Kroonstad

“ After a rest of eighteen hours, Yorke started for Kroonstad. He scarcely saw a person during his long ride. The advance of Methuen to Hoopstad, and Roberts to Kroonstad, so alarmed the Boers that they had for the most part abandoned their farms and trekked north. The majority, however, of the men capable of bearing arms were with the commandos, and a few women only remained in the farmhouses. On the third day after leaving Boshof he arrived at Kroonstad. ”

“ Farewell to mails! Kroonstad was reached at half-past two, and we were shunted into a siding till this morning, when we resumed our journey, passing through Bloemfontein, to our joy, and arriving at Springfontein soon after dark.
What a gigantic affair this war has been, and is. To travel through these countries, the Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony (Tuesday morning, we are now in the latter) by rail alone is to feel all criticism silenced.
Already we have passed hundreds of miles of flat veldt, with now and again big kopjes in the background. ”

“ Haste was required, for the British were already marching on Kroonstad, whence the Government was preparing to retire, ostensibly to Lindley, but in reality to Heilbron.
Unfortunately the material wherewith the new line was to be built had not yet arrived from the Transvaal. The inspector decided not to wait, but to build the line without it.
"Build a line without material? Impossible," you say. Not at all. You forget the fences; we did not. ”

“ I observed the column attentively. Yes, he was right. The mystery was explained. Naturally enough we could not get into communication with the town when it was already occupied by the enemy. The British had heard that the Government was in Lindley, and had therefore made this sudden march, whilst we believed them to be still in Kroonstad. It was most important that the President should know the news immediately. I at once attached the vibrator to the line and called up Heilbron. ”

“ Dyet died of disease at Kroonstad.
24th.—The regiment marched from Essenbosch to Viljoen's Drift, and crossed the Vaal into Transvaal. Civil Vety.-Surg. E. T. S. Ensor died of disease at Kroonstad.
25th.—The regiment marched from Viljoen's Drift to Zeekoefontein.
26th.—The regiment marched from Zeekoefontein, located strong force of enemy about 2 p.m. retiring in the direction of Johannesburg. ”

“ I thanked him, but I pointed out that my greatest difficulty in equipping the brigade had undoubtedly been to obtain suitable transport. I very much doubted if, after the general advance from Bloemfontein, there remained a single decent wagon or cart behind.
“Well,” he said, “I know that. You must travel as light as you can. Make use of the railway line as much as possible, and collar whatever vehicles you can get. Good luck! I’ll see you at Kroonstad.”
My column altogether numbered about seventeen hundred. ”

“ The Government and its officials were placed under my protection; and I was to set out, on July the 15th, in the direction of Kroonstad-Heilbron.
The second division was entrusted to Assistant Commander-in-Chief Paul Roux, with P.J. Fourie and C.C. Froneman as Vechtgeneraals. It was composed of burghers from Fauresmith, under Commandant Visser; from Bloemfontein, under Commandant Du Plooij; from Wepener, under Commandant Roux; from Smithfield, under Commandant Potgieter; from Thaba'Nchu, under Commandant J.H. Olivier; from Jacobsdal, under Commandant H. Pretorius ”

“ The first stage was from Bloemfontein to Kroonstadt.
Mr. W.K. Glover, of the S.C.A., arrived at Kroonstadt in company with Mr. D.A. Black, but there was taken ill and compelled to rest. The Rev. T.F. Falkner and the Rev. E.P. Lowry marched nearly the whole way to Kroonstadt with the troops, and the latter speaks of it as the most trying march of the whole campaign. Opportunities for Christian work, with the exception of the hearty handshake or the whispered prayer, were but few, though during the pauses at Brandfort and at Kroonstadt several successful services were held. ”

“ Marvellous to relate, in the early afternoon we found our train in the station, and, climbing into our carriage once more, we proceeded on our road without delay, congratulating ourselves on our good fortune in not being held up at Kroonstadt, as had been the fate of many travellers going south. Immediately south of Kroonstadt we crossed the Vaal River, with its fine high-level bridge reduced to atoms by dynamite. ”

