AN ENGLISH NIMROD.
If Oscar had been his own master he could have spent a few days very
agreeably in looking about the city of Liverpool.
Among other things he wanted to see were the famous docks, of which he
had heard and read so much; but his time belonged to the committee, who
paid him liberally for it, and he did not consider that he had a right
to use any portion of it for his own pleasure.
His first duty was to visit Somerset, a little town about a hundred
miles distant, and present some of his letters of introduction to a
celebrated hunter and traveller who lived there.
He knew where the town was and how to reach it, for his written
instructions and guide-book told him all about it.
Oscar lost no time in securing his ticket, and the first train that left
Liverpool for the North whirled him away toward his destination, which
he reached about midnight.
Everything he saw on the way was new and strange. He did not at all like
the idea of being locked in a "carriage"--for that is what a passenger
car is called in England.
What if there should be a smash-up? or what if that quiet, dignified
gentleman who sat opposite him and who was the only other passenger in
that compartment should prove to be an escaped lunatic, who might at any
moment become violent?
But the train, although it moved at a high rate of speed, carried him
through in safety, and the dignified gentleman on the other seat snored
lustily during the entire journey.
Oscar slept soundly at the Hare and Hounds, and awoke the next morning
to find it raining in torrents.
He ate an excellent breakfast in a cosey little parlor, and when he had
finished he sent for the landlord, who quickly made his appearance.
"Do you know Captain Horatio Sterling?" asked Oscar.
That was not the name of the gentleman to whom the young traveller's
letters of introduction were addressed; but we must call him by some
name, you know.
"Do I know the greatest hunter in all England?" exclaimed the landlord.
"Why, bless you, sir, everybody knows him. He has been all over the
world, and killed more tigers, lions, and elephants than any other
living man. He lives in that big house on the hill about a mile from
here."
"Very well," said Oscar, drawing an official envelope from his pocket.
"I would thank you to send this to him at once. There is something for
the messenger," he added, placing a shilling in the landlord's hand.
The envelope contained three letters of introduction, Oscar's card,
which also bore the name of his hotel, and a note he had written before
going to bed, containing the statement that he would be glad to wait
upon the captain at any hour of the day or evening when it might be most
convenient for the captain to grant him an interview.
Oscar saw the messenger depart on his errand, and having the parlor to
himself and not knowing what else to do, he began pacing the floor with
his hands in his pockets.
About two hours later, while he stood at the window looking out at the
lowering sky and the falling rain, he saw a gig, drawn by a
high-stepping horse and driven by a hearty old gentleman in greatcoat
and muffler, dash into the stable-yard.
A man came up to take the horse, and the driver, alighting from his gig,
bounded up the steps with all the agility of a boy and burst into the
hall.
Oscar heard the landlord greet him in an undertone, and he also heard
the visitor say in a stentorian voice:
"You have a gentleman of the name of Preston stopping with you, I
believe?"
"Yes, sir; you'll find him in that parlor, sir," answered the obsequious
landlord.
"Why, that must be the captain," thought Oscar. "I did not expect him to
come out in all this rain."
The next moment the visitor's form filled the doorway.
He was a man of herculean proportions, and although his hair and
mutton-chop whiskers were as white as snow, his face was the picture of
robust health, and it was evident from the way he brought his feet down
when he walked that he had lost little, if any, of his youthful strength
and vigor.
He was a very pleasant-looking man, and Oscar was certain that when he
came to know him he should like him.
The visitor looked all about the parlor, giving its solitary occupant
merely a casual glance, and said as he turned to go back into the hall:
"I beg your pardon, my lad. I was looking for Mr. Preston, but he
doesn't seem to be here."
"My name is Preston, sir," said Oscar. "Have I the honor to address
Captain Sterling, the African hunter and explorer, and formerly of the
East Indian army?"
The captain started as if Oscar had aimed a blow at him.
He looked hard at the boy for a moment or two, and said in a tone
indicative of the greatest amazement and incredulity:
"Are you _Oscar_ Preston, from America?"
"I am, sir," replied our hero.
"Did _you_ send me some letters a little while ago?"
"I did, sir," answered the boy.
"And you have been ordered to go to---- Am I awake or dreaming?"
exclaimed the captain, hastily undoing the heavy muffler that was
wrapped about his face.
