in fact, I expect I shall almost have to give them away." " Colonel Pinkerton has just made an arrangement by which you will get a fair price for twenty of them, if you have as many, for use by a score of Kaffirs who are at work under me as scouts. I don't suppose he will give you a high price for them; but at any rate he will pay you more than you would get from the Boers, who would know that you must take anything that they chose to offer." " That is good news indeed. I am sure that I should not have got more than a pound a head for them, and they are worth from seven to ten pounds. If they will give me seven apiece all round I shall be delighted." This was, indeed, the price that Yorke heard later in the day was paid for them. On leaving Mr. Grimstone, Yorke went among the Kaffirs and picked out twenty active men, all of whom spoke Dutch. They had all been clothed in blue frocks and trousers, and when they had been handed over to him he was well pleased with their serviceable appearance; in the afternoon he ob- tained the ponies from the remount department. The Kaffirs were in the highest glee at exchanging hard labour for work of a kind most congenial to them. Saddles were not neces- sary, nor were there any to spare, but Yorke obtained a couple of hides from the commissariat and the natives cut them into strips, folded up their blankets and placed them on the ponies' backs, using bands of raw hide as saddle-girths. r 92 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA With other strips they manufactured loops to act as stirrups, rough bridles, and reins. " Now, Hans, I shall promote you to the position of ser- geant," Yorke said that evening. " Your only duty will be to look after the fellows generally, to bargain with the farmers for food, and to see that the blacks obey orders when we are camping." " Very well, Master Yorke, I will do my best. I shall be glad to be right away from this camp ; the dust here is awful. And, having nothing to do while everyone else is at work, I quite long to be a Kaffir and do something." " I did not know you were so fond of work, Hans." " I didn't know that I was either," Hans said with a grin. " But one could always sleep at the farm when there was nothing else to do ; it is too hot in these canvas tents for that, And when everyone else is at work I do not like to be loiter- ing about all day. Already three or four officers have asked me who I was and what duty I was employed on, and seemed to think that I had no right to be here, and that I was of no use." " Well, we shall have plenty to do for the next month, and, I hope, beyond that." The heat and dust were indeed terrible at De Aar. The weather was trying and changeable, the sun was intensely hot, and a bitterly cold wind often blew. Sometimes a dust- storm would burst over the camp, covering everything with a thick coat of red dust. This would be succeeded by a heavy thunder-shower. The men drew their rations of flour the first thing in the morning, together with some bags of forage for the horses, and at seven o'clock Yorke and Hans mounted, and after ordering them to follow him four abreast, left the camp. The Kaffirs needed no instruction from him in the art of scouting, it was born in their blood, and they had been taught as boys among their tribes, before they drifted away South as drivers of bullock-carts or in other capacities. Once SCOUTING 93 there, and liking the life of loafing vagabondage, with just enough work to keep them from starving, they had remained until high wages were offered, and their instinctive love of warfare tempted them to take service with the army. Two miles away they were halted, and Yorke, who had bought Baden-Powell's book on scouting at Cape Town and had studied it diligently, told them that they were now to sepa- rate, and were to practise scouting among the low hills in front. " You must bear in mind," he said, " that the great object is to discover the presence and strength of an enemy and the direction in which they are approaching, without letting them know that they are observed. You must never show your- selves against the line on the top of the hill, as, were you to stand up with the sky behind you, you could be seen for a very long distance. Half of you will go to the right and half to the left. I shall stop here for an hour and watch you at work; then I shall move straight forward. When you see me do so you will descend from the hills and join me as I pass between them. Some of you may be too far off to meet me there, but you will see our tracks and will follow us till you overtake us. You had better remain here with me, Hans, and watch them at work." " I take it," Hans said, when the natives had started, " that scouting for an enemy is the same sort of thing as crawling up to a herd of deer, except that the deer are a good deal sharper than the men ; you can approach men from either side, while with deer you have not much chance to get near them unless the wind blows from them towards you." " That is so, Hans. The Boers' eyesight is sharp enough, but they have not the power of smell. But if you were stalk- ing them it would be best always to try to come up against the wind, for although they could not smell us, their horses might do so and show signs of uneasiness. Well, we have stalked a good many deer together, and I fancy it will help ns a good deal with our work here." 94 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA Dismounting, he went with Hans on to an eminence and stood watching the Kaffirs through his field-glass. He saw that, as they passed the first small eminence, one