“ But I must say of General Cronje that he is a man wrapped up in his own conceit. He considered himself the only great fighter in South Africa, and, when captured, he is the very man to say that the Boers should surrender because the great Cronje can no longer lead them. In this respect he is a fool, but fools often become wise men by experience. If I should hear that General Cronje was condemning his fellow countrymen for prolonging the war after his capture, I should not be surprised, because he is so eaten up with his own importance. ”

“ The man of the house of the Nine Nations, you ought to know, makes criminals by the hundred, deluges your alms houses with paupers, and makes your Potters' field reek with his victims: for this he is become rich. Mr. Krone is an intimate friend of more than one Councilman, and a man of much measure in the political world—that is, Mr. Krone is a politician-maker. When you say there exists too close an intimacy between the pugilist and the politician, Mr. Krone will bet twenty drinks with any one of his customers that he can prove such doctrines at fault. ”

“ General Cronje told me that he was proceeding to the western districts of the Republic to take up the command of the Potchefstroom and Lichtenburg burghers. His instructions, (p. 026) he said, were to protect the Western frontier.
I left General Cronje at Johannesburg on the 29th September, 1899, and never saw him again until I met him at St. Helena nearly two and a half years afterwards, on the 25th March, 1902. When I last saw him we greeted each other as free men, as free and independent legislators and officers of a free Republic. We fought for our rights to live as a nation. ”

“ With his right turned, and the Free Staters utterly demoralized, Cronje felt that he could not hope to prevent the main body of the British from crossing, in which case they would be placed between him and Kimberley, and it would be impossible for him to regain the position he had so carefully prepared. The Boers, therefore, silently left the entrenchments they had occupied and marched away to Spytfontein.
Had the men from the Free State possessed the hardihood of those from the Transvaal, it is morally certain that no passage of the river could have been effected ”

“ Krone will tell you he deals out his poison without scruple, fills alms-houses without a pang of remorse, and proves that a politician-maker may do much to degrade society and remain in high favor with his friends of the bench of justice. On one side of the dungeon-like place stands a rickety old counter, behind which three savage-faced men stand, filling and serving incessant potions of deleterious liquor to the miserable beings, haggard and ragged, crowding to be first served. ”

“ Linden to have a place in the Bank?
Nora. How dare you catechise me in this way, Mr. Krogstad—you, a subordinate of my husband’s? But since you ask, you shall know. Yes, Mrs. Linden is to be employed. And it is I who recommended her, Mr. Krogstad. Now you know.
Krogstad. Then my guess was right.
Nora. [Walking up and down.] You see one has a wee bit of influence, after all. It doesn’t follow because one’s only a woman——When people are in a subordinate position, Mr. Krogstad, they ought really to be careful how they offend anybody who—h’m——
Krogstad. ”

“ Kronen was strong and alone. But she was alone and would always be. If it were a murder everybody would talk about it openly. It must be something worse than a murder or a divorce. She felt she must know, must make Mrs. Corrie tell her and knew at the same time that she did not want to be distracted from the pure solid glory of the weeks by sharing a horrible secret. ”

“ Born in an old Scandinavian colony in Minnesota, Peter Kronborg had been sent to a small divinity school in Indiana by the women of a Swedish evangelical mission, who were convinced of his gifts and who skimped and begged and gave church suppers to get the long, lazy youth through the seminary. He could still speak enough Swedish to exhort and to bury the members of his country church out at Copper Hole, and he wielded in his Moonstone pulpit a somewhat pompous English vocabulary he had learned out of books at college. ”

“ Linden.
[Laying down her book, as a light tread is heard outside.] Here he is at last! [Krogstad comes in, and stands in the doorway.] Mr. Krogstad, I have given you a secret rendezvous in this room, because it belongs to my employer, Mr. Helmer, who has lately discharged you. The etiquette of Norway permits these slight freedoms on the part of a female cashier.
Krogstad.
It does. Are we alone? [Nora is heard overhead dancing the Tarantella.] Yes, I hear Mrs. Helmer's fairy footfall above. She dances the Tarantella now—by-and-by she will dance to another tune! ”

