102 A GARDEN DIARY 
sprang to meet my eye. “Very hard pressed” 
and immediately below it the comment—“ Here 
the light failed”! 
“Here the light failed!” That seems indeed 
to be the summary of the whole situation. One 
question at least we are all forced to ask, if not 
with our lips, at least inwardly. What of Lady- 
smith? Will it; can it now be reached? and if 
not what is the alternative? Such thoughts 
are gadflies, and would drive the tamest mad. 
Restlessness gets possession of one. The thirst 
for news, more news, ever more, and more, be- 
comes a possession ; one that is no sooner slaked 
than it revives afresh. My particular garden 
boy has been turned into a mere newspaper boy, 
and spends his whole days running downhill 
to the station, on the bare chance of another 
paper having come in, or of someone having 
seen someone, who may possibly know some- 
thing. 
Has it often happened I wonder in the history 
of a country that this sort of external and public 
news—the news of the street and of the news- 
paper—becomes to each individual his own abso- 
lutely private news ; news that for the moment 
seems to supersede even the acutest personal 
grief ; news that makes the tears start, the pulses 
throb, the heart, at apprehension of what may be 
going to happen, literally stand still from fear? 
The thought of Ladysmith, it is no exaggeration 