man sepa- rated himself from the rest, rode up some distance, and then leaving the horse, ran up until nearly at the top, when Le threw himself down and crawled forward with a zigzag move- ment, taking advantage of the cover of rocks and sage-bushes. The next hill was wider and longer, and two or three men turned off; heyond that he could not perceive their move- ments. The same thing was going on on the other flank. " They will do splendidly," Yorke said, turning to Hans. "But when they start scouting in earnest, and want to get up anywhere near the Boers, they will have to take off those blue clothes of theirs; their own skin won't show as much on the sand and rocks as those clothes will." After waiting for an hour they mounted and rode slowly forward. They were joined as they passed through a dip in the sand-hills by five men from one flank and four from the other; there was not time for those who had gone farther to get back. The party rode on slowly, and were gradually overtaken by the others. All reported that they saw no signs of the enemy. They were again sent forward to search hills to the front, those who had before gone to the farther hills this time taking those nearer. So the work continued all day, and in the afternoon they halted at a deserted farm- house, where they passed the night, four Kaffirs being thrown out as patrols. Yorke had no fear of being surprised, but thought it as well to accustom the men to behave as if an enemy were near. For a week the work continued, being now carried on more in earnest, as they were near the river. As the colonel had suggested, their scouting was farther south than Yorke had before been. " You know," he had said, " that there is no idea at present of their crossing the Orange Eiver between Zoutpans Drift and Philippolis, so you had better watch the line between Seacow Kiver at its junction with the Orange to Hanover, as THE ADVANCE 95 it is across this line that bands that had crossed at Bethulie Bridge or Norvals Pont into Cape Colony might advance west to cut the railway between De Aar and Richmond Road station." The country was very hilly here, and the Kaffirs were divided into parties of two, each having his appointed station. One was always to remain at the look-out, the second to scout down to the river, and when required, to fetch provisions from the farmhouse, which served as Yorke's head-quarters. CHAPTER VI THE ADVANCE npHE work was carried on steadily. The Kaffirs used their JL ponies only to carry them to the point at which they commenced work. Here they would be left while the natives proceeded on foot, scouted all day, returning to their mounts late in the afternoon, and generally arriving at the farm as the evening was closing in. For this work they had entirely given up the clothes with which they had been furnished, and went about in the scanty attire worn by Kaffir boys on a farm, or in the ragged garments in which they had been engaged. Thus they were able to obtain information from the Kaffirs at the farms, pretending either to have come from the little native communities settled on the river bank, or to have left the Orange Free State because of the troubles, and to be on the look-out for work. All that could be learned, however, was that the Boers who had crossed the Orange River were either making south through the mountainous district near Stormberg and Steyns- burg, or were moving towards Aliwal North. They were being largely joined by Dutch sympathizers, and the farms of the British settlers were being everywhere looted. 96 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA 'After a fortnight of this work, Yorke was recalled to De Aar. The troops from England had been pouring through. The first skirmish had taken place. The mounted infantry of the Eoyal Munster Fusiliers, the Northumberland Fusiliers, and the North Lancashire, with the 9th Lancers, seven hun- dred in all, had gone some twenty miles along the railway to the Orange Eiver Station, and come in contact with a strong Boer commando. There was a skirmish, two officers were killed, and two others and two privates wounded. Already guns, waggons, the soldiers' belts, and even their guns had been painted khaki to match the uniforms. The officers, too, were in khaki, but the emblems of their rank, and above all, their swords, had marked them out, and the Boer sharp-shooters directed their attention specially to them. " You are to go up at once to Orange River station," the colonel said. "I spoke about you and your little corps of Kaffir scouts to Lord Methuen as he passed through here yes- terday. He has already a body of two hundred mounted colonials for scouting work; but on my pointing out to him that your Kaffirs could pass anywhere, and obtain informa- tion from their countrymen in the heart of the enemy's country without exciting suspicion, he said the idea was an excellent one, and ordered me to send you on at once. You will report yourself to him personally on your arrival at Orange River. You must go by road; the railway is entirely occupied by the troops going up." Delighted at the order, Yorke, after an hour's halt to rest the ponies and draw rations, started, and rode as far as Hout Kraal siding. There he halted for the night, and the third day rode into Orange River Station at twelve o'clock. He had no difficulty in finding Lord Methuen's quarters. The general, a handsome soldierly man, was standing at the door speaking to an officer, and when the conversation ended, Yorke moved up and saluted. " My name is Harberton, sir. On arriving at De Aar yes- THE ADVANCE 97 terday, Colonel