CHAPTER II_Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers

1865-1870

When the time came for Fred to go to Rugby both Mr. Darnell and Mr. Hill

advised Mr. Wilson, to whose house it was proposed to send him, not on

any account to have a boy whose escapades would be a constant source of

trouble, but fortunately Mr. Wilson liked 'naughty' boys and disregarded

their warnings.

Selous entered Rugby in January, 1866, and was a pupil in Mr. Wilson's

house for two years. His letters to his mother at this period are of the

usual schoolboy type, mostly requests for money, books or additions to

the commissariat. He was always reading when he got the chance, the

choice invariably tending towards travel and adventure. He writes:--

"_January, 1866._

"I am reading a new book by Mr. Livingstone. It is called 'The

Zambesi and its Tributaries,' from 1858-1864. It is very

interesting and is about the discovery of two large lakes. Send

me two catapults." And "I am sorry to hear the rat skins are

eaten, but very glad that the stoat's has not met with the same

fate." Another letter shows his consideration for his parents in

the matter of money and is somewhat characteristic.

"MY DEAR MAMA,

"I hope you are quite well, I am now at Rugby and very

comfortable. I have a study with another boy, and we have an

allowance of candles and tea and sugar, etc., given out every

week, and we make our own tea and breakfast in our studies and

it is very nice indeed. I have passed into Upper Middle two

when Lower Middle two would have done. I have to pay over some

subscriptions.

"L1 subscription to the racket court.

"10s. to football club, 10s. to cricket club, 10s. for our own

house subscription, all of which I am forced to pay. I have to

buy a great many things which I could not help and I have spent

a lot of my money on them. I will write them down to show you

that not one of them was extravagance but quite the opposite.

"7s. 6d. to have my watch mended, 1s. to go to Harbro' to get my

watch and come back. 1s. to have my dirty clothes washed. 2s.

for a book I have to use at Rugby which I had not got. 3s. to

come from Welton to Rugby after coming back to get my boxes. All

these were necessary, weren't they?

"It is not my fault that there are such a lot of expenses at a

public school, but it is only the first half. Please send in a

registered letter, I have seen a great many boys receive them. I

have passed very high, 10th out of 75, and that will partly make

up to you for some of the subscriptions. Give my best love to

Papa and brothers and sisters.

"I remain your affectionate son,

"Freddy."

From this time his life at Rugby is thus given in his own words:--

"In January, 1866, when John Leroux was just fourteen years of

age, he easily passed the entrance examination to the great

school in the Midlands and became a member of the house which

his old friend Jim Kennedy had entered just a year earlier. Here

he spent two and a half very happy years, and as at the end of

that time he was only sixteen, he would in the ordinary course

have continued his studies for at least another two years before

leaving school, had it not been his father's wish that he should

go abroad to learn French and German before reaching an age at

which it would be necessary to settle down to the real business

of life and make his own living. At the great school there were

three half-holidays weekly, but the boys were expected to do a

good deal of preparation for the next day's lessons during their

leisure time. Some boys shirked these out-of-class studies, but

Leroux always did whatever was expected of him most

conscientiously and often very slowly and with much labour, as

he never used a crib to assist him with his Latin and Greek

translations. He was not at all brilliant, but was well up in

the school for his age, and had he stayed another term would

have been in the sixth--the highest form in the school. However

famous the great Midland school may have been fifty years ago,

as a seat of learning, it was certainly not less famous for the

great game of football, the playing of which was as compulsory

on the scholars as the study of Greek. Primitive Rugby football

was a very different affair to the highly scientific game of the

present day. There was more running with the ball, far less

kicking into touch, and no heeling out behind the scrimmage.

Hacking was not only permissible but was one of the main

features of the game, and when the ball was put down in the

scrimmage the object of each side was to 'hack it through,' that

is, to clear a path for the ball by kicking the shins of every

one in the way as hard as possible. There were twenty boys on

each side in the old Rugby game of whom the backs and half-backs

only numbered five altogether--such a thing as a three-quarter

back was undreamt of--so that there were fifteen forwards on

each side. When anyone ran with the ball, the cry was 'hack him

over,' and as often as not the runner was brought down with a

neat kick on the shin. It was altogether a rough, possibly a

rather brutal game; but it made the boys strong and hardy, and

with the exception of badly bruised shins there were very few

accidents. A young boy, on his first entrance to the big school,

could only wear duck trousers at football, but if he played up,

and did not flinch from the hacking, the Captain of his twenty

gave him his 'flannels' and then exchanged his duck for flannel

trousers. There was no school twenty, and therefore no school

cap, and all the most hotly contested matches were between the

different houses for the honour of being 'cock house.' Every

house had its own cap, but in each house, except in the case of

the school house, where there was a large number of pupils,

there were only a few caps in each football twenty. For

instance, in Leroux's house, where there were fifty-two pupils,

there were only four who had got their caps. Though one of the

youngest boys in the house Leroux threw himself into the game

with a zest and enthusiasm which at once compelled attention,

and won him his 'flannels' in his first term, and after playing

up well in the first great match in the autumn term of the same

year he was given his cap. He thus got his cap whilst still in

his fourteenth year, and was the youngest boy in the whole

school who possessed that much-coveted prize. The only other

sport besides football indulged in by the boys at the great

school during the term between Christmas and Easter was that

known as 'house washing.' Led by one of the oldest and strongest

boys, the whole house were accustomed to spend one half-holiday

every week, during the cold, damp, dreary months of February and

March, in jumping backwards and forwards over a small brook or

river, which at that time of the year was usually swollen by

recent rain. The first jumps were taken across the narrowest

parts of the stream, and here only the youngest and weakest boys

got into the water. But it was a point of honour to go on taking

bigger and bigger jumps, until every boy in the house had failed

to reach the opposite bank and all had got thoroughly soused.

The last jump was known as 'Butler's Leap.' Here the stream ran

through a tunnel beneath one of the high roads traversing the

district, but before doing so it ran for a short distance

parallel with the road, which had been built up to the height of

the bridge above it. From the brick wall on either side of the

bridge low wooden barriers, perhaps two and a half feet high,

had been placed on the slope of the road on either side to the

level of the fields below, and it was thus possible to get a run

across the whole width of the road and leap the low barrier in

an attempt to reach the opposite bank of the stream, which was

here over twenty feet wide, and some twenty feet below the level

of the top of the bridge. A hero named Butler had either been

the first boy to attempt this desperate leap, or he had

actually cleared the stream and landed on the opposite bank.

Tradition concerning the details of the exploit varied, but

whether Butler had made the great jump or only attempted it, he

had immortalised his name by his daring. Now, only the biggest

and most venturesome boys in each house were expected to attempt

Butler's Leap, but nevertheless some of the younger ones always

had a try at it, and amongst these were Kennedy and Leroux. They

cleared the wooden barrier at the side of the road, and fell

through the air into the stream below, but far short of the

further bank, which they had to reach by swimming.

