If you'll
remember back a little, you'll see that I merely said, 'when I get a
rifle instead of a spoon.' It's a sorry day for an able-bodied man
to be tied to a frying pan all his days. Now and then he longs to
leap out and get into the fire."
Meanwhile, half of the men inside the church were volunteering for
the party of twenty guards demanded by the Captain. It was a surly
night, cold and raw with a drizzling rain. Nevertheless, this was
their first approach to anything even remotely resembling active
service, and the men sought it eagerly.
By dint of attaching himself to the Captain's elbow and assuming
that his going was an understood thing, Weldon accomplished his aim.
Eleven o'clock found him, wet to his skin, sneaking on the points of
his toes through the thick grass beyond the river, with nineteen
other men sneaking at his heels. There had been no especial pretext
of Boers in the neighborhood; tactical thoroughness merely demanded
a guard on the farther side of the river. Nevertheless, the
enthusiastic fellows threw themselves into the game with the same
spirit with which, twenty years before, they had faced the danger of
a runaway by the tandem of rampant hall chairs.
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