"No doubt you have; but in every country there are a certain number of people ready to fight anywhere, if they are paid for what they do. The sort of men who are fighting for you, would rob your farms just as readily as they are robbing the farms of British settlers; they are the scum of France and Germany, and will be a source of more trouble than advantage to you. Don't build your hopes on foreign assistance, you have yourselves to depend upon and yourselves only. As long as Kruger can lay his hand on all the gold from the mines, he can buy men and guns from Europe; but that won't last, for most of the miners have gone, and once we take Johannesburg there is an end to that."
"You will never do that."
"That is for the future to show," Yorke said. "You thought that we should never cross the Modder, but we have done it. You thought that you were going to march to Durban a fortnight after the war began, but you have not done it. You thought that you were going to take Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking in a week, but you have done none of these things yet. So you see the unexpected happens sometimes; and my opinion, though, I may be wrong, is that in three months we shall be at Johannesburg. But we have an old saying in England, 'May difference of opinion, never alter friendship,' and there is no reason why we should not each enjoy our own opinion without quarrelling about it. You and the British have always been good friends and have got on comfortably, and there is no reason why you should not do so again, when these troubles are over."
On arriving at Boshof, they found that the commandant had ridden over to his farm, five-and-twenty miles away, and would not be back until eight or nine o'clock. The place was about the usual size of country towns in the Free State. It contained a church, a town-hall, a school, and perhaps two hundred houses. The inhabitants speedily gathered as the party rode in, eagerly asking for news as to the progress of the siege. Some of the men looked sullenly and threateningly at Yorke, but for the most part little animosity was evinced, many of the women even looked with pity towards him. Among the population the war was regarded as practically over, for they had been told that Buller's army had been annihilated and that tremendous losses had been inflicted upon Methuen, with only about half a dozen casualties among their own men, and had heard that the capture of Britain herself by Russia, if not already accomplished, was but a matter of days. They were a little puzzled why Kimberley had not yet fallen, but were confident that the final attack upon it was only deferred until Methuen's army was annihilated.
Here was a specimen of the men with whom their own big and brawny relatives had to fight—a mere lad, without a hair on his face, who ought to be at home with his mother. No wonder the Boers had gained such magnificent victories. It was nothing short of madness that such soldiers should be sent to fight against the invincible champions of the country. It was not their fault, poor fellows, for had not authentic reports reached the town showing how the British soldiers had had to be ironed and intoxicated before they could be got on board a ship, and how many had cried like children at being compelled to fight so far away from home. Therefore, when Yorke was lodged in the lock-up of the town, one woman brought a bowl of milk to the barred window, another some fruit, and a third a plate of meat and some bread, for they believed that, having come from Kimberley, he must be in a state of starvation, while many said a word or two of pity and consolation. Although he pretended not to understand their words, Yorke was touched and at the same time amused by their comments.
"Poor young fellow," one said, "I don't suppose he is much younger than my Paul, though he is not half his size; they must be very hard up for soldiers when they take a lad like this."
"The men who brought him in said that he was an officer," one of them said.
"An officer!" the other repeated in surprise, "no wonder we beat them so easily, when they have boys like that as officers. Why, all our field cornets and officers are big men and the wisest in their districts; what chance could such a lad have against them? And if this is an officer, what must the soldiers be like?"
Several times the two men on guard outside the door told the women to go away, but they soon returned.
"I wonder what has become of Peter," Yorke thought to himself. "I expect he was on the look-out somewhere among the rocks this morning, and waited there till he saw me ride by. He would know that he could do nothing against four mounted men. I hope that by this time he is well on his way towards the Modder. As they say the landdrost here is a good fellow, and a brother-in-law of my friend of last night, I don't think there is any chance of harsh treatment; and by the time I have gone another stage all questions about my being a spy will have died out, and it will be supposed that I was captured in a sortie or something of that sort."