HOME LIFE AND HOLIDAYS
Baden-Powell is now called either "B.-P." or "Bathing Towel." To his
family he has always been Ste. This name, a contraction of Stephenson,
was found for him by his big brothers in the days when home-made
soldiers and birds'-nesting were life's main business.
Ste, who we must record was born at 6 Stanhope Street, London, on the
22nd February 1857, and had the engineer Robert Stephenson for one of
his godfathers, was educated at home until he was eleven years of age.
His parents had a great dread of overtaxing young brains, and lessons
were never made irksome to any of their children. Ste learned to
straddle a pony very soon after he had mastered the difficult business
of walking, and with long hours spent in the open in the lively
companionship of his brothers he grew up in vigorous and healthy
boyhood. He had an enquiring mind, and never seemed to look upon
lessons as a "fag." He was always "wanting to know," and there was
almost as much eagerness on the little chap's part to be able to
decline _mensa_ and conjugate _amo_ as he evinced in competing with
his brothers in their sports and games. Such was his gentle, placid
nature that the tutor who looked after his work loved to talk with
people about his charge, never tiring in reciting little instances of
the boy's delicacy of feeling and his intense eagerness to learn. Mark
well, Smith minor, that this is no little Paul Dombey of whom you are
reading. B.-P., so far as I can discover, never heard in the tumbling
of foam-crested waves on the level sands of the sea-shore any
mysterious message to his individual soul from the spirit world. He
was full of fun, full of the joy of life, and as "keen as mustard" on
adventures of any kind. His fun, however, was of the innocent order.
He was not like Cruel Frederick in _Struwwelpeter_, who (the little
beast!) delighted in tearing the wings from flies and hurling
brickbats at starving cats. Baden-Powell would have kicked Master
Frederick rather severely if he had caught him at any such mean
business. No, his fun took quite another form. He was fond of what you
call "playing the fool," singing comic songs, learning to play tunes
on every odd musical instrument he could find, and delighting his
brothers by "taking off" people of their acquaintance. B.-P., you must
know, is a first-rate actor, and in his boyhood it was one of his
chief delights to write plays for himself and his brothers to act.
Some of these plays were moderately clever, but all of them contained
a screamingly funny part for the low comedian of the company--our
friend Ste himself.
Another of his amusements at this time was sketching. He got into the
habit of holding his pencil or paint-brush in the left hand, and his
watchful mother was troubled in her mind as to the wisdom of allowing
a possible Botticelli to play pranks with his art. One day Ruskin
called when this doubt was in her mind, and to him the question was
propounded. Without a moment's reflection he counselled the mother to
let the boy draw in whatsoever manner he listed, and together they
went to find the young artist at his work. In the play-room they
discovered one brother reading hard at astronomy, and Ste with a
penny box of water-colours painting for dear life--with his left hand.
"Now I'll show you how to paint a picture," said Ruskin, and with a
piece of paper on the top of his hat and B.-P.'s penny box of paints
at his side he set to work, taking a little china vase for a model.
Both the vase and the picture are now in the drawing-room of Mrs.
Baden-Powell's London house. The result of Ruskin's advice was that
B.-P. continued to draw with his left hand, and now in making sketches
he finds no difficulty in drawing with his left hand and shading in at
the same time with his right.
There is an incident of his childhood which I must not forget to
record. At a dinner-party at the Baden-Powells', when Ste was not yet
three years old, the guests being all learned and distinguished men,
such as Buckle and Whewell, Thackeray was handing Mrs. Baden-Powell
into dinner when he noticed that one of the little children was
following behind. This was the future scout of the British Army, and
the young gentleman, according to his wont, was just scrambling into a
chair when Thackeray, fumbling in his pocket, produced a new
shilling, and said in his caressing voice, "There, little one, you
shall have this shilling if you are good and run away." Ste quietly
looked up at his mother, and not until she told him that he might go
up to the nursery did he shift his ground. But he carried that
shilling with him, and now it is one of his most treasured
possessions.
While he was doing lessons at home Baden-Powell gave evidence of his
bent. He was fond of geography, and few things pleased him more than
the order to draw a map. His maps, by the way, were always drawn with
his left hand, and were astonishingly neat and accurate. Then in his
spare hours, with scissors and paper, he would cut out striking
resemblances of the most noted animals in the Zoo, and
these--elephants and tigers, monkeys and bears--were "hung" by his
admiring brothers with due honour on a large looking-glass in the
schoolroom, there to amuse the juvenile friends of the family. He had
the knack, too, of closely imitating the various sounds made by
animals and birds, and one of his infant jokes was to steal behind a
person's chair and suddenly break forth "with conspuent doodle-doo."