"From a perusal of the letters which Leroux faithfully wrote

every week to his mother, it would seem that with the exception

of the fierce football contests for 'cock' house, and occasional

snowball encounters with the town 'louts'--the contemptuous

appellation given by the boys at the school to all their

fellow-citizens--all his most interesting experiences were

connected with his passion for birds'-nesting, and the pursuit

of sport, at first with a saloon pistol and subsequently with a

pea-rifle, on the domains of neighbouring landowners. The master

of Leroux's house was a man of very fine character and most

kindly disposition, and was much beloved by all his pupils. He

was always a most kind friend to Leroux, and being a teacher of

natural science--it was certain experiments in chemistry which

had earned for him amongst the boys the sobriquet of 'Jim

Stinks'--was much drawn to him by his very pronounced taste for

the study of natural history, and his practical knowledge of

English birds and beasts. In his second year at the school,

Leroux got into the first mathematical set in the upper school,

and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and on every third

week on Mondays as well, had no lessons in school, after 10.15

in the morning. But on these half-holidays, or almost whole

holidays, all the boys in the school had to attend and answer to

their names at a 'call over' which was held at the big school

during the afternoon, and from which no boy could escape except

with the written permission of his house-master. During the

summer Leroux's kindly house-master often allowed his favourite

pupil to be absent from 'call over,' and he was thus able, by

taking the train, to visit districts and pursue his

ornithological rambles at quite a long distance from the school.

On these distant excursions, however, although he paid no

attention whatever to the numerous notice-boards intimating that

trespassers would be prosecuted, he was never caught by a

gamekeeper, though he had some good runs to escape their

attentions. In the more immediate vicinity of the school,

possibly the keepers were more on the look-out for

birds'-nesting boys, who were often brought up by their captors

before the headmaster, the great Dr. Temple, familiarly known in

the school as 'Old Froddy.' This great and good man, however,

always let the young trespassers off very lightly.

"One Sunday afternoon Leroux was pursued by a gamekeeper to the

very doors of the chapel, and indeed it was only under the

stimulus of this pursuit that he could possibly have got in in

time for the service, and 'cutting chapel' meant having to write

out the whole of the fourth Georgic of Virgil, which was just

over 500 lines. When the bell ceased tolling, Leroux was still

some distance from the chapel door, and handicapped besides with

the top-hat, which all the boys always had to wear on Sunday,

and a clutch of sparrowhawk's eggs twisted up in his

handkerchief, on which he had to hold his hand in his

coat-pocket, to prevent them from shaking together. But old

Patey, who always checked off the boys at 'call over' and on

their entrance to the chapel, took in the situation at a glance

and held the door ajar till Leroux got inside, and then slammed

it to in the gamekeeper's face. Leroux fully expected that his

pursuer would wait outside till chapel was over and try and

identify him as he came out, but he probably got tired of

waiting or else thought it impossible to pick out the boy he had

chased and of whom he had only had a back view, amongst over

five hundred other boys.

"About three miles from the big school in the midst of a wide

expanse of undulating meadow-land, interspersed with small

woods, stood the fine old manor house of Pilton Range. As there

was no game preservation on this estate, there were no keepers

to shoot down magpies, carrion crows, kestrels and sparrowhawks,

and Leroux consequently found it a very fine hunting ground for

the nests of these birds. One day soon after the Easter

holidays, and during his second year at the big school, Leroux

paid a visit to the Pilton Range grounds, to look at a magpie's

nest which he had found building a fortnight before. He was

walking along a high hedge bordering a field, about a mile away

from the house, when a man dressed as a labourer climbed over a

gate at the other end of the field and came walking towards him.

Now Leroux had often met labouring men on the Pilton Range

estate before, but had never been interfered with in any way by

them, so he paid no attention to the man who was now coming

towards him, but walked quietly to meet him. The heavily built

labourer came slouching along, apparently without taking the

slightest interest in the approaching boy, but just as he was

passing him, and without having previously spoken a word, he

shot out his right hand, and caught Leroux by the waistcoat just

beneath the collar. 'Well, what do you want?' said Leroux.

"'You come along o' me to Mr. Blackstone'--the bailiff of the

Pilton Range estate--said the labourer. Now Leroux had set his

heart on visiting the magpie's nest, which he thought would be

sure to contain eggs by now, and he was very averse to having

his plans deranged by a visit to Mr. Blackstone. He first

therefore offered to give his name to his captor to be reported

to the headmaster, and when this proposition was received with a

derisive laugh he pulled a letter from his coat pocket, and

offered the envelope as a proof of his veracity. Possibly the

heavy-looking lout who had taken him prisoner could not read. At

any rate he never even glanced at the envelope which Leroux held

out for his inspection, but merely repeating his invitation to

'come along o' me to Mr. Blackstone,' proceeded to walk towards

the gate in the corner of the field at which he had made his

first appearance. Leroux felt that he was very firmly held, for

the labourer's fingers had passed through the armhole of his

waistcoat, so he at first pretended to be resigned to his fate,

and walked quietly along beside his obdurate captor. Just before

reaching the gate, however, he gave a sudden wrench, and almost

got free, but on his waistcoat beginning to tear, desisted. In

the struggle, however, boy and man had swung face to face, as

the labourer held Leroux with his right hand clenched on the

left side of the boy's waistcoat near the collar. After this

Leroux refused to walk beside his captor any further, but forced

him to walk backwards and pull him every step of the way, and as

he was then fifteen years old and a strong heavy boy for his

age, their progress was slow. Fortunately for the labourer he

was able to open the gate in the corner of the field in which he

had made his capture, as well as two others which had to be

passed before reaching the Hall, with his left hand, for he

would never have been able to have got Leroux over these gates.

Leroux would have attacked the man with his fists and hacked him

on the shins, but he knew that that would have put him in the

wrong with the headmaster, so he just leaned back, and made his

captor walk backwards and pull him along every step of the way

up to the Hall. He also made a point of bringing his heels down

heavily on the labourer's feet at every step. At last, however,

Leroux was dragged through the open gates of the great archway

leading into the courtyard of Pilton Range, where at that moment

Mr. Blackstone the bailiff happened to be standing just outside

his office door. He was a tall, grim-looking old man with

iron-grey hair, and seemed to be leaning heavily on a thick

stick he held in his right hand as if he was slightly lame.

"'I've brought un to see Mr. Blackstone,' said the perspiring

labourer, still holding Leroux in his grasp.

"'You young rascal, I'd like to lay this stick about your back,'

said Mr. Blackstone, brandishing that formidable weapon in front

of the captive. Then putting his left hand in his waistcoat

pocket, he extracted a coin with his finger and thumb which

Leroux thought was a two-shilling piece and offered it to his

employee, remarking, 'Here's something for you, John; I see

you've had some trouble with this young rascal.'

"Then addressing Leroux he said, 'Now, boy, I want your name.'

The labourer received the proffered piece of silver in his left

hand, but force of habit caused him, no doubt quite

unconsciously, to release his hold of Leroux with his right hand

at the same time in order to touch his cap to Mr. Blackstone in

acknowledgment of his employer's generosity. On the instant that

Leroux felt himself free he was round and through the great

archway almost at a bound.

"'After him, John,' he heard the irate bailiff shout, and the

discomfited labourer at once gave chase, but he stood no chance

whatever of overtaking the active, well-trained boy, and when

Leroux half broke, half jumped through the hedge at the bottom

of the field below the Hall, he was pursued no further. After

scrambling through the hedge and running in its shelter to the

corner of the field he was then in, Leroux stood on the watch

for some little time, and then feeling very elated at the way in

which he had given the bailiff the slip, without letting him

know his name, determined not to leave the Pilton Range ground

without looking at the magpie's nest, he had been on his way to

examine when first seized by the labourer. As he had expected he

found that the nest contained a full complement of eggs, which

were that evening carefully blown and added to his collection,

which was even then quite the best made by any boy in the whole

school. On his many subsequent visits to the Pilton Range

estate, Leroux took good care never to allow any labouring man

he happened to see to get anywhere near him, nor did he ever

renew his acquaintance with Mr. Blackstone.

