A GARDEN DIARY 143 



there one or two such may be discerned, but the 

 bulk are purely and avowedly civilian. They 

 have walked out of their shops, their farms, their 

 offices, their counting-houses, their clubs, or 

 wherever else they come from, precisely as we 

 see them. They can shoot, or they think so; they 

 can ride more or less but in spite of these 

 accomplishments they are no more soldiers than 

 is the diarist who dips this eminently civilian pen 

 into this utterly unmilitary inkpot. If the German 

 commanders of 1870 refused to see in \he francs 

 tireurs anything but unrecognisable freebooters ; 

 if Napoleon declined to accord the Tyrolese 

 marksmen and their heroic leader decent treat- 

 ment, mainly on the grounds that the latter was 

 an innkeeper, what would either of them have 

 said to the bulk of those fighting upon both sides 

 to-day in South Africa ? 



All this, however, is merely preliminary. Our 

 invasion is no problematic peril this time, but a 

 peril that has actually arrived. They have come, 

 the aggressors ! they are already standing upon 

 our sacred shore ! the question now is what 

 are we to do with them ? Can there be any 

 doubt upon that subject ? Up, arm yourselves, 

 and away ! high and low, young and old, brave 

 and the reverse women first, as befits their 

 daring ! Up, and at the villains ! Let them not 

 carry their purpose an inch further. Let not one 

 of them return to boast of where he has been ! 