Pinkerton ordered me to come on here and report myself to you." "Ah, you are the officer in command of a party of Kaffir scouts. He spoke highly of you, and said that you had crossed the Orange Kiver in disguise and obtained valuable information from a Boer commando you mixed with. It cer- tainly seemed to me that you and your men might do valuable service. Our scouts can only tell us what they see, whereas your Kaffirs can go anywhere and obtain information from the natives, while your speaking Dutch will enable you to pass as a Boer. You yourself know something of Kaffir also ?" " Yes, sir." "They have horses?" "Yes, sir; but they only use them till they get to a point where they really begin to scout. Then they knee-halter them and start on foot, and are absent perhaps many hours before they return. The ponies enable them to cover a much larger extent of ground than they could were they to start in the first place on foot." The general nodded. "We shall not start for another three or four days, Mr. Harberton, but I shall be glad if you will be off to-morrow morning on a reconnaissance. The other day the Boers were not met with on this side of Bel- mont; I wish to ascertain whether the country is still com- pletely clear of them to that point, and if possible, what force they have at Belmont. You will report yourself now to the quartermaster-general, who will assign you as they can pass anywhere and pick up news from the local Kaffirs. He will be generally away, but as he is quite alone, I shall be glad if you will allow him to be attached to your corps while he is with us. He has already made one dangerous expedition in disguise. He is, I hear, an old Rugby boy, but has been out here long enough to speak Dutch fairly and to talk a little Kaffir." " With pleasure, sir. We will make him at home and look after him. If you will wait a few minutes, sir, while I speak to the general, I will take you off with me." Saluting Lord Methuen, Yorke walked away a short dis- tance greatly pleased with his reception. He was soon joined by Major Eimington. " Now, have you anywhere to go before you come to our camp?" the latter asked. " I have to go to the quartermaster-general's to get him to assign a spot where the ponies of my men can be picketed, and to obtain an order for them and myself for a week's rations, as we start out to-morrow, and also to get a tent." " It will be of no use your getting that till you come back ; we are not very closely packed. Anyhow, you can have a shake-down for the night. When we once move forward there will be no coming back here, and it would be absurd to have all the trouble of getting a tent and putting it up, and taking it down and handing it over the next morning. Have you a servant ? " "Yes, sir. I have a Dutch lad, a very good fellow, who acts as my servant and sergeant." " Then he had better draw his rations and yours, and look after you. I shall be glad if you will share my tent for to- night." The arrangements were soon made, and the quartermastei general also gave an order on the officer looking after THE ADVANCE 99 native labourers, to tell off two Kaffirs to take care of the horses of the party until they returned. Then Yorke went with Major Kimington to the camp of his regiment, and was introduced to his officers. Two or three of these were already acquainted with Yorke, having lived at the same hotel at Cape Town. " You are just in time for lunch," the major said. " I do not expect we shall get any more regular meals for some time." They sat down in the open air at a rough table constructed of planks placed on empty barrels, and boxes, the latter being also used for seats. The meal was a pleasant one; everyone was in high spirits at the thought that the period of inaction was nearly over, and that in a few days they would be advanc- ing to the relief of Kimberley. There was no stint of food, as, in addition to the ordinary rations, they had brought up with them two or three cases of preserved meats and wine, and as these could be taken on no farther there was no motive for being saving with them. The officers were a fine set of young men. All were colonials of good family, and the men were all strong and hardy young fellows. They were to act not only as scouts, but as guides to the army, and there was scarcely a square mile in the colony but was known to one or other of them. Unlike the regulars, the officers had already done away with everything that would distinguish them at a distance from privates, their belts were khaki colour, and they carried carbines instead of swords, in addition to their revolvers. After the meal was over, the party broke up, the officers going to look after the men and horses. The major said: " Come into my tent, Harberton, and tell me how you come to speak Dutch so well, and how you got up this corps of yours." The major lit his pipe and seated himself on a box, which with the exception of a bed on the ground, two other boxes which served as a writing-table, and another kept for a visitor constituted the sole furniture of the tent. Yorke 100 WITH EOBEBTS TO PBETOBIA took the spare box, and gave a sketch of his history and doings to the major. " You have done well indeed," the latter said when he had finished. "It was a thousand times better to come out here and fight your way, than to be hanging about waiting for something to turn up at home, and you have certainly made the best of your time. Many men would be years in the colony before learning to speak Dutch thoroughly. Your expedition to Fauresmith shows that you have plenty of intelligence as well -as pluck, though, looking