"Of all his birds'-nesting exploits, the one which Leroux

himself always considered the greatest achievement was his raid

on the Heronry at Tombe Abbey. Tombe Abbey was about fifteen

miles distant from the big school, and it was during his second

year of study there, that whilst rambling in that neighbourhood

on a day when he had been excused from attending all 'callings

over' by his house-master, Leroux had noticed a number of herons

flying over the park in the midst of which the Abbey stood. He

at once entered the sacred precincts to investigate, and soon

discovered the Heronry situated on an island in the middle of a

large sheet of ornamental water. The twenty or thirty large

nests of sticks were built as is always the case in England,

high up in a grove of large trees growing on the island. Leroux

watched the herons from amongst some bushes on the edge of the

lake for some time and assured himself that there were young

birds in most if not in all of the nests, as he could see their

parents feeding them. To have swum across the lake to the island

and then climb up to one or more of the nests in the hope of

finding some eggs would therefore probably have been a bootless

quest, and at that time perhaps Leroux would hardly have been

able to have summoned up sufficient courage for such an

undertaking, but all through the following months the idea of

one day swimming to the island in the park at Tombe Abbey and

taking some herons' eggs, grew in his mind, and when he returned

to school after the following Christmas holidays, he had fully

determined to make the attempt. Through reference to an

ornithological work in his house-library Leroux had learned that

herons are very early breeders, so he made his plans

accordingly, and obtained leave from his house-master to be

absent from all 'callings over' on March 7th, and hurrying to

the station as soon as his mathematical lesson was over at a

quarter past ten in the morning, he took the first train to the

nearest station to Tombe Abbey. It was a bitterly cold day with

a dull sky and the wind in the east, and when, after making his

way cautiously across the park, Leroux reached the shelter of

the bushes on the edge of the lake, he found that there was a

fringe of thin ice all round the water's edge. In one way,

however, the cold dreary day was favourable to the boy's

enterprise, as no one was likely to be out walking in the park.

Under cover of the bushes Leroux stripped himself to the skin,

and without any hesitation waded into the ice-cold water, until

it became deep enough to allow him to swim. At this time he was

probably the best swimmer in the whole school, for during his

first year and when only fourteen years of age he had won the

second prize in the annual swimming-match, and would certainly

have taken the first prize the following year, but for some

reason or other there was no competition. In his third year and

a few months after his visit to Tombe Abbey when the competition

was again revived, he met with an accident at cricket on the

very morning of the race, which destroyed his chances of winning

it. Once in the deep water of the lake, Leroux, swimming with a

strong sidestroke, soon reached the island in the centre, and

selecting the easiest tree to climb in which some of the herons'

nests were built, naked as he was, he lost no time in getting up

to them. There were four eggs in each of the two nests he

actually inspected, and transferring these to an empty

sponge-bag which he had brought with him, and which he now held

in his mouth, he soon reached the ground again at the foot of

the tree without having broken or even cracked a single egg. A

hasty look round assured him that no one was in sight anywhere

in the park, so still holding the sponge-bag containing the

eight large blue eggs in his teeth, he soon recrossed the lake

to the mainland, and then lost no time in pulling his clothes

over his wet and shivering limbs. But though his teeth were

chattering, Leroux's young heart was full of joy and exultation

at the successful accomplishment of his enterprise, and he

thought but little of his personal discomfort. Once dressed he

soon reached the boundary of the park, and early in the

afternoon was able to report himself to his house-master, though

he did not think it necessary to enter into any details as to

his day's ramble, and probably had it not been for the fact that

the great Midland school at this time boasted a natural history

society, of which Leroux was a prominent member as well as

keeper of the ornithological note-book, the incident of the

taking of the herons' eggs at Tombe Abbey might never have been

known to anyone but a few of Leroux's most intimate friends.

However, at the next evening meeting of the society, in the

innocence of his heart Leroux exhibited the great blue eggs, the

contemplation of which was still his chief joy. One of the

undermasters, Mr. Kitchener, was that night in the chair, and

this unprincipled pedagogue, after having obtained the admission

from Leroux that he had taken the herons' eggs himself,

required him in the most unsportsmanlike manner to state exactly

when and where he had become possessed of them. All

prevarication was foreign to Leroux's nature, and when thus

challenged he did not hesitate to tell the story of his visit to

Tombe Abbey, and how he had swum across the lake and climbed to

the herons' nests stark naked on a cold day in early March. The

hardihood of the exploit, however, made no appeal to the mean

soul of Mr. Kitchener, who not only confiscated the herons' eggs

on the spot, but ordered Leroux to write out the fourth Georgic

of Virgil, a very common punishment at public schools in those

days, as it runs to almost exactly 500 lines. Through the good

offices of his own house-master the herons' eggs were given back

to Leroux, but the story of his adventure became noised abroad,

even beyond the confines of the school, as he was to discover a

few months later.

"Although Leroux had become the happy possessor of a saloon

pistol, soon after his entrance to the school, he had never

found this a very satisfactory weapon, and had determined to

possess himself of something better as soon as possible. He

practised rifle-shooting regularly at the butts, and in his

third year shot in most of the matches for the school eleven,

always doing very well at the longer ranges at which the boys

were allowed to kneel or lie down, but failing rather at the 200

yards, at which range in those days even the youngest members of

the rifle-corps were required to shoot standing with heavy

Enfield rifles with a very hard pull. It was this excessively

hard pull, combined with the weight of the long Enfield rifle,

which made it so difficult for a young boy to shoot steadily

standing at the 200 yards' range. During the Easter holidays

before his last term at the great school, Leroux bought with his

savings, augmented by a liberal present from his mother, a good

pea-rifle with a detachable barrel, which could be concealed up

the coat-sleeve of the right arm, whilst the stock was hidden

under the coat on the other side of the body. But Leroux never

used this rifle on private ground unless he was accompanied by a

friend, so that in case of pursuit one boy could run with the

barrel and the other with the stock. There was an old disused

canal not far away from the school, on the property of a local

landowner named Lowden Beigh, which was a favourite resort of

Leroux and his friends on Sunday afternoons between dinner-time

and afternoon chapel. In the still waters of this old canal

bordered with beds of reeds and rushes, and in many places

overspread with waterlilies, pike were always to be found on a

hot summer's day, not exactly basking in the sun, but lying

motionless in the water, not more than a few inches from the

surface, and Leroux had discovered that the concussion caused by

a bullet fired into the water in the immediate vicinity of these

fish, even though it did not touch them, was sufficient to stun

them and cause them to float helpless for a short time belly

upwards on the top of the water, from which they could be

retrieved with a long stick. The pike which were obtained in

this way were, however, be it said, always of small size. This

old canal too swarmed with moorhens which afforded excellent

practice with the little rifle. It was on a hot Sunday afternoon

in late June, that Leroux and a great friend of his, a very tall

boy who had somewhat outgrown his strength, paid what proved to

be their last visit to the canal. As it so happened, where they

first struck the canal they had only seen some very small pike

not worth shooting at and only one shot had been fired at a

moorhen, which had missed its mark. However, there was a better

hunting ground beyond the bridge where the high road crossed the

old canal, and this they proceeded to make for. Before entering

the last field which lay between them and the high road, the

little rifle was taken to pieces, and Leroux then hid the stock

under the left side of his coat, his companion, whose arms were

longer than his, concealing the barrel up his right coat-sleeve.

