142 A GARDEN DIARY 



weapon in war time. Although the weapon in 

 question be his own familiar rifle or fowling- 

 piece ; although the spot he proposes to defend 

 with it is his own hearth, with his own wife and 

 daughters standing beside it, he is liable legally 

 and honourably liable, for that is the whole point 

 to be led away from that hearth, settled com- 

 fortably with his back against the nearest wall, 

 and then and there uncomplainingly shot, his wife 

 and the rest of his family looking on. This I 

 am assured, or used to be assured, is the whole 

 law and the gospel, as the law and the gospel 

 is laid down for military purposes ; a law the 

 carrying out of which is not only permitted, but 

 is the bounden duty of every honourable soldier 

 and Christian officer. In no other way, so I have 

 always been told, could the protection of the 

 civil population be guaranteed during invasion. 

 If a man, merely because the property destroyed 

 is his own, were free to pot we call it nowadays 

 to snipe at the destroyer of that property, what 

 in such a case would become, one was asked, of 

 the poor defenceless soldiery ? 



So much for the old rule, now for its modern 

 application. Bearing all this in mind, I look 

 away to South Africa, and what do I see ? I 

 see a crowd of fighting men, upon hardly one of 

 whom our own regulars and militia of course 

 excepted can I succeed in discovering any of 

 the recognisable marks of a soldier. Here and 