at you now, I can hardly fancy you would be able to disguise yourself to pass as a Boer." " I shall start in that character to-morrow morning, Major, so you will have an opportunity of judging for yourself. I have no idea of stopping idle all day while the Kaffirs are at work." "Don't be too rash, you know," the major said. "Ee- member that a man may do a thing half and took up a fresh position on another hill there. .While the Grenadiers BELMONT, QBASPAN, AND THE MODDER 113 had been engaged in this short but desperate conflict, the Scots Guards on their left had effected the capture of the central kopje. They rushed to the attack as bravely as their brothers- in-arms. The Boers on the summit had opened as hot a fire upon their assailants as had the defenders of Kaffir Kop, but the troops were not exposed to sucih a terrible cross-fire, and the consequence was, their loss was comparatively small. On the left the fighting had been sharp. The enemy had thrown out outposts towards the railway from Table Hill, and the Northamptons were soon engaged in driving them in. At the foot of the hill, 'however, the Boers made a stand. They had thrown up some stone breast-works, and held them until the Northamptons pushed forward to the right and so took the defenders of the sangars in flank, and forced them to quit their position and retire to the hill. The two regiments then advanced to storm the position. The defence of the Boers here was more feeble and half-hearted than that offered at Gun Hill and Kafilr Kop. On gaining the summit the in- fantry halted until the guns came up and opened fire on the next range of hills, where the Boers, driven from their first line of defences, had now ensconced themselves, keeping up a continuous fire from among the rocks. Two regiments ad- vanced and seized a ridge to the south, from which the Boers had been maintaining a flanking fire ; but they could advance no farther, for the Yorkshires and Munsters, who should have been their supports, had been withdrawn. This was an unfortunate tactical error. Had they been with their brigade, and had this been strengthened by one of the Coldstream battalions, our left could have pressed steadily on and have driven the Boers by the south-east route, wihere they would have been harassed as they passed by the fire of the Guards Brigade, and cut up by the little body of cavalry that had arrived there from Witputs. The Cold- streams came late into action, but they attacked and carried the hill called Mont Blanc, while they aided the Scots Guards to capture another eminence to the south of that hill. They (M839) H 114 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA were aided by the artillery and by the guns of the Naval Brigade, which now, after tremendous efforts by the marines and sailors, had been brought up. The enemy, disheartened at the manner in which they had been driven from position after position, now gave way altogether. Their only means of retreat was to cross the level ground to the north-east, and had there been a strong force of cavalry, with a battery or two of horse-artillery, under Lord Methuen's orders, their defeat would have been con- verted into a disastrous rout. But half of the little force were on the other flank, there was no horse-artillery, and although the little party of Lancers and Kimington's Guides attempted to perform the work assigned to them, they were unable to do so. The broken ground running north from Table Hill was held by a strong body of Boers, who covered the retreat of their waggons and guns. In no case could they have overtaken the flying horsemen, for their chargers were worn out by the heavy work of scouting they had carried on. Water, too, had been short since they had left the Orange River, >and after suffering a good many casualties they fell back. The battle was virtually over by six o'clock, having lasted about two hours. Yorke had ridden with Rimington's Guides from Belmont, and, as they were on the extreme left of the fighting-line, had seen little indeed of the combat. That the British were gaining ground was evident from the direction from which the roar of battle reached them, and when at length the order came for them to advance, they had ridden forward eagerly until checked by the heavy fire opened from the low line of rocky eminences facing them. To have pressed on against riflemen hidden among rocks would have been to incur certain and heavy loss, and might have deprived the army of its already utterly insufficient cavalry force; consequently Col- onel Gough, who was in command, reluctantly gave the order for them to retire. Yorke had the evening before handed over his Kaffirs to the medical department as stretcher-bear- BELMONT, GRASPAN, AND THE MODDER 115 erg, and as soon as firing ceased and it was evident that the battle was over, he rode across the country to give what aid he could in the work. He found that the greater part of the British wounded had already been carried off by the troops, some in the ambulance waggons, some on stretchers. By half -past ten the infantry were already in camp, and by one all the wounded were being attended to in the hospitals. The loss of the Grenadiers, 117 men killed or wounded and 10 officers, exceeded that suffered by the whole of the rest of the division. The Northumberlands and Northamptons had over 60 casualties among the men and 6 among their officers; of these the Northumberlands had by far the larger share. Yorke, after seeing the last of the wounded, Briton and Boer, placed on ambulances, was now free, and fastening his horse to a sage- bush, he and Hans