The two boys then strolled leisurely along the bank of the

canal, towards the gate which opened into the high road just

below the bridge. They were close to this gate, in fact almost

touching it, when a gamekeeper, in velveteen coat and gaiters,

suddenly appeared from behind the hedge on the other side of it

and stood confronting them.

"'Well, young gents,' he said, 'what have you been doing along

the canal?'

"'We've been looking for cuckoos' eggs in the reed warblers'

nests,' said Leroux readily, and it was indeed a perfectly true

answer, though it did not cover the whole scope of their

operations.

"'Well, I must have your names. Mr. Lowden Beigh[3] means to put

a stop to you young gents trespassing on his ground every

Sunday,' said the gamekeeper, pulling out a pocket-book and

pencil to take them down in. Leroux and his friend at once gave

their names, and told the keeper how to spell them, for they

knew that even if they were reported to the headmaster, that

good old sportsman would not be likely to inflict any punishment

on them for merely strolling quietly along the bank of the old

canal on a Sunday afternoon, even though they had been

trespassing on the property of Mr. Lowden Beigh.

"Having given up their names to the keeper the two boys

proceeded to climb over the gate into the high road, and

considering what they carried hidden under their coats, this was

a somewhat ticklish operation.

"Leroux was nearest to the keeper, and having his right arm free

probably got over the gate without arousing any suspicion in the

man's mind, but the latter probably noticed the unusual

stiffness of the tall boy's right arm when he was getting over

the gate, though he did not immediately grasp the cause of it.

However, the probable meaning of it must soon have flashed

across his mind, for the boys had not walked twenty yards down

the road when they heard him say, 'Darned if ye ain't got one o'

they little guns with ye.' They heard no more. 'Come on,' said

Leroux, and the two boys dashed off down the road at their best

pace, closely pursued by the keeper, who though middle-aged was

a spare-made, active-looking fellow. It was a very hot day and

the two boys were in their Sunday clothes and wearing top-hats,

and handicapped with the rifle, the barrel of which was rather

heavy. Still at first they gained on the keeper, and at the end

of a quarter of a mile had increased the distance between him

and them to quite fifty yards, when suddenly they came almost

face to face with old 'Froddy,' the great headmaster himself,

who had just emerged from a lane into the high road. With his

head held high in the air and his hat on the back of his head,

he came striding along all alone, at a pace of at least four

miles an hour. His thoughts were evidently far from the earth he

trod, and probably he never saw the boys at all, but they

instantly recognized him.

"'Old Froddy, by Jove!' ejaculated Leroux; 'come on through the

hedge,' and without an instant's hesitation he dashed at and

broke his way into the field to the right of the road, his

friend scrambling through the gap he had made in the hedge close

behind him. The boys were now in a large grass field across

which they started to run diagonally, the keeper following

doggedly behind them, though when they gained the further corner

of the field he was nearly a hundred yards behind them. As they

climbed the gate into the next field Leroux's tall young friend

was panting painfully, and before they were half-way across it

he said he would not be able to run much further with the

rifle-barrel. There was a large hayrick in the far corner of

this field, so Leroux urged his companion to try and carry the

rifle-barrel as far as there and then throw it down behind the

rick, just as they passed it, and were for the moment hidden

from the keeper. Leroux who was comparatively fresh and whom the

keeper would never have caught, still stuck to the stock of his

rifle, and intended to return for the barrel the next day, which

happened to be one of the three-weekly Monday half-holidays. He

did not think there would be much chance of its discovery before

then. However, as bad luck would have it, and by an

extraordinary chance, the gamekeeper saw it as he passed the

rick. He had probably turned to look behind him, thinking that

possibly the boys had run round the rick, and must have seen the

glint of the sun on the barrel. The boys had not got very far

over the next field before they heard the gamekeeper shouting,

and on turning his head Leroux saw that he was standing near the

gate waving something over his head, which as it glinted and

flashed in the sun he knew was the barrel of his rifle. It was

no good running any further, the keeper had their names and half

the rifle, so they walked back to him and Leroux had to

surrender the other half.

"Now Leroux had great affection for this, his first rifle, and

hated the idea of having it confiscated, so he tried to make

terms with the keeper, and offered to give him all the money he

could afford, if he would return him the rifle, and be content

to report him and his friend for trespassing. The keeper refused

this bribe with much apparent indignation, saying that no amount

of money that might be offered to him would tempt him to swerve

from his duty, which was to take the rifle straight to his

master, Mr. Lowden Beigh. So the two boys walked slowly and

sadly back to the school, arriving there just in time for the

afternoon service in the chapel, which, however, did nothing to

cheer them.

"Every day during the following week Leroux expected to be

summoned to the headmaster's study and taxed with trespassing

with a rifle on Mr. Lowden Beigh's land. But at the end of this

time, as nothing happened, he felt convinced that the keeper had

never given up the little rifle to his master at all, but had

kept it himself, in the hope of being able to dispose of it for

more money than had been offered him for its return. At any rate

Leroux determined to write to Mr. Lowden Beigh, tell him exactly

what had happened, and ask him to let him have the rifle back

again at the end of the term. This he did, and the following day

received an answer requesting him to call at the Hall with the

friend who was with him when the rifle was taken, on the

following Sunday afternoon. The two boys complied with this

request and they were very kindly entertained and treated to

wine and cake by Mr. Lowden Beigh. He asked Leroux if it was he

who had taken the herons' eggs at Tombe Abbey, and when he

admitted that it was, said, 'Why, you're the biggest poacher in

the school.' He then told the boys that the keeper had never

said a word to him about the rifle, but that he had demanded it

from him immediately on reading Leroux's letter, and then

dismissed the man from his service. Finally, Mr. Lowden Beigh

told Leroux that if he would again come to the Hall, the day

before the big school broke up at the end of the term, he would

return him his rifle, and this promise he faithfully kept.

"It was whilst he was at home during the Christmas holidays

immediately preceding the commencement of his second year at the

great Midland school, that John Leroux, then just fifteen years

of age, was an eye-witness of, and indeed, a participant in, the

terrible disaster on the ice in Regent's Park, which took place

on January 15th, 1867.

"At that time he was living with his parents at no great

distance from the scene of the accident, of which he wrote an

account to a school friend whilst the events related were still

fresh in his memory.

"As a result of a long-continued frost, the ice on the

ornamental water in the park had become excessively thick, and

during the early part of January, 1867, thousands of people

might have been seen skating there daily. At length, however, a

thaw set in, and as the ice became gradually more rotten in

appearance, the skaters rapidly decreased in numbers.

"On the day of the accident Leroux went to the park alone after

lunch, and on his arrival at the ornamental water, found that

the ice had been broken all round the shore of the lake by the

men employed by the Royal Humane Society, with the object of

preventing people from getting on to the ice. At the same time

several servants of the Society were doing their best to

persuade the more adventurous spirits who had got on to the ice

by means of planks, to leave it. At that time there were

probably not more than three or four hundred people on the whole

expanse of the ornamental water. At least they appeared to be

very thinly scattered over it, compared with the crowds of a few

days before, when the ice was sound and strong, before the thaw

had set in.