"I assure you that there is no mistake about it," said Oscar, who rather
enjoyed the worthy captain's surprise. "I am sent here by the Yarmouth
University, and have been ordered to go to Africa to procure specimens
of natural history for its museum. I was instructed by some gentlemen in
America, who are proud to call themselves your friends, to visit you,
and I have done so in the hope that you would give me some assistance in
the way of advice and information."
This little speech seemed to banish all the captain's doubts. He came
into the parlor and shook Oscar's hand most cordially.
"I always knew that you Americans had more assurance than any other
people in the world," said he; "but this beats me completely. Why, boy,
you're crazy; and so are Mr. Adrian and all the rest of them. Help you?
Of course I will! I spent some very pleasant months in America. The
gentlemen it was my good fortune to meet there couldn't do too much for
me, and I am glad to have the opportunity to show them that I appreciate
their kindness. It has nearly ceased raining. Put on your greatcoat and
go up to the lodge with me. You will be my guest while you remain in
England."
"Thank you, sir," replied Oscar heartily. "What shall I do with my
trunk?"
"Let it alone. I will send a cart after it as soon as we reach the
lodge."
Oscar was only too glad to accept this kind invitation. The captain
would certainly be very good-natured and talkative after dinner, if at
no other hour of the day, and our hero told himself that that would be
just the time for him to gain more light upon certain points concerning
which he was now comparatively in the dark.
He hurried on his overcoat, and, after paying his bill at the hotel,
took his seat in the gig, and was driven rapidly toward the lodge.
Very frequently during the ride he found the captain looking at him with
an expression in which both surprise and amusement were blended, and
once or twice he broke out with:
"Well, well! this _does_ amaze me, sure! I expected to see a _man_."
"I hope you are not very badly disappointed," said Oscar.
"Yes, I am," replied the captain, who never hesitated to speak the
thoughts that were in his mind. "You will be beset by difficulties the
like of which you never dreamed of, and I don't know whether or not you
have judgment enough to carry you through. But I admire your pluck. The
letters you sent me say that you are a great hunter, as well as an
expert taxidermist, and that you have spent some months in the hills. I,
too, have hunted in that country, and I am very glad to meet one who can
talk to me about the sport to be found there."
The welcome Oscar received from the captain's wife put him at his ease
directly. She expressed the greatest surprise when he was introduced to
her as the "American hunter," and made Oscar smile when she said, as she
took both his hands in her own:
"My poor boy! Whatever could your dear mother have been thinking of when
she gave her consent to this thing? Those fierce wild beasts out there
in that dreadful country will eat you up at one mouthful."
Oscar found "the lodge" to be an elegant mansion, filled with costly
furniture and pictures, and kept in order by a large number of servants,
one of whom was directed to keep an eye on the guest and see that he did
not want for anything. Every object in and about the building bore
evidence of the wealth and taste of its owner.
The kennels were filled with hunting-dogs (the captain, who was an
enthusiastic fox-hunter, was master of the Somerset hounds), and the
stables contained more thoroughbred horses than any ordinary man could
possibly have found use for.
The library was a perfect curiosity shop. The old soldier had
industriously collected souvenirs of every country he had visited, and
Oscar found there assegais, war clubs, skin cloaks, and elephants' tusks
from Africa; buffalo and antelope heads and Indian bows and arrows from
America; and the floor was covered with rugs made from the skins of the
man-eating tigers that had fallen to the captain's rifle in the jungles
of Hindustan.
Many of these articles were great curiosities, of course, but it was the
captain's "battery" that occupied the most of Oscar's attention.
It was supported by deer's antlers that were fastened against the wall,
and consisted of six double-barrelled rifles and one single rifle,
carrying four bullets to the pound.
This was the captain's "elephant gun," the one with which he had secured
the tusks that now adorned one of his cabinets and the rugs that covered
the floor.
Besides these, there were three heavy double-barrelled shot-guns, making
ten guns in all. The stocks of all of them were badly battered and
scratched; some of the "grips" had been broken and mended with tin, and
altogether the weapons looked as though they had received the hardest
usage, as indeed they had.
As Oscar looked at them, he thought of his own modest "battery," and
wondered what the old campaigner would say when he saw it.