“Then ye don’t look it, sor. But there, we’ll leave ye alone for a bit. I dare say we can do without ye this time, and take the bhoy.”
“What for—where?” said my father quickly.
“What for—where?” cried the man. “For the commando, of course.”
“The commando?” said my father, while I felt staggered, only half-grasping the import of his words.
“Yes, sor, the commando. D’ye suppose ye are to have the protection of the State, and do nothing again’ your counthry’s inimies? If ye do ye’re greatly mistaken. Every man must take his turn to difind the counthry, and ye may feel preciously contented that ye don’t have to join yerself.”
“But I have heard of no rising,” said my father, looking at me anxiously. “The blacks all about here are peaceable and friendly.”
“Not the blackest blacks, sor,” said the man, drawing himself up and raising one hand and his voice in an oratorical way; “the blacks I mane are white-skinned, but black in the heart through and through; the blacks who are the dispisers of progress, the foes of freedom, the inimies of the counthry, sor—the despicable, insolent Saxons.”
“Do you mean the English?” said my father coolly.
“I do that, sor,” said the man defiantly; “and the day has dawned at last when the down-thrampled Boers are goin’ to give them a lesson that shall make the British lion snaik out of this counthry with his tail between his legs like a beaten dog.”
“You are a British subject, sir,” said my father.