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Commander, somewhat taken aback.

"There was no need to, sir," replied the Curate, picking up a choice fallen morsel from off the ground, inspecting it, and rejecting it with a look of disappointment. "Sergeant F. got behind the joker and just caught him one in the back with the butt-end-enough to make him gasp and cough and splutter; and after that, although the good lady bawled at us and the youngsters shook their fists, the boss got ever so much more sensible. He talked English and seemed to realise that there was something to be said on our side."

"Was he a loyal farmer, by any chance?" put in the Intelligence-Merchant who was leaning in through the Vshaped opening of the tent, his eyes almost starting out of his head with suppressed excitement. "There's Du Plessis out there, just about where you must have been, and he's supposed to be as straight as a die and sends in information. Could it have been him, do you think?"

"I don't know," responded the Curate. "To tell you the truth, it did not occur to me to inquire the gentleman's name nor to ascertain his views on current topics. You see, we hadn't knocked him up in the small hours to discuss politics with him. We wanted his cape-cart and we got his cape-cart.'

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"Go on, Curate, and don't be SO discursive, said the Second-in-Command, not with

out symptoms of appreciation in his voice. "You say all this took place at 1 A.M. It's 3 P.M. now. What have you been at all these hours in your cart?"

The Curate evidently thought that his Commanding Officer was not pleased. "We really had to go very slowly at the start," he explained in some trepidation; "we might have got off the road, and then we should have been done, and it didn't get light enough to see for several hours. Then, towards dawn, when our difficulties as to keeping to the road ended, we saw a lot of Boers about and we had to make one or two longish détours. After that it took no end of time visiting the different farms as we came along, and at one place we had to hide-cart and all-for quite half an hour: luckily the farmer was on our side-or said he was."

"But what in the world did you want to be visiting the different farms for," demanded the Second-in-Command, "absenting yourself when I might have wanted you here?"

The Curate turned brick-red in sudden dismay. "I really didn't think you would like me to drive past a lot of farms like that without getting what I could," he urged, watching his Commanding Officer's face in an agony of apprehension. "I hope you don't mind much. It seemed to me that there might never be such a chance again; and," gathering courage, 66 as a matter of fact, we didn't do at all so badly.

There's a whole heap of bread and a great big fowl to come over from the cart; and there's quite five dozen eggs-they asked a lot but I beat them down, and," putting the suggestion forward tentatively and with a becoming humility, "I thought that perhaps we might spare some of them for the Colonel's mess."

He had, by favour of good fortune and of his own sound nerves and pluck, foiled the enemy at the moment when the trap so nearly closed upon his troop. Then, with his three comrades, he had found his way for miles through unknown country on a moonless night; while on his dangerous and anxious journey he had by a happy inspiration made himself master of the means to move with ease and rapidity.

Finally, he had traversed a district in broad daylight which was held by foes who were alert and on the watch, a district through which, not twelve hours before, a column comprising horse, foot, and artillery had fled like thieves escaping in the night; and on the way he had driven about from farm to farm haggling with the wives and families of probably some of the very men who composed the hostile bands, over eggs! The lieutenant made in Germany may have soaked up more of the theory of the art of war, but thrust the pair of them into a dilemma for which no regulation has been framed, and the British subaltern's resource and individuality will see him through, while Herr Kamerad is pondering confounded.

THE VOLUNTEERS.

THERE is a proud satisfaction in the memory that, whenever the safety of England has been threatened, there has been no lack of men to volunteer in her defence. Our patriotism is not a mere matter of lip-service. We are not content to shout in the streets; and though, wrongly, as we think, our citizens are not compelled to carry arms by the mere fact of their citizenship, they have always answered the country's call. The enemies of England are wont to declare that nothing but panic will move us. Even if this be true, it is true also that, when once we are moved, we know better than the men of any other nation how to conceal the signs of panic, and if our Volunteers have not always replied until the cry is raised of "the country in danger," they have then borne themselves with soldierly steadiness, and have been ready to resist the invader without haste and without fear.

The story of the Volunteers cannot vie with the story of the Army in colour and picturesqueness. They are not enveloped in an atmosphere of romance. Prepared as they always were for the last sacrifice, they have been called upon to face no worse enemies than heavy showers or long marches under a summer sun. It is wellnigh a thousand years since England was suc

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cessfully invaded, and those who are asked to guard our shores have cherished no sure hope of shedding their blood or giving their life upon the field of battle. For this very reason they deserve a keener sympathy, a higher praise. They have worked hard to understand the duties of a soldier, and they have worked without the glory, which is the end of the soldier's ambition. And, as we have said, they have never grudged their dull and patient service. every age there is the same tale to tell. For instance, in 1779, when all the world was arrayed against England, the task of strengthening the defences of the country was undertaken with unexampled speed and generosity. Act of Parliament, which authorised those who would to raise loyal corps of Volunteers, was not passed quickly enough to suit the temper of Englishmen. "Long before Volunteers could be thought of," says Mr Fortescue, "noblemen and gentlemen came forward with offers to raise regular regiments at their own expense; and within two months thirteen regiments of infantry for general service, three regiments of fencible infantry, a twenty-second regiment of light dragoons, and yet another small corps of cavalry, were all raising without cost to the country. . . At the same time corps of Volunteers sprang