ascended the hill the Grenadiers had won. On reaching the summit he saw that it had been carefully prepared for defence, and had evidently been occupied for a long time. The wall was not, as it had appeared, continuous, but was broken up into little enclosures or forts, each suffi- ciently large for two or three men to live and sleep in ; straw, old sacking, and brushwood formed the beds. In each were generally to be seen tihe ashes of a fire, a cooking pot, meat tins, fragments of bread, and other signs of continued occu- pation. Empty cartridge-cases littered the ground everywhere, while many still loaded showed how hasty had been the flight of the Boers. Several dead bodies lay in these little forts ; they were for the most part of men of the lower class, farm-servants and others, with rough ill-fitting clothes and closely-cropped heads. Among them, however, were a few of a very much superior class, clean and carefully dressed, but these were quite the exception; and Yorke afterwards heard from the prisoners that men of that class generally sent on their best horses, and rode in on spare animals or in light carriages and carts, and as soon as they saw that the fight was going against 116 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA them, ran down the hill, jumped on to their fresh horses, and rode off, leaving the unmounted men to fight and die. Eighty-three Boers were found dead, but it was certain that the bodies of many of the better-class Boers had been carried off when they fell. More than fifty prisoners were taken, and twenty wounded; sixty-four waggons and a considerable number of horses were captured. The next day all the wounded were sent down by train. That afternoon the troops moved forward again, knowing that another Boer force was collected at Grasp :^.n, some seven miles to the North. The Ninth Brigade and the Naval Brigade started in the afternoon for Swingspan, while the Guards moved on somewhat later with the Naval guns, armoured train, and baggage. Lord Methuen's intention was this time to attack the left of the Boer position, which was planted along a low range of hills, the highest and most commanding of which lay on their left. The Ninth Brigade, with Eimington's horse and the Lan- cers, bivouacked at Swingspan, a deep depression in a valley surrounded on all sides by hills of volcanic origin. The march had been an uneventful one. The cavalry had scouted the ground in front of them, but beyond beating up a herd of springbok, and startling an occasional covey of partridges, scaring up the little birds called dikkopfs, and sending the lizards hurrying to their shelters, they saw no signs of life. The effect of the previous day's fight was evident from the fact, that although the line of march was everywhere com- manded by low hills, no shot was fired. It was difficult for the troops gathered round the pool to believe that the smooth circle of hills around them was ages ago a number of active volcanoes, and that the pool might itself have been a crater; but the fact has been well ascertained. Fires were lighted, but these soon burnt down, for the men were glad to stretch themselves on the sands and fall to sleep as soon as the kettles were boiled and their bread had been eaten. Pickets went up to the surrounding hills, and one of these found in a sangar BELMONT, GBASPAN, AND THE MODDEB 117 a field-glass and walking-stick, showing that the Boers had occupied it but a short time before. At three in the morning the troops were in motion again, and marched for five miles towards a line of kopjes some three miles from the railway-station. The station bore the two names of Enslin and Graspan, by both of which the battle was afterwards called. The Lancers scouted ahead, while Eimington's Guides watched the hills on the right. At last the enemy's entrenchments were seen extending along a series of kopjes. Their right was on two hills, one lying on each side of the railway, the left upon a high conical hill three miles to the east of it. On the ridges between were several guns, and through field-glasses the Boers could be seen hur- rying towards the eastern kopje, against which they already perceived our main attack would be delivered. One of the field-batteries at once advanced and opened fire against this hill. The armour-plated train had moved to Graspan station, and the sailors got out two of their twelve-pounder guns, leaving the others in the waggons, as there were not hands enough to work them. Presently these were joined by two batteries of artillery, and at half-past six all opened fire. Two companies of the Northumberlands acted as a covering party, and the rest were to line a low crest to the right and keep touch with the other battalions of the brigade posted there to oppose any movement that might be made from the Boer centre. Of such a movement, however, there was but little probability, as the Boers from that point were galloping with all haste to reinforce the defenders of the hill which was about to be assailed. For two hours the fight was purely an artillery duel, the Naval guns and those of the two batteries being answered by six guns, a Hotchkiss, and a Maxim. These were well hidden from sight behind the crest line, and it was only by the light smoke that rose above them that our gunners were enabled to direct their fire. The Guards were in rear, and were held in 118 WITH ROBERTS TO PRETORIA reserve to take part in the fight wherever their services might be most required. The Naval Brigade were upon the extreme right, and it was upon them that the honour of the assault was to fall. Entrenchments