onic glasses.

It was stated that President Steyn was outside, to stimulate the
burghers with his presence and eloquence. The news was interesting, and
the hope was fairly general that no worse fate would be his than that of
a prisoner of war. There were also some particulars of the Modder River
fight; the Boers had been driven from their kopjes; hundreds had been
shot; thousands made prisoners; and whips of guns captured. This was not
quite a proper version of what happened at the Modder (it is
questionable whether we were ever made acquainted with the actual
facts); but we believed it all; it sounded well. One of the funny
features of the siege in its earlier stages was the readiness on the one
hand with which a practical community swallowed good news, however
false; and the stern disinclination evinced on the other to be "taken
in" by the truth when it chanced to leak out and happened to be
disagreeable.

Such was the condition of affairs when forty-nine long days had crept
by. As to the brightness of the immediate future no misgivings existed.
The days would soon shorten to their normal duration, and be all the
happier for the antecedent gloom. Relief could not in the nature of
things be very far away. Ah, no; it never was; that was the pity of
it--the irritant destined to deepen our disgust--to nourish our
discontent. At Mafeking they were spared at least the galling
consciousness of relief so near, and yet so far. The irritation,
however, was not to be felt yet. We looked confidently to an early
release--so confidently that the decadence of dinners did not distress
us. We considered it of relatively little consequence that provisions
were becoming scarce; they would last another fortnight "in a pinch," we
thought. As for luxuries, we talked of them, and promised shortly to
make up for lost time. The anticipated reunion between bread and butter
was a sustaining thought. The Column might be trusted to carry with it a
sufficiency of firkins to achieve that glorious end; and we were
meanwhile content to be fastidious in our choice of jams, and to be the
bane of our grocer's existence.

CHAPTER VIII

_Week ending 9th December, 1899_

For such comfort as preserved fruit could shed over the soul was still
ours. It was not classed as a "necessary," and the retailers being free
to charge freely for it could sell it at a price too "long" for the
purses of the many. Dry bread is an unpalatable thing, and the ne