"Having come to the park to skate, and being perhaps of a

somewhat self-willed and adventurous disposition, Leroux put on

his skates, and watching his opportunity, got on to the ice,

which though quite three inches in thickness, was seamed in

every direction with a multiplicity of cracks, through which the

water constantly welled up and ran over the surface. It was

indeed evident that the solid ice-slab with which the lake had

been originally covered was now formed of innumerable small

pieces, really independent one of another, but still fitting

closely together like the sections of a child's puzzle after

they have been put in their places. Leroux himself never doubted

that it was the breaking of the ice for the space of three or

four feet all round the shores of the lake, which allowed room

for the cracks in the unbroken ice gradually to widen until at

last the whole sheet broke into separate pieces. As the skaters

passed to and fro upon it, the whole surface of the ice-sheet

seemed to rise and sink in response to their passage, and every

moment the gaps gaped wider.

"It was getting on towards four o'clock in the afternoon, and

Leroux was just then right in the middle of the lake, midway

between the largest island and the bridge leading towards the

Park Road, when he heard a cry behind him, and looking round saw

that the ice was breaking in the direction of the bridge. It was

a sight which he never forgot. Right across the whole breadth of

the lake the sections into which the ice-sheet had been divided

by the cracks were disengaging themselves one from another. The

line of breaking advanced steadily towards where the boy was

standing, each separate section of ice as the pressure was

removed from behind, first breaking loose, and after being

tilted into the air, again falling flat into its place. As no

one fell into the water when the ice first broke up, the

pressure which was the immediate cause of the catastrophe must

have been exerted from a distance, and it was probably the

weight of the people on the ice some way off which caused it to

bulge where it first broke to such an extent as to detach some

of the smaller sections which were already really separated one

from another by the ever-widening cracks.

"There was a regular panic amongst the comparatively small

number of people between Leroux and the point near the bridge

where the ice first commenced to break up, and they all went

flying along as fast as their skates would carry them, straight

down the centre of the lake towards the narrow channel between

the two islands in front of them. At the same time there was a

stampede for the shore from every part of the lake, and as the

great bulk of the people then on the ice were near the edge when

it so suddenly commenced to break up, most of them either got to

land without assistance, or being caught in the breaking ice

when within a rope's throw of the shore, were subsequently

rescued; but every one who got into the water amongst the thick

heavy ice-slabs at any distance from the shore was drowned, and

most of these unfortunate people disappeared immediately beneath

the heavy slabs of ice, between which they fell into the water,

and which closed over them at once.

"When the ice first began to break up, Leroux could not help

standing still for a few moments, and watching the rapidly

advancing line of breakage, and then when he turned to run for

it or rather skate for it, he was quite alone, and at some

little distance behind the crowd of people who had first taken

the alarm. Suddenly there was a wild, despairing cry ahead, and

Leroux saw that the ice was breaking up in the narrow channel

between the two islands. At this juncture many people

undoubtedly lost their heads as they skated right into the

broken ice and almost all of them at once disappeared. It was

between the two islands that the greatest loss of life occurred,

as of the forty-nine bodies subsequently recovered in different

parts of the lake, twenty-four were found in close proximity to

one another at this spot, and yet there was scarcely a head to

be seen at the time of the accident above the broken ice, as the

weight of the heavy slabs forced those who fell in between them

under water almost immediately. Although he was only a boy of

fifteen at this time, he had never missed a chance of falling

through weak or rotten ice every winter since he first went to

school, and these various experiences had no doubt given him a

good deal of self-confidence. At any rate he felt neither

frightened nor flurried by the somewhat alarming circumstances

of the position in which he now found himself, but quickly made

up his mind as to the best course to adopt to save his life. As

the ice had already broken up both before and behind him, but

was still solid immediately behind him he stopped short where he

was, and lay down at full length on the longest piece of ice he

could see which was free from widely open cracks. He had

scarcely done so, when the wave of breakage which had commenced

near the bridge passed him, all the great cracks with which the

ice-sheet was seamed opening to such an extent that every

separate slab became detached. Many of these slabs were first

tilted a little into the air, as had happened when the ice first

broke up near the bridge, but they immediately fell flat again

into their places, so that the whole of the ice-sheet in the

central part of the ornamental water seemed to be in one piece,

though in reality the cracks which divided it into innumerable

small slabs were now so wide that each piece was independent the

one of the other, and most of them would not have been large

enough to support the weight of a man standing near their edge,

without heeling over and precipitating him into the water.

"Fortunately for Leroux the ice had not been broken round the

edge of the largest island in the lake to his left, and although

the cracks had opened all round where he lay, as the wave of

breakage passed, to such an extent as to have made it impossible

to have walked or skated across the disintegrated slabs, without

tilting one or other of them, and so falling into the water, yet

he was only a short distance from the unbroken ice-sheet which

rested on the island. The slab on which he was lying was quite

large enough to bear his weight easily, and as he was out of all

danger for the time being, he was able to look around and note

what was going on. Directly the ice broke up there was, of

course, tremendous excitement on the shore of the lake nearest

the Zoological Gardens, where great crowds of people had been

congregated the whole afternoon. Many gallant and successful

attempts were made to rescue those who were fighting for life

amongst the ice-slabs; but Leroux's impression was that no one

was saved who had got into the water at any considerable

distance from the shore. At the spot where the largest number of

people were drowned, almost everyone who fell into the water

disappeared immediately. Still here and there men kept their

heads above water for a long time, and all these poor fellows

might have been rescued, had it not been for the breaking of a

rope. It was soon realized that it would be quite impossible to

save the people who were so far out amongst the ice that a rope

could not be thrown to them from the shore except by some

special means, and someone hit upon the idea of dragging a boat

to them over the ice. Leroux saw the boat pulled up over the

still unbroken ice beyond the bridge, and long ropes were then

made fast to its bow and carried over the bridge to each side of

the lake, where willing hands enough were ready to work them.

Had the ropes only held, the boat might have been pulled from

one side or the other of the lake to all those who were in the

water amongst the ice-slabs at a distance from the shore; but

unfortunately before the boat had been pulled far beyond the

bridge one of the ropes broke, and as it was then apparently

recognized that they were not strong enough to stand the strain

required, the experiment was not tried again. There were only

two men in the water anywhere near Leroux, and they were about

half-way between where he lay and the shore of the lake. He had

seen them at first trying to force their way through the ice,

but the slabs were so thick and heavy that they threatened at

every moment to turn over on them, and they soon became

exhausted and remained quiet. At last one of them disappeared

and not long afterwards only a hat on the ice remained to mark

the spot where his companion in misfortune had also sunk. Leroux

soon realized that there was no hope of rescue from the shore,

and indeed amidst all the excitement of saving or attempting to

save the lives of those who had got into the water within reach

he had probably been overlooked or possibly his position had

been considered hopeless.

"At length when the light was commencing to fade Leroux made up

his mind to try and reach the island on his left by crawling

from one slab of ice to another. He fully realized that if he

once got into the water he would never get out, but not being

very heavy in those days, and by moving only very slowly and

cautiously, and carefully selecting his route he succeeded at

last in reaching the unbroken ice near the island. He had one

very narrow escape, as a table of ice very nearly turned over on

him before he had got sufficiently far on it to keep it flat.

Luckily there was a much larger slab just beyond it, on to which

he crawled without much difficulty. After crossing the island he

again got on to unbroken ice and skated across it, to the shore

near the lower bridge.

"By that time it was rapidly growing dusk, everybody whom it had

been possible to reach with a rope from the shore had been

rescued, and all the rest were still and cold beneath the ice.

But although Leroux knew that a considerable number of people

must have been drowned, until he saw the long list of those who

had lost their lives in the next morning's 'Times' he had no

idea that the disaster was so serious as it really was."

