Chatterbox, 1906 Part 100

When Muriel stole quietly into her governess's room, the latter frowned a little at the sight of the child who was usually so noisy and tomboyish, but she said nothing when Muriel rather timidly explained her errand. The little nurse carried out the doctor's orders very carefully and thoroughly, and after a time she was delighted to see her patient fast asleep. All day she did her very best to do just what she thought Aunt Margaret would have done, and in the evening Miss Fane felt so much better that she came downstairs for a little while.

It was Muriel who fetched the cosiest armchair for Miss Fane, and who so carefully arranged a pile of soft cushions to make her more comfortable.

The governess watched her in surprise, as she remembered the restless, mischief-loving Muriel of lesson hours, and noticed how quietly and gently she arranged everything now. Then the little girl stood timidly by her side, twisting her fingers nervously together behind her back.

'I am sorry I was so tiresome yesterday, Miss Fane,' she said, very quickly, and not looking up. 'I didn't mean to make your head ache, really.'

Miss Fane put her arm round the child, and made room for her among the cushions.

'Of course you didn't, dear,' she said. 'It was a hard exercise, I know, and I was not very patient, but we will have another try to-morrow, and perhaps it will be easier then.'

Muriel nestled closer to her.

'I did it this afternoon,' she confessed shyly. 'I--I didn't try properly yesterday.'

'But you tried to-day? Why, what a lot you have been doing all day!

Suppose you tell me how you learnt to be such a splendid little nurse?'

Muriel was only too ready to answer this, and she told Miss Fane all about her longing to be a proper nurse, and of Aunt Margaret's lesson, trying all the time to talk softly and not too much.

But Miss Fane was quite as interested in listening as Muriel was in talking.

'I think the next time Aunt Margaret comes we must have a whole holiday,' she said. 'I think you have earned one to-day. I am sure you are going to be a capital nurse some day, for you have looked after me so splendidly to-day.'

And Aunt Margaret was quite satisfied, too, with the result of Muriel's first lesson.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Muriel's First Patient.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He swung himself off the ground."]

STORIES FROM AFRICA.

XI.--A MIGHTY HUNTER.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Our African picture-gallery would be quite incomplete without a thought of the Dark Continent as the land of great beasts, the home of those kings among the wild creatures who can never be made the servants or the friends of man; the land where the roar of the lion wakes the dark hours, and the elephant and buffalo steal down to drink at the muddy pools. And so our next story must be of one of those mighty hunters of half a century ago who went to Africa for pastime, long before any one dreamt of a Cape to Cairo railway. William Cotton Oswell was a sportsman of the best type, six feet in height, wiry and muscular, a magnificent rider and a dead shot. He spent five years in Africa without a day's illness, was absolutely fearless, and, withal, so gentle and kindly of heart that he won the love of every one, English or African, with whom he came in contact; and he was so modest that his adventures were known only to intimate friends.

'I am sorry for the fine old beasts I shot,' he said, looking back, a grandfather and a quiet English gentleman, to the old wild hunting days; and if, as the chroniclers tell us, William the Conqueror 'loved the high deer as if he were their father,' so his nineteenth-century namesake had a warm corner in his heart for the lion and the buffalo, and the great, clumsy, fierce rhinoceros, against which he matched himself so successfully.

In 1844, Mr. Oswell, who had been sent to South Africa to recruit, after fever contracted in India, started on a hunting expedition with Major Murray as his companion, visiting on the way Dr. Livingstone's settlement at Mabotse, and getting information from him as to the country and the game to be found there. The doctor was a better naturalist than he was a sportsman; he had the keen observation indispensable to the hunter, but never became a good shot. He gave his visitors, however, all the help and information he could, and they pa.s.sed on into what was, in those days, an almost untrodden land for sportsmen, alive with game of every kind. Mr. Oswell says that a man who was anything of a shot could easily feed a party of six hundred by his own gun. Still, there might be some risk connected with the securing of the dinner, and the hunter might have to ask, like the primitive savage, not only, 'Can I kill it?' but 'Will it kill me?'

On one occasion Mr. Oswell walked unexpectedly into the middle of a herd of buffaloes, who scattered in all directions. Only one patriarch of the herd, who had been lying apart from the rest, stood his ground, and the young Englishman found himself facing the great beast, at a distance of ten yards, with but one barrel of his gun loaded. He gave the contents of this to the buffalo, but did not reach a vital part, and the animal charged him. Mr. Oswell was standing under one of the mimosa-trees which grow plentifully in this part of the country. He seized a branch and swung himself off the ground, drawing, he says, his knees up to his chin, so that the buffalo actually pa.s.sed beneath him. The feat sounds almost impossible, but Mr. Oswell tells it in the most matter-of-fact fashion, simply adding that he thought it safer than the usually advised method of springing to one side, as the buffalo can swerve sideways in his charge, and gore his enemy in pa.s.sing.

Another adventure during this expedition certainly tested the hunter's nerve to the uttermost. Mr. Oswell's men informed him one morning that there was no meat in the camp for the dogs who guarded the party at night; so, taking his gun, with but one barrel loaded, he strolled out in search of a supper for his watchmen, feeling sure of securing something without going to any distance, or needing more ammunition. Nor was he disappointed, for, two hundred yards from the camp, he came upon some quagga, and killed one of them. The animal ran a little distance before it dropped, and Mr. Oswell, after marking it down, went back for men