In those unforgettable months of the Siege of Gueldersdorp you might have noticed a crow’s foot or so at the corner of the Chief’s keen falcon-eyes. To-day, their hazel brightness undiminished, they looked at Life from a network of fine criss-crossed lines. But Time, the spider, had spun no web in the fine alert brain, and the man’s heart was free from crow’s feet or wrinkles. Fresh and evergreen, it was as it would always be, an oasis of kindness for the downhearted or weary, watered by the twin wells of sympathy and enthusiasm. He said, speaking to Saxham of the invisible Sherbrand:
"I wish we had several millions. He is a fine, energetic type. A bit of a hero-worshipper—a bit of a philosopher, a bit of a stoic: ’_He hath seen men rise to authority without envy, and schooled himself to endure adversity, that he might bear himself the better when his time should come to rule._’"
"His time is coming, or I am no judge of capability. And you quoted from the _Encheiridion_ of Epictetus, I think? I’ve always found good reading-meat in that and the _Discourses_. Used to carry a little sixpenny copy about in my pocket, until I wore it to rags."
"I have often seen and noted its raggedness, and its uncompromising Isabella-hue!"
"It was negroid in complexion before the Relief of Gueldersdorp. Perhaps you won’t be astonished when I tell you I have got it now." The Chief’s smiling eyes narrowed in laughter. "My wife has bound it gorgeously, and with other volumes of my Siege library, it occupies a special and most sacred shelf near my writing-desk at home."
"This fine fellow Sherbrand is an old correspondent of mine. He would say I might tell you the story, and I think it’s worth hearing, in a way. It must be eight years ago, when he would be about seventeen, that he wrote to me from an engineering college at Newcastle, to say he had read some papers of mine on the subject of scouting, and proposed—if I thought it would not be presumption on his part—save the mark!—to enrol and organise a troop on the lines laid down. He wanted a definite code of Scout law to work on, and Rules and so forth, all of which I supplied him, you may be sure. Busy as I was drilling and cub-licking the North British Territorials, I couldn’t find time to spare to run up and see the boy. So he commandeered a holiday and motor-cycled to Headquarters. Rode all through one night in pelters of rain, and caught me in my 5 A.M. tub."