And, again, when he was a little older, living at Rosenheim, I.W.,
there was surely the future defender of Mafeking in the little chap in
brown Holland on the sands of Bonchurch digging scientific trenches
with wooden spade, and demonstrating to his governess the
impregnability of his sand fortress. With his sister and brother,
little Ste was once out with this governess on a country ramble near
Tunbridge Wells, when the governess discovered that she had walked
farther than she intended and was in strange country. Ste was elated.
But enquiry elicited the information that the party was not lost, and
that they could return home by a shorter route; then was Baden-Powell
miserable and cast down. He protested that he wanted the party to get
lost so that he could find the way home for them.
[Illustration: B.-P. reflecting on the After-deck of the _Pearl_]
A favourite holiday haunt was Tunbridge Wells, where Ste's grandfather
owned a spacious and a fair demesne. Here, with miles of wood for
exploration, brothers and sister were in their element. They would
climb into the highest chestnut trees in the woods, taking up hampers
and hay for the construction of nests, and at that exalted altitude
play all manner of wild and romantic games. And yet they would also
take up books into those cool branches and do lessons! Of Ste at this
period his governess remarks, "It gave him great pleasure to enter a
new rule in arithmetic"--an illuminative sentence, in which one sees
the governess as well as the child.
It was here in Tunbridge Wells that Ste, with little Baden, now
Guardsman and inventor of war-kites, spent laborious days in
constructing a really serviceable dam in the river, digging there a
deep hole in order to make themselves a luxurious bathing-place. From
early infancy they had been taught to do for themselves. Master B.-P.
could dress and undress himself before he was three years old, and at
three he could speak tolerably well in German as well as English. The
children were encouraged to get knowledge as some other children are
encouraged to get bumptiousness; their parents delighted, and showed
the children their delight, whenever a child did something sensible
and clever; there was no unintelligent admiration of precocity.
The boys dug their own gardens, and from five years of age each child
kept a most careful book of his expenditure by double entry. Their
pennies went chiefly in books and presents, and omnibuses for long
excursions out of London. There was no prohibition as to sweets, but
never a penny of these earnest young double-entry bookkeepers found
its way to the tuck-shop. However, a joke among the brothers was the
following constant entry in the book of one of them: "Orange, £0:0:1."
But no chaff was strong enough to correct that healthy appetite, and
"Orange, £0:0:1" went on through the happy years.
At eleven years of age, Ste was packed off to a small private school,
and here he distinguished himself in the same manner, though of course
on a smaller scale, as Mr. Gladstone did at Eton. His moral courage,
coupled with his athletic prowess, made him the darling of the little
school, and the headmaster sorrowfully told his mother when the boy's
two years' schooling were over that he would thankfully keep him there
without fee of any kind, because by force of character the plucky
little fellow had raised the entire moral tone of the school.
And now we come to what I regard as the most important part of our
hero's life. In the last chapter I said we should have to say
something about B.-P.'s big brother, the sailor, Warington, named
after his grandmother, who was a Warington of Waddon Park. The very
name Warington, even though it be spelled with a single 'r,' has an
inspiring sound, and while Thackeray lives will ever be linked with
all that is true and straightforward in the human heart. Imagine the
reverence felt for Warington by the young brothers when he came home
from a sea voyage! Not only were there the broad square shoulders, the
deep chest, and the bronzed face to compel admiration; but a masterful
and commanding manner withal, a stern eye and a rousing voice--and the
overwhelming and crushing fact that he was a British Naval officer!
Warington had been born ten years before Ste, and it is a mighty good
thing for B.-P. (and he would be the first to admit it) that this was
the case. For I believe that the resourcefulness of Baden-Powell is
the result of the early training which he received at the hands of
Warington; without that training he would have grown up a delightful
and an amusing fellow, but, I suspect, as so many delightful and
amusing people are, ineffective. And that is just what B.-P. is not.
You must know that in the spring holidays the boys spent their days in
ranging field and copse "collecting," riding ponies, often with their
faces towards the tail-end, attending to their innumerable pets, and
doing a certain amount of reading of their own free will. Ste's study
was mainly history and geology, and it was his custom to embellish the
pages of the books he was reading with suitable illustrations as he
went along. With these amusements, and always a good many productions
of Ste's original comedies, the spring holidays slipped away
pleasantly enough. But in the summer holidays came Warington fresh
from the sea, with abounding energy and indomitable will, and
recreation then was of a sterner kind.