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into life all over England. the Orsini bomb, manufactured Middlesex led the way with in London, was misinterpreted twenty-four companies, the as a proof of England's ill-will. Tower Hamlets followed with A band of French colonels, in six, and the Board of Works congratulating the Emperor and Artificers of Somerset on his escape, employed the House with four more."1 The language of threats against counties lagged not behind the Great Britain, and challenged zeal of London, and in less an equal number of English than six months more than officers to mortal combat. The 75,000 men had inaugurated challenge smacked of Opera successfully the Territorial sys- Bouffe, and was not taken up, tem. but it caused an outburst of warlike loyalty, and from one end of Great Britain to the other a demand was made for Volunteers. It is matter of history how speedily the demand was supplied. From Cornwall to Caithness corps were enrolled, which undertook "to provide their own arms and equipments, and to defray all expenses." It suited Napoleon's purpose to despise the army of Volunteers thus raised to thwart him. Said he: "You are with the aid of lies raising a large army with a view to its becoming an institution of the country, and to make it permanent. But you will be egregiously deceived. Your new-fangled military scheme will turn out, as it should do, a vagary of the moment. You will find what I say come true. The force is illusory." It was Napoleon, not England, that was deceived. The force was not illusory. It has existed for half a century, despite lack of sympathy and neglect, and though to-day it has changed its name, it survives as the nucleus of another and a larger army.

Five-and-twenty years later there was another outburst of martial activity. Napoleon's threatened descent upon England armed in our island every freeman. Pitt, not content with raising a corps of 3000 men, trailed a pike himself. Learned and unlearned joined in this national enterprise. The universities vied with the workshops in providing the country with zealous defenders, and so closely did the fear of invasion then take hold of the people, that when in 1859 there was another call for Volunteers, the organisations which had strengthened the hands of Pitt were not everywhere extinct. Why it was that in 1859 we seemed to stand in need of defence may be easily explained. Napoleon III. was an ally in whom England had little faith. He held his empire on the uncertain tenure of military glory. A constant succession of adventures appeared necessary to the secure maintenance of his throne. Restlessness on the one side was met with distrust on the other. The explosion of

1 'History of the British Army,' vol. iii. p. 290.

The history of the movement is still to be written, and as it touches the manners of an epoch as well as the welfare of the Empire it is well worth writing. Meanwhile two excellent books have been published, which set forth at length and in detail one chapter of this unwritten history. They are well designed for simultaneous publication, for most ingeniously do they supplement one another. Major-General Grierson's book is a work of profound research, a mine of invaluable information. It is the stuff whereof history is made, and no one will ever venture to write of the Volunteers without consulting this grave treatise. It omits nothing which touches the life, the prowess, the accoutrements of the Scottish Volunteer Force. Its pictorial representation of the uniforms is clear and accurately coloured, and if it be not the kind of book which you will read after dinner in an arm-chair it will stand for ever as a complete and authentic record. Sir John Macdonald's Fifty Years of It' is composed upon another plan. It makes little pretence to system; it does not attempt to exhaust its subject; rather it shows us the history of the Edinburgh Volunteers as its author saw them, and incidentally it paints a vivid portrait of the author himself. In other words, it is hum

orous and alert, and while it contains not a little technical discussion, it is written in so lively and luminous a style that it will interest those who know nothing of drill and could not define such simple terms as "touch" or "right in front." But, as we have said, the two books supplement one another, and may most wisely be consulted together.

Before we discuss Sir John Macdonald's book it is worth while to consider what was the use and purpose of the Volunteers when they were enrolled in 1859. And here we cannot do better than refer any who are still interested in the Volunteer movement to Part I. of Major - General Grierson's excellent volume, where will be found a full and comprehensive account of the origin and history of the force. The Volunteers were intended, of course, for the defence of Great Britain. was not for them to fight their country's battles abroad or to protect our great dependencies from mutiny or aggression. At the same time, as Sir John points out, the Volunteer did not play at soldiers; he did not find an attraction in a uniform and a band, nor was he putting off the day of compulsory servicenow at last not far distant-by pretending to the public that it had a defensive force which was equal to the last emerg

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1 'Fifty Years of It: The Experiences and Struggles of a Volunteer of 1859.' By J. H. A. Macdonald. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons.

'Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force, 1859-1908.' By Major-General J. M. Grierson, C. V.O., C.B., C.M.G., Commanding the First Division of the Army, Aldershot Command. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons.

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