The following reminiscences of Selous as a schoolboy at Rugby were

contributed to the 'Meteor,' the Rugby school paper (February 7th,

1917), by Canon Wilson, D.D.:--

"I first heard of Selous some time in 1863, soon after I became

a house-master. The master of his preparatory school at

Tottenham told me that a Mr. Slous--for so the name was then

spelt--was going to enter his son at my house. 'Take my advice,'

was the gist of the letter, 'and say your house is full; the boy

will plague the life out of you.' I wrote to enquire the nature

of the plague. 'He breaks every rule; he lets himself down out

of a dormitory window to go birds'-nesting; he is constantly

complained of by neighbours for trespassing; he fastened up an

assistant master in a cowshed into which he had chased the young

villain early one summer morning; somehow the youngster

scrambled out, and fastened the door on the outside, so that the

master missed morning school.'

"Such were his crimes; so, of course, I wrote back and said that

he was the boy for me.

"His father brought him down from town, a bright-eyed,

fair-haired boy of twelve or thirteen, who had no suspicion that

I knew all about his iniquities. When his father departed, I had

a little of the usual talk with a new boy, about work and games

and so on; and then I asked him what he meant to be. 'I mean to

be like Livingstone,' he replied. I had seen Livingstone when he

came to Cambridge, in 1857, I think, and spoke in the Senate

House, appealing for a Universities Mission to Central Africa;

so we talked Livingstone and Africa, and Natural History. I soon

saw that he had the fire and the modesty of genius and was a

delightful creature.

"He was quite exemplary as a young member of the House and

School, so far as I knew. He was 'late' for chapel sometimes in

long summer afternoons; how much late I did not inquire. I

guessed what he was about and he did his lines like a man.

"He was extraordinarily acute in all his senses--sight, hearing,

smell, taste. He asked me, for example, one day to some brook a

few miles away to watch kingfishers. We crawled up warily when

we got near the spot. He could see exactly what they were

catching and carrying, from a distance at which I could only see

a bird flying. His power of hearing was also more than acute.

One day at our table in hall I told a lady who sat next me that

a nightingale had been heard singing in somebody's spinney. We

decided to drive down to it after dinner, and on reaching the

spot, we found Selous already there, roaming about in the

spinney. I called to him, and he came to the edge of the wood.

'What are you doing there?' 'Looking for a nightingale's nest,

sir.' 'But why here?' 'I heard you say at dinner that one was

singing here.' Now he was sixteen or eighteen feet away, at a

different table, and we were fifty in hall, talking and

clattering with knives and forks. And yet he heard me

distinctly. He could disentangle the voices, and listen to one,

as a dog can follow one scent among many. Then as to smell and

taste. He told me that when he shot a new bird with his

'tweaker'--you will learn presently what the 'tweaker' was in

his case--he always _tasted_ its flesh.

"He was extremely accurate in his observation, and in his

estimates of distance, size, number, etc.; in fact, he was the

most truthful observer I can imagine; free from all exaggeration

and egotism, and he retained this simplicity and accuracy and

modesty all his life. He was a beautiful runner, a

football-player with singular dash and a first-rate swimmer; but

he left Rugby at seventeen, I think, so that he did not win any

great athletic distinctions at school.

"But I must tell you some stories about him.

"On some great public occasion of rejoicing the streets of Rugby

were decorated with flags. When my man called me at 7.0 a.m., he

said, 'I think I ought to tell you, sir, that there is a

broomstick and duster showing in every chimney in the house.'

'Very well,' I replied, 'go and tell Mr. Selous that they must

be taken down by 12 o'clock.' He had let himself down at night

out of the dormitory window that looks into the study quadrangle

and had collected brooms and dusters from the studies. He had

somehow clambered up waterpipes and gutters and roofs,

broomsticks and all; and when I went out people in the road were

admiring our extemporized decorations--duster flags and

broom-handles sticking out of the chimney pots at all angles.

There was another flag, of the same nature, perilously near the

top of the taller of two poplars that stood close to the boys'

entrance. They were all taken down by dinner-time; I never

enquired how, or by whom.

"There used to be a vine, trained up the south face of the

house, and one year, I think in 1868, it bore an extraordinary

crop of grapes which ripened beautifully. One day at dinner I

told the head of the dormitory on the second floor, over the

drawing-room, that they might gather all that they could reach

from the window. _I forgot Selous_ as this was not his bedroom,

but the dormitory did not forget him. An aunt of mine was

sleeping in the bedroom below, and she remarked next morning at

breakfast that she heard, or thought she heard, voices at night

quite close to her windows. Had anything happened? I went out

into the garden to look, the vine was stripped more than

half-way down the windows of the first floor. It was Selous, of

course; they let him down somehow. I was told that he filled a

pillow-case with grape-bunches, and feasted the House. Mr. C. K.

Francis, the well-known Metropolitan Police Magistrate, his

contemporary in my house, has told this story of Selous to the

readers of the 'Daily Telegraph' (January 15th), and says that

they let Selous down in a blanket.

"Of course Selous was an active member of the School Natural

History Society. I must tell you about a meeting of that

Society. Dr. Walter Flight, who was in charge of the minerals of

the British Museum, was staying with me, and I asked him whether

he would like to come as a visitor to an ordinary meeting of our

Society. I knew it would be an interesting one. Selous had

shortly before raided the heronry on the island at Coombe Abbey.

He swam the pond from the end distant from the house, climbed

several trees, took one egg from each nest, swam back and was

chased, but escaped by sheer speed. Lord Craven complained to

the H.M. The H.M. warned our Society pretty plainly, and our

committee censured Selous. At the meeting we were going to

attend, Selous, as was widely known, was going to make his

defence. The room, the old Fifth Form Room, next to the School

House Dining Hall, was crowded. Flight and I squeezed in. 'Are

your meetings always like this?' he asked. 'You will see,' I

replied, 'that the school takes a great interest in natural

history.' 'I am very glad to see this,' he said.

"Exhibits were made, a paper read, and then began the real

business of the evening--the official condemnation by our

president, Mr. Kitchener, and Selous' spirited defence.

"Selous presented the eggs to the Natural History Society, and

they were safe in the collection twenty years ago, I am told. I

hope they are there still.

"He also climbed the great elm trees, which then stood in the

close, for rooks' eggs. This feat was also performed at night,

and the cawing of the rooks roused Dr. Temple, but Selous was

not detected in the darkness.

"Selous' special contribution to our Society was on birds. If I

remember right his first list of birds noted at Rugby exceeded

ninety. I will tell the story how one very rare bird was added

to our list. It was in the very hard winter of 1867; snow was

lying on the ground. In the evening, some hours after lock-up a

ring at the front door came at the moment I was going to my

study, the door of which is close to the front door. I opened

the front door and there stood Selous, with a bird dangling from

his hand. I don't know which of us was most surprised. 'Come in

to the study; what have you got there?' 'Oh, sir, it's

Williamson's duck; it's very rare.' (I invent the name

Williamson, I know it was somebody's duck.) 'Go and fetch the

bird-book from the House Library.' (I had put an excellent

bird-book in several volumes into the Library for his use.)

'Leave the bird.' I examined the bird, neatly shot through the

neck. He was quite right, a note in the book said that it had

been occasionally seen at certain places on the East coast; only

once, I think, inland as far as Northamptonshire. 'How did you

get it?' 'I saw it at Swift's and followed it to Lilbourne and

got it there.' 'How?' 'With my tweaker,' was the reply. 'It must

be a very powerful tweaker?' I said. 'Yes, sir, it's a very

strong one; I thought you would not mind my being late for once,

as it's very rare.'

