On the Stoep, after dinner, the history of the ’eighty-one struggle was reviewed and punctuated with commentaries on the character of Mr. Gladstone.  The probable date of the relief column’s arrival was settled, and the consequent discomfiture of the enemy laughed at.  The talk was all of war.  The children on their way from Sunday school halted the passer-by to enquire “who goes there”; they formed fours, stood at ease, and shouldered sticks enthusiastically.  The natives shut up in the compounds eulogised the sword in their own jargon; they were filled with ambition to lend an assegai in the fray, and to have a cut at the people who treated them as children—­with the sjambok!

It was remarkable the unanimity of opinion which obtained among Kimberley men at the beginning of the campaign with reference to the attitude of the Free State.  They were in the first place convinced that war was certain, inevitable, unavoidable; Great Britain would enforce her demands, and the Boers would “never” give way to them.  So much was agreed.  But the idea of the Free State joining hands with the Transvaal—­to stand or fall with it—­was ridiculed as a monstrous proposition.  England had no quarrel with the Free Staters, and they were not such “thundering fools” as to pick one with England, or to be influenced by shibboleths bearing on the relative thicknesses of blood and water.  When, however, we learned how very much mistaken folks may be, the “villainy” of President Steyn was—­rather overstated, and the continued independence of his country pronounced an impossibility.

This was all very well; but it involved some inconsistency, in that we had veered round to the belief that the Transvaal would never have faced the music alone, and without the aid of the neighbouring State!  That is to say:  war was certain from the beginning; the Free Staters were equally certain to be neutral; but since they were not neutral, responsibility for the war was theirs, and theirs only.  Perhaps it was; but how was the view to be reconciled with our previous positiveness to the contrary?  As a fact, few were conscious of any weakness in their way of laying down the law, and they (tacitly) admitted their fallibility.

On Monday the enemy betrayed signs of activity in the building of a redoubt opposite the Premier Mine.  This was disappointing; it looked as if the purpose was to place a gun in the redoubt—­to shy shells at the Premier.  A special edition of the Diamond Fields’ Advertiser lent colour to the assumption.  The Boers, the special stated, had a gun fixed up at Mafeking, and had actually trained it on that town.  The shells, we were assured, had not burst; but (flying) they could hit a man in the head, we thought.  Whence they (the Boers) got the gun was a puzzle to not a few; and how they managed to make it “speak” was beyond the comprehension of others.  “They might have another gun,” these people exclaimed in horror!  They might indeed; the question soon ceased to be one of speculation, for when a body of the Light Horse attempted to cross the Free State border, the boom of “another gun” was unmistakably real.  Shell after shell was burled at the Light Horse; none of them were hit, and not having bothered bringing artillery with them, they were unable to retaliate.