It put a sudden end for a season to all controversy. It rallied in defence of our Imperial heritage almost every class, and every creed. It thrilled us all, like the blast of the warrior horn of Roderick Dhu, which transformed the very heather of the Highlands into fighting men. As the soldiers' laureate puts it "Duke's son and cook's son," with rival haste responded to the martial call. To serve their assailed and sorrowing Queen, royal court and rural cottage gave freely of their best. It intensified the patriotism of us all; and probably never, since the days of the Armada, had the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland found itself so essentially united. [Sidenote: _The rousing of the Colonies._] The effect of the Ultimatum throughout the length and breadth of Greater Britain was no less remarkable than its first results at home. Not only the two Colonies that, alas, were soon to be overrun by hostile hordes, and mercilessly looted, but also those farthest removed from the fray, instantly took fire, and burned with imperialistic zeal that stinted neither men nor means. "A varied host, from kindred realms they come, Brethren in arms, but rivals in renown." The declaration of war united the ends of the earth in a common enthusiasm, and sent a strange throb of brotherhood right round the globe. The whole empire at last awoke to a sense of its essential oneness. Australians and Canadians, men from Burma, from India and Ceylon, speedily joined hands on the far distant veldt in defence of what they proudly felt to be their heritage as well as ours. Their presence in the very forefront of the fray betokened the advent of a new era. Nobler looking men, or men of a nobler spirit, were never brought together at the unfurling of any banner. They were the outcome of competitions strangely keen and close. Sydney for instance called for five hundred volunteers; but within a few days _three thousand_ five hundred valiant men were clamouring for acceptance. So was it in Montreal. So it was everywhere. Often too at no slight financial sacrifice was the post of peril sought. As a type of many more, I was told of an Australian doctor who paid a substitute L300 to carry on his practice, while he as a private joined the fighting ranks and faced cheerily the manifold privations of the hungry veldt. Rich is the empire that owns such sons; and myriads of them in the hour of impending conflict were ready to say-- "War? We would rather peace! But, MOTHER, if fight we must, There are none of your sons on whom you can lean with a surer trust. Bone of your bone are we; and in death would be dust of your dust!" It was the Ultimatum that thus linked to each other and to us those loyal hearts that longed to keep the empire whole; and thus President Kruger in his blindness became Greater Britain's boundless benefactor. CHAPTER I ON THE WAY TO BLOEMFONTEIN, AND IN IT