"Some six years later, when he came back from a four years'

solitary travel and exploration in what is now called Rhodesia,

or even further inland, this incident of the tweaker turned up.

'I did wonder,' he said, 'whether you were such an innocent as

really to believe it was a tweaker.' 'My dear Selous,' I said,

'I knew the bird was shot, and I knew you had a gun, and the

farmhouse where you kept it, but you kept it so dark and made

such excellent use of it that I said nothing about it.'

"One of the most difficult problems presented to all who are in

authority is: how much ought I _not_ to know and see?"

"I think it was on this occasion that he came down to a

house-supper. He had told me lots of stories about his

adventures in Africa during those four years. They are told in

his books, every one of which is, I hope, in the School Library

and well read. I asked him to tell some of them to the house. No

he would not; so finally at the supper, I said that if he would

not, I would, and I began with the story of his going to ask

Lobengula, King of the Matabele, for leave to shoot elephants.

'You are only a boy,' the King said. 'You must shoot birds. The

first elephant you hunt will kill you.' Selous jumped up. 'Oh,

sir, let me tell it,' and we had a never-to-be-forgotten

evening.

"But it is time to stop. One of his friends, Sir Ralph Williams,

well said of him in a letter in 'The Times,' of January 10th,

'The name of Fred Selous stands for all that is straightest and

best in South African story,' and I will venture to say that it

stands for the same in Rugby annals.

"J. M. WILSON.

"Worcester, 22 _January_, 1917."

In August, 1868, at the age of seventeen, Selous left Rugby and went to

Neuchatel, in Switzerland, where he lived at the "Institution Roulet."

He spent his time learning French and the violin and commenced his

studies to be a doctor, for which profession he evinced no enthusiasm.

Writing to his mother in November, he says:--

"As for my future medical examinations I don't know how I shall

come off; I do not want particularly to be a doctor, but I shall

go in for that as I can't see anything else that I should like

better, except sheep-farming or something of that sort in one of

the colonies, but I suppose I must give up that idea; however,

if I become a surgeon I do not intend to try and get a practice

in England, but I should try and get a post as ship's surgeon,

or army surgeon in India, if I could get any leave of absence

which would give me a little time to myself, but anyhow I am

certain I shall never be able to settle down quietly in England.

You talked about me being at an age of irresponsibility, but I

don't see that I am, as supposing I don't manage to learn these

infernal languages (why was anyone fool enough to build the

tower of Babel?) everyone will be disgusted with me."

In December there was more talk of his going to Dresden to learn German,

but he himself voted for Wiesbaden as being more of a country district

where he would have more opportunities for shooting and fishing. After a

short visit home his father took him to Wiesbaden in the spring of 1869,

when he wrote to his sister "Locky":--

"Many thanks for your spiritual letter which almost tempts me to

commit suicide; if I can't get good shooting and fishing in this

world I'll have it in the next, if what the Chinaman says is

true; but by hook or by crook I will have some in this world

too, and make some rare natural history collections into the

bargain. But first I must make a little money, but how? not by

scribbling away on a three-legged stool in a dingy office in

London. I am becoming more and more convinced every day that I

should never be able to stand that and everybody I know or have

ever had anything to do with says the same thing. I have a great

many qualifications for getting on in one of our colonies, viz.

perseverance, energy, and a wonderfully good constitution. What

makes me recur to the old subject is this: I have made the

acquaintance of a family here of the name of K----. I always

forget their name although I know them intimately. This

gentleman, a German from Brunswick, has been twenty years in

Natal (where he made his fortune) and since then eight years in

England, and now has become regularly English (speaking English,

indeed, without the slightest accent). His wife is an

Englishwoman who was born in the Cape Colony, but has always

lived with him in Natal; and then he has a very large family.

These people give the most splendid accounts of Natal. Firstly,

they say that the climate is superb, there being no winter and

it not being so hot in summer as in Germany. Then they say that

the country is lovely beyond description. They do not praise

Cape Colony, only Natal, which they describe as a perfect

paradise. They say, too, that Natal itself is a wonderfully gay

place and that the society there is very good. The wife says she

can't stand Europe at all, the climate is so detestable

compared with that of Natal. She says that she often used to go

for weeks and weeks up country with her husband and children on

shooting excursions, sleeping out in tents all the time, and

that taking into consideration the beautiful climate and country

there is no enjoyment equal to it, and I am fully of her

opinion. They travelled once three days with Dr. Livingstone,

but you will hear all about it from them when you come over

here."

He arrived at Wiesbaden in September and took up his residence with Herr

Knoch, who lived in the Roderallee. In December he met the Colchester

family, with whom he became great friends.

At this time he enjoyed the music every afternoon at the Kursaal, and

was amused in the evening to see the gambling that went on. One night a

Russian lost 100,000 francs. "What an April fool!" is Selous' only

comment. He had at this time a nice dog named Bell, to whom he was much

attached. He is always writing for trout-flies, or books on sport or

natural history. "I wouldn't care to go to Rome and see the Holy Week,

but I should like to go to Russia, Sweden, or some other country where

some shooting or fishing is to be had, but I must be patient and make

some money, though I don't know how. Yesterday I went down to the Rhine,

after my German and music lessons, but only brought back three small

fish. A few days ago an officer was shot dead in a duel at Mayence.

Verdict, 'Serve him right.'"

Miss Colchester thus recalls certain incidents of Selous' life at

Wiesbaden. "As showing his sporting nature, I may mention that he swam

the Rhine near Biebrich to retrieve a wild duck he had shot for us. It

was blocked with ice at the time, but that did not daunt him. One day we

were all skating on the frozen waters of the Kursaal Gardens when the

ice suddenly broke up and I was thrown into the deep water. Without a

moment's hesitation Fred jumped in and supported me under the arms until

help came. He was a dear boy and we all loved him."

Selous set himself to learn the language as thoroughly as he could in

the time at his disposal, but the cold study of German verbs was hard

for a boy of seventeen with the spring in his bones and the sun glinting

on the forest oaks.

When summer came young Selous spent all his spare time chiefly with his

friend Colchester, roving the woods and opens in search of birds'-nests

and butterflies. The woods in the neighbourhood of Wiesbaden were, as is

usual in Germany, strictly preserved and, therefore, being forbidden

ground, offered an especial attraction to the young naturalist. On two

of these forays he had been stopped and warned by a forester named

Keppel, who though an oldish man was immensely active and powerful. From

him Selous had several narrow escapes, but the day of reckoning was at

hand. In the heart of the forest Selous had one day observed a pair of

honey-buzzards, which being frequently seen afterwards about the same

spot, he concluded must have a nest somewhere. These birds are somewhat

uncommon even in Germany, and Selous naturally longed to find the nest

and take the eggs. At last one day he and Colchester found the nest on

the top of a high fir tree, but on climbing up to it Selous observed

that there were no eggs. A few days later the two marauders set off at

dawn and again approached the nest, Colchester being left at the foot of

the tree to keep watch. Selous was in the act of descending the tree

when Keppel suddenly appeared and by his words and actions showed that

he was in a furious rage.

"Now I shall take you to prison," he roared, as he seized hold of the

coat in which Selous had hidden the two eggs he had taken.

By this time, however, the fighting spirit was aroused on both sides,

for Selous had no intention either of being captured or resigning his

treasures quietly. A fierce struggle ensued in which the coat was torn

in half, when at last Selous, losing his temper, gave the old forester a

right-hander on the jaw which dropped him like a felled ox.