Warington had designed a yacht, a smart 5-tonner, and in supreme
command of this little craft, with his brothers for the crew, and only
one hired hand for the dirty work, he took the schoolboys away from
the ease and comforts of home life to rough it at sea. They shipped as
seamen, and as seamen they lived. It was a case of "lights out" soon
after dusk, and then up again with the sun. This rule, however, was
not followed with comfortable regularity, for sometimes stress of
weather would find the little chaps tumbling out of their hammocks in
the dead of night, and clambering upon deck with knuckles rubbing the
sleep out of their eyes. All the work usually performed by seamen,
with the sole exception of cooking, was done by these little chaps,
and under the eagle eye of Warington it was well and truly done. Not
that they showed any disposition to shirk. On the contrary, a keener
crew was never shipped, but there was something in their knowledge
that the skipper's word was law, that there was no arguing about
orders, which must have given a certain polish to their work.
Warington, of course, was no petty tyrant, lording it over young
brothers, and swaggering in the undisputed character of his sway. Like
the rest he is a humourist, and when a gale was not blowing or the
yacht was not contesting a race, he was as full of merriment and good
spirits as the rest. His opinion of Ste at this time was a high one.
He was always, says he, "most dependable." Receiving his orders, the
future defender of Mafeking would stand as stiff and silent as a
rock, showing scarce a sign that he understood them, but the orders
were always carried out to the letter, and in a thoroughly finished
and seamanlike manner. Ste was always the tallest of his brothers, and
at this time he was singularly lithe and wiry. A tall slight boy with
quite fair hair, a brown skin, and sharp brown eyes, he possessed
extraordinary powers of endurance, and could always outlast the rest
of the brothers. He was quick to perceive the reason of an order, and
always quick to carry it out; he was just as brisk in organising
cruises on his own account, when, with the leave of Skipper Warington,
he would take command of the yacht's dinghy and go off on fishing
expeditions with Baden and Frank. It was a dinghy that moved quickly
with a sail, but in all their cruises up creeks and round about the
hulks of Portsmouth Harbour they never came to grief, and always
returned with a good catch of bass and mullet.
Danger did come to the yacht itself, however, on more than one
occasion, and but for the courage and skill of Warington, the world
might never have heard of B.-P. and the other brothers. Once, in the
_Koh-i-noor_ (a 10-tonner with about eighteen tons displacement),
which was the second yacht designed by Warington, the boys were
cruising about the south coast, when, towards evening, just off
Torquay, a gale got up, and the sea began to get uncommon rough. As
the gale increased almost to a hurricane and the waves dashed a larger
amount of spray over the gunwale of the gallant little yacht,
Warington decided to change his course and run back to Weymouth. The
night was getting dark, and the storm increased. To add to the
anxieties of the skipper his crew of boys, though showing no funk,
began to grow green about the gills, and presently Warington found
himself in command of an entirely sea-sick crew. He was unable to
leave the helm, and for over thirty-one hours he stood there, giving
his orders in a cheerful voice to the groaning youngsters who were
more than once driven to the ship's drenched and dripping side.
Fortunately Warington knew the coast well, for it was much too dark to
see a chart, and so, despite the raging tempest, the 10-tonner fought
her way through the waves while the sea broke continually over her
side, drenching the shivering boys, who stuck to their posts, and
every now and then shouted to each other with chattering teeth that it
was "awful fun."
As showing the resourcefulness of the crew, I may narrate another
yachting story. One Saturday, off Yarmouth, when the Baden-Powells
were thinking of a race for which they were entered on the following
Monday, a storm suddenly came on, which played such havoc with the
rigging that the mast was snapped in two, and the whole racing kit
went overboard. With clenched teeth the youngsters set to work and,
with many a long pull and a strong pull, got all the wreck on board.
Then with axes they slashed away at the wire-rigging, and set to work
to rig up a jury-mast. All Sunday they toiled--the spars on an
18-tonner are no child's play--and at last they were able to rig up a
jury-mast which would carry the mainsail with four reefs, while the
foresail was able to catch the wind of heaven with only two. On Monday
morning the yacht sailed out of Yarmouth fully rigged, and made off to
the regatta with as cheerful a crew as ever braved the elements. The
result of this labour was that the Baden-Powells, with a jury rig, won
a second prize, and came in for the warm commendation of wondering
and admiring sailors.
As I have said, in these expeditions the boys did seamen's work. They
learned how to set sails, how to splice, how to reeve gear, how to
moor a ship, and make all ready for scrubbing the bottom. It was a
fine sight to see the healthy younkers, with trousers rolled over the
knee, ankles well under slate-coloured oozing mud, scrubbing away at
the bottom of the ship, and laughing and singing among themselves,
while the reflective Warington, pipe in mouth, looked on and
encouraged the toilers.