had been thrown up by the enemy along the whole range of kopjes. It was evident that the Boers were in no way discouraged by their defeat two days before, for a very large body of mounted men were seen far out on our flank, in readiness to swoop down if we recoiled in confusion after failing to carry their position. Kimington's Guides were detached to watch and keep in check this force. At eight o'clock the two batteries of Royal Ar- tillery moved away to the right to concentrate their fire on the kopje about to be attacked, and the Naval guns were ordered to withdraw, as the Boers had now accurately obtained their distance and were keeping up a tremendous fire with shrapnel upon them. The enemy's fire, however, was so incessant and well- directed, that the officer in command, feeling that to attempt to withdraw the guns would lead to the annihilation of the men engaged in the work, maintained his position, the men throwing themselves on the ground at each flash of the enemy's guns and then leaping up and working their own pieces. So well were these served and directed that the guns opposed to them were gradually silenced. The Naval Brigade, composed of two hundred marines and forty blue-jackets, at last advanced in skirmishing order, and pushed round to the right of the kopje. Although they were within nine hundred yards of it not a rifle was fired, and it seemed as if the fire of the two batteries had completely cleared out its defenders. The Lancers had moved still far- ther to the right, to prevent any body of Boers coming down through a break in the hills there to take the Naval Brigade in flank. The ground over which they were moving was completely exposed. Having gained the desired position, the Naval Brigade now moved direct for the kopje, closing up somewhat BELMONT, GRASPAN, AND THE MODDEB 119 as they converged upon its base. When within six hundred yards from the summit, from every rock and boulder a storm of fire flashed out, and a hail of bullets swept the line. The men lay down and returned the fire, but that of the hidden foe, enormously superior in numbers, was not to be checked. The North Lancashires who were following the Naval men completely lost sight of them, so great was the cloud of dust raised by the bullets ploughing up the sand. It was evident that to remain inactive was to court annihilation, and Cap- tain Prothero, E. N., gave the word for the advance at the double, and the men leaping to their feet rushed to within four hundred yards of the base. Then a terrific fire was opened from a projecting spur. The men fell fast, but again made a rush to within two hundred yards of the base of the hill. Prothero had fallen wounded; Ethelston, the second in command, was killed, Major Plumbe of the marines called upon his men, who nobly responded ; he himself was shot dead before he had gone ten yards, and Lieutenant Saunders of the Powerful now rushed to the front. The Maxim gun that had accompanied them remained immovable, every one of the men who worked it having fallen. They reached the base of the kopje and there threw themselves down to breathe. They had left half their comrades and nearly all their officers behind them. The din was appalling, the two British batteries maintaining a con- tinuous fire on the face and summit of the hill. The York- shire Light Infantry, followed by the North Lancashires, came rushing forward to the support of the naval men, and in open order with bayonets fixed they and the marines began to make their way up. The Boers did not await the onslaught, but deserted their entrenchments and rocks and fled, the greater portion making their way along a valley through which ran a road to the north, only a few joining their friends along the line of hills. In the centre of the position a handful of desperate men defended the rocks to the last, and were bayoneted there. 120 WITH BOBEBTS TO PBETOB1A Seeing that the position they had deemed impregnable had been captured the Boers began to retreat, drawing off their guns with them. Again the weakness in cavalry prevented pursuit ; and indeed both the Lancers and Rimington's Guides were too far away to be brought up in time for a successful pursuit of the mounted men, who formed the majority of the enemy's force. As to those unprovided with ponies, they had but to scatter over the hills where cavalry could not follow them, lie hidden among the boulders, and make off after nightfall. The loss had been heavy. Of the Naval Brigade six officers and ninety-nine men were killed or wounded; the Yorkshires had fifty-three casualties, and the North Lancashires twenty. The Guards' Brigade were not engaged; they closed up at the end of the action, but were not called upon to fire a shot. All but two of Yorke's Kaffirs who had been away came into camp after the battle was over. They had left the wag- gons while the fight was going on, and had hidden among the rocks until night fell. None had gained any information as to the Boer position on the Modder. None of the Boers whom they had heard conversing had been there. They had been told that the British would never get across the river, and even if they did so they would assuredly never be able to break through the strong position at Magersfontein, where Cronje intended to .arrest their further advance. They had heard that no natives had been allowed to accompany the Boers who were posted on the Modder Eiver, and that all new- comers had been directed to Graspan, a step which Yorke con- cluded was designed to prevent spies or well-wishers to the British from seeing the preparations that were made. He reported