The boys were now alarmed and for a moment Selous thought he must have

killed the man, but as he showed signs of recovering they took to their

heels and ran home with all possible speed. Since complications were

bound to follow Selous at once consulted a lawyer, who advised him to

pack up his traps and leave Prussia. Accordingly he took the train and

went to Salzburg in Austria, where he knew he would be beyond the power

of German courts. Selous' chief sorrow over the unfortunate affair seems

to be that he lost his rare eggs.

Soon after he arrived at Salzburg Selous heard that his friend, Charley

Colchester, who had escaped to Kronberg, but was followed and arrested,

had been condemned to a week's imprisonment (without the option of a

fine) for taking eggs on two occasions.

"If I had been caught," writes Selous, "I should have got two or

three months instead of a week's imprisonment, for both the

lawyer and the Burgomaster to whom I spoke, said that the taking

of eggs was but a small matter in the eyes of Prussian law

compared with resisting an official."

The Austrian with whom he lived at Salzburg seems to have been a

pleasant fellow named Rochhart, who had travelled much in Greece and

America. Selous seems to have liked the genial Austrians far better than

the Prussians and especially enjoyed the Tyrolese music and the

butterfly hunting in the woods when the weather was fine. Writing to his

mother (July 5th, 1870), he speaks of his enthusiasm as a collector:--

"Why I feel the absence of the sun so very acutely is because,

when the sun is not shining no butterflies, or none worth

having, are to be got. Now this is just the time for the Purple

Emperors, some specimens of which I want very much to get, and

so I have been exceedingly provoked. I found out the place where

the P.E.'s were to be found and for the last seven days I have

been every day to that place (which is from five to six miles

from Salzburg) and there I have waited from twelve to three,

through rain and everything else, hoping and hoping for a

passing sunbeam, as I could see them every now and then at the

tops of the trees, and if the sun had but come out for a few

minutes some of them would have been sure to have come down and

settled in the road. Well, during all the hours of watching in

those seven days the sun never, never, never broke through the

clouds for one instant, and each day I returned home more

disappointed and more indignant against providence than the day

before. I think that if this sort of thing had continued for

another week I should have gone into a chronic state of

melancholy and moroseness for the rest of my life, and people

would have said, 'Ah, he must have had some great disappointment

in early life.' These are the sort of things that rile me more

than anything else, for you can't think how I put my whole soul

into egg and butterfly collecting when I'm at it, and how I boil

up and over with impotent rage at not being able to attain the

object of my desires on account of the weather over which I have

no control. However, perseverance can struggle against anything.

This afternoon the sun shone out and I immediately caught two

Purple Emperors (_Apatura Iris_), and two very similar

butterflies unknown in England (_Apatura Ilia_), also a great

many White Admirals (_Limenitis Camilla_), not quite the same as

the English White Admiral (_Limenitis Sybilla_), but very like;

all butterflies well worth having. If the weather will but

continue fine for a few days I will soon make some good

additions to my collection, but it is hopeless work collecting

butterflies in bad weather. I think I must be set down as a

harmless lunatic by the peasants in the neighbourhood already."

Selous was not long at Salzburg before he found an old chamois hunter

and poacher, with whom he made frequent excursions into the neighbouring

mountains. On one of these trips he killed two chamois, and the head of

one of these is still in the museum at Worplesdon.

The Franco-German war now began and Selous was greatly incensed that the

general feeling in England was in favour of Prussia.

"Vive la France, a bas la Prusse," he writes to his mother (July

22nd, 1870), "your saying the war is 'likely to become a bloody

butchery through all the Christian nations of civilized Europe,'

is rather a startler. Since this morning I have read all the

Cologne and Vienna papers for the last week and you are most

certainly several miles ahead of the most far-seeing and

sanguinary politician, in either Austria or Prussia. You say that

Bavaria has joined Prussia and Austria is likely to do so too.

Bavaria cannot help itself or would not have joined Prussia. The

Crown Prince of Prussia is in Munich with 15,000 Prussian troops,

and the Bavarians are forced by treaty to aid Prussia or they

would not do so. Prussia is the only power that is likely to take

any part in the war at present. Austria most certainly will not

interfere unless she is forced into it. And England and America

are less likely still to do so. The post now goes to England by

Trieste, by sea, of course, and supposing the war does become a

bloody butchery through all the Christian nations of civilized

Europe, an Italian passenger steamer would surely not be meddled

with. Whatever happens, the war cannot come here, for there is

nothing to be fought for in the Tyrol and no room to fight for it

in the mountain valleys if there was. So that the route to

Trieste and from thence to England will always be open. The

people say that in 1866, when the war between Austria and Prussia

was going on, they never knew anything about it here. As for the

money, you can easily send a letter of credit to a bank in

Salzburg or Munich and that difficulty would be got over. For

several months at least it is not at all likely that any other

nation will join either party, England least of all; and

supposing that England were drawn into it eventually, you would

surely be able to tell long before war was declared if such was

likely to be the case, and send me word, for the postal

communications will not be stopped until then via Trieste. It

seems to me most ridiculous to predict so much when so little is

known. Unless you really think in your heart of hearts that it is

necessary for me to come, please let me remain here a few months

longer; England taking part in the war is the only thing that can

stop either letters or myself from reaching you, and surely you

cannot tell me in cold blood that England is likely to be drawn

into the war for months and months to come, at least all the

Prussian papers declare most positively that it is not likely

that either America or England will take any part in the war,

and surely they as a party most intensely interested would say

something about it if they thought that there was the slightest

chance of England assisting. Gladstone, you know, will do his

utmost to keep England neutral. Austria was almost ruined by the

last war, but is now rapidly increasing in wealth and if drawn

into the war would be utterly ruined, so that she will do her

utmost to keep out of it. Why I so particularly wish to remain

here a few months longer is because if I return to England all

the money and time that has been wasted in zither at any rate, if

not violin lessons, will have been utterly thrown away and I

shall lose a pleasure and a pastime that would have lasted me my

whole life. In three or four months more, as I am working very

hard at it, I shall know enough of the zither to do without a

master. The violin is all very well, but it is not an instrument

that one derives much pleasure from playing unaccompanied, unless

one plays extremely well, whereas the zither, like the piano,

needs no accompaniment. The zither I have now is not the little

one you saw at Wiesbaden, but an Austrian zither which is much

larger and tuned lower, and altogether a finer instrument."

He seems to have formed a very accurate estimate of the German character

in war. Writing to his mother, October 20th, 1870, he says:--

"I have seen and spoken to several Bavarian soldiers in a

village just beyond the Bavarian frontier, who were at Woerth and

Sedan, and who have been sent back on the sick list; they say

there is a great deal of sickness among the German troops, out

of the 1000 men from the two villages of Schellenberg and

Berchtesgaden who were all in the actions at Woerth and Sedan,

not a single one has as yet been killed, so I was told, though a

great many have been wounded. I see a great deal said in the

English papers about the 'Francs tireurs' being little better

than murderers. I think that the French ought to consider all

the soldiers composing the German armies as so many burglars,

and shoot them down like rabbits in every possible manner; and,

moreover, as the Germans are murdering the peasants, men,

women, and children, for such offences as being in possession

of an old sword, in every direction, I think the French would be

perfectly justified in shooting every German soldier they take

prisoner. After the affair at Bazeilles, I don't believe any