d itself to the use of
Bunyan's favourite weapon, "all-prayer," on our approach; or whether
as a burgher he had deemed it a part of his duty to employ smokeless
powder to emphasise his patriotism, I was too polite to ask. But he
pointed out to me on his verandah two old and useless sporting guns,
which the day before he had handed to some of our officers, by whom
they had been snapped in two and left lying on the floor. There they
were pointed out to me by their late owner as part of the ravages of
war. They were the only weapons he had in the house, he said, when he
surrendered them.

It was a very common trick on the part of surrendered burghers who
took the oath of neutrality and gave up their arms, to hand in weapons
that were thus worthless and to hide for future use what were of any
value. We did not even attempt to take possession of any such a
burgher's horse. We found him a soldier, and when he surrendered we
left him a soldier, well horsed, well armed, and often deadlier as a
pretended friend than as a professed foe. Because of that exquisite
folly, which we misnamed "clemency," we have had to traverse the whole
ground twice over, and found a guerilla war treading close on the
heels of the great war.

This young predikant with more of prudence, and perchance more of
honour, recollected next morning that though, as he had truly said, he
had no more weapons in the house, he had a beautiful mauser carbine
hidden in his garden. There it got on his nerves and perhaps on his
conscience; so calling in a passing officer of the Grenadier Guards he
requested him to take possession of it, together with a hundred rounds
of ammunition belonging to it. When with a sad smile he pointed out to
me "the ravages of war" on his verandah floor my politeness again came
to the rescue, and I said nothing about that lovely little mauser of
his, which an hour before I had been curiously examining at our mess
breakfast table. Too much frankness on that point would perhaps have
spoiled our pleasant chat.

[Sidenote: _Our Australian Chaplain's pastoral experiences._]

In the course of that chat he candidly confessed himself to be
thoroughly anti-British; and for his candour this young predikant is
to be honoured; but some few of his ministerial brethren proved near
akin to the ever-famous Vicar of Bray, whom an ancient song represents
as saying:

"That this is law I will maintain
Unto my dying day, Sir;