“ It had been impossible to withhold from Cronje a certain admiration for the masterful manœuvres which extricated him from his impossible position at Majersfontein, or for the stubborn resistance with which his force, outwitted, harassed by the mounted infantry, and fighting a skilful rearguard action, had succeeded in getting at least thirty-five miles to Koodoosrand Drift. It was now equally impossible to overlook the magnificent energy of the man, who, with his means of flight at an end, his 50,000 lbs. ”

“ Cronshaw in his shabby great-coat, with the collar turned up, and his hat well down on his head, with his red fat face and his little gleaming eyes, looked extraordinarily comic; but Philip was too much in earnest to laugh.
"Have you never done anything you regret?"
"How can I regret when what I did was inevitable?" asked Cronshaw in return.
"But that's fatalism."
"The illusion which man has that his will is free is so deeply rooted that I am ready to accept it. I act as though I were a free agent. ”

“ Kronborg along the narrow walk, past the little dark, sleeping houses, the doctor looked up at the flashing night and whistled softly. It did seem that people were stupider than they need be; as if on a night like this there ought to be something better to do than to sleep nine hours, or to assist Mrs. Kronborg in functions which she could have performed so admirably unaided. ”

“ The heroes of Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley took every precaution to protect their women, but Cronje could not where he was placed. Therefore, as a brave man, he ought to have yielded. To hold out as he did was the act of a savage monster, not a man. While his character must for ever make him an object of loathing, as we loathe the memory of those black-hearted ruffians of the Spanish Main, his stubborn courage during those ten hellish days can only merit qualified respect. ”

“ The restaurant, consisting of one small room, was of the poorest class, and Cronshaw seemed to be its only customer. He was sitting in the corner, well away from draughts, wearing the same shabby great-coat which Philip had never seen him without, with his old bowler on his head.
"I eat here because I can be alone," he said. "They are not doing well; the only people who come are a few trollops and one or two waiters out of a job; they are giving up business, and the food is execrable. But the ruin of their fortunes is my advantage."
Cronshaw had before him a glass of absinthe. ”

“ Kronau is a small bourg between Assling and Wurzen, and the glen, at the entrance of which it is situated, seems to be the finest in the whole valley, although the tops of the higher mountains were obscured by huge masses of cloud. We here met many hundreds of pilgrims, of both sexes, [Pg 73] travelling in companies; some returning, some going to Mount Lushari, a lofty mountain about six leagues beyond Wurzen, where there is a famous shrine of the Virgin. ”

“ He granted freely all that Cronje asked, and treated him with the same consideration that an honourable enemy might have expected. This is one of the greatest acts in a life covered with glory.
Now began the triumphant march to Bloemfontein, with the joyful tidings of the relief of Ladysmith. In every direction victory favoured our British armies. The Boers fled panic-stricken before them. Their day was over, and it was all in vain that the ogre of Pretoria, Oom Paul Kruger, hurried to the front, with his accomplice Steyn. They could not stop the run. ”

“ He has been acting as A.D.C. to General Brocklehurst.
Cronje.—Pietrus Arnoldus Cronje. The Commandant of the Boer Army to whom the Jameson Raiders surrendered at Doornkop. He was responsible for withholding from Colonel Winslow, at the Siege of Potchefstroom in 1881, the fact that an armistice existed, thereby causing unnecessary anguish and distress. In spite of his tricks and tyrannies, he has shown himself a first-class fighter, and a remarkable leader of men. He profoundly detests the British, but the British, while returning the compliment, have a generous appreciation of his abilities. ”

“ Two on the same piece of wreckage would stand a better chance than each on their own.
Krogstad. Christine!
Mrs. Linde. What do you suppose brought me to town?
Krogstad. Do you mean that you gave me a thought?
Mrs. Linde. I could not endure life without work. All my life, as long as I can remember, I have worked, and it has been my greatest and only pleasure. But now I am quite alone in [pg 85] the world—my life is so dreadfully empty and I feel so forsaken. There is not the least pleasure in working for one's self. Nils, give me someone and something to work for.
Krogstad. ”