All round the English coast sailed the Baden-Powells, fighting their
way to glory in regattas, and enjoying themselves from sunrise to
sunset. On racing days it was a case of "strictly to business," and
each boy had his proper station and knew well how to pull or slack out
ropes. On other days it was a case of fun and frolic, and here, of
course, B.-P. was the life and soul of the party. There were no
squabbles, no petty jealousies; never did the brothers throughout
their boyhood come to fisticuffs. But while there was perfect equality
among them and no favouritism was ever shown, Ste was regarded as the
prime comedian, and there was never any question that when theatricals
were the order of the day he should reign in supreme command.
One of the houses taken by Mrs. Baden-Powell for the holidays was
Llandogo Falls, a most romantic place on the Wye, the property of Mr.
Gallenga, the Italian correspondent of the _Times_, who had previously
got mixed up in a deep political plot in Italy, whereby he gained many
useful secrets, but whereby, at the same time, he was obliged to flee
out of Italy and return to England. We fancy this story in its full
details must have appealed strongly to the imagination of
Baden-Powell, whose after-life, could it be fully written, would
satisfy the keenest appetite for daring, excitement, and romance. But
to return to Llandogo Falls. Mrs. Baden-Powell, her daughter, and all
the servants made the journey from London by means of the railway; but
to the boys the fastest of express trains would have seemed slow, and
accordingly Warington made ready his collapsible boat, and, rowing by
day and sleeping on board by night, these indefatigable youngsters
left London behind them, crossed the Severn, and, pulling up the Wye,
arrived at Llandogo Falls, the first intimation of their arrival to
Mrs. Baden-Powell being the sight of them dragging the boat over the
lawn to the stables. This feat succeeded in endearing them to the
Welsh people in the neighbourhood, who were greatly struck by the
courage of the boys in crossing the Severn in a collapsible boat.
Here, at Llandogo Falls, the boys spent a great deal of time in riding
practically wild ponies, and even in those days Ste was famous for his
graceful seat, his quiet patience with an untractable steed, and his
daring in attempting difficult jumps. Besides riding, the boys were
fond of wandering about the country, making friends with the natives,
shooting birds to be presently stuffed by themselves and put in the
family museum, collecting rare insects, examining old ruins, and
rowing up the Wye to spend the afternoon in bathing or in fishing,
sometimes in both.
In this simple, healthy, and thoroughly English fashion the
Baden-Powells spent their holidays, and in their home-life grew up
devoted to each other, and to the mother whose controlling influence
was over all their sports and occupations. It is interesting to note,
ere we leave the subject of early training, that no infliction of
punishment in any shape or form was permitted by Mrs. Baden-Powell.
Whether such a rule would work for good in all families is a question
that I for one, as a father of a young family, will never imperil my
reputation for consistency by answering with a dogmatic affirmative.
Nevertheless, one recognises the truth of Nietzsche's warning, "Beware
of him in whom the impulse to punish is powerful." In the case of the
Baden-Powells the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and you will
get none of them to say that their childhood was not a joyous period,
while Mrs. Baden-Powell will contend with any mother under Heaven that
never before were such honourable, straightforward, and gentle-minded
children. This home-life has never lost its charm, and though the sons
may be scattered over the world on the Queen's service, they come back
to exchange memories with each other under their mother's roof as
often as the exigencies of their professions will allow. And when
B.-P. is in the house, though his hair begins to flourish less
willingly on his brow, he is just like the boy of old, springing up
the stairs three steps at a time, and whistling as he goes with a
heartiness and a joyousness that astonishes the decorous ten-year-old
sparrow Timothy as he flits about the house after Miss Baden-Powell.
I have in my possession a copy of Mr. Russell's monograph on Mr.
Gladstone, which had fallen into the hands of a grand old Tory parson.
The margins of those pages bristle with the vehement annotations of my
old friend. Against the statement that Mr. Gladstone had "a nature
completely unspoilt by success and prominence and praise," there is a
vigorous "OH!" Where it is recorded how in 1874 Mr. Gladstone promised
to repeal the income-tax, I find a pencil line and the contemptuous
comment, "A bribe for power!" Mr. Forster's resignation of office in
1882 is hailed with a joyful "Bravo, Forster!" and so on throughout
Mr. Russell's interesting book. But on the last page of all there are
three pencil lines marking a sentence, and by the side of the lines
the concession, "Yes--true." The sentence is this: "But the noblest
natures are those which are seen at their best in the close communion
of the home."