cCool, and can't see that my fellows must have
riding lessons, and must be got somehow to understand the mechanism of
a rifle. Tim Halloran has been in a sulk ever since I told him what I
thought of his conduct at the Rotunda. He never comes near me, and Mary
O'Dwyer told me the other day that he called my volunteers a "pack of
blackguards." I dare say it's perfectly true, but they're a finer kind
of blackguard than the sodden loafers the English recruit for their
miserable army.'

She went on to describe the series of Boer victories which had come one
after another just at Christmas-time. She was confident that the cause
of freedom and nationality would ultimately triumph, and she foresaw the
intervention of some Continental Power. A great blow would be struck at
the already tottering British Empire, and then--the freedom of Ireland.

Hyacinth felt strangely excited as he read her news. The letter seemed
the first clear note of the trumpet summoning him to his father's
Armageddon. Politics and squabbling at home might be inglorious and
degrading, but the actual war which was being waged in South Africa,
the struggle of a people for existence and liberty, could be nothing but
noble. He saw quite clearly what his own next step was to be, and there
was no temptation to hesitate about it. He would place his money at Miss
Goold's disposal, and go himself with her ten volunteers to join the
brigade of the heroic de Villeneuve.

CHAPTER IX

The prospect of joining Augusta Goold's band of volunteers and going to
South Africa to fight afforded Hyacinth great satisfaction. For two days
he lived in an atmosphere of day-dreams and delightful anticipations. He
had no knowledge whatever of the actual conditions of modern warfare.
He understood vaguely that he would be called upon to endure great
hardships. He liked to think of these, picturing himself bravely
cheerful through long periods of hunger, heat, or cold. He had visions
of night watches, of sudden alarms, of heart-stirring skirmishes, of
scouting work, and stealthy approaches to the enemy's lines. He thought
out the details of critical interviews with commanding officers in
which he with some chosen comrade volunteered for incredibly dangerous
enterprises. He conceived of himself as wounded, though not fatally, and
carried to the rear out of some bullet-swept firing-line. He was just
twenty-three years of age. Adventure had its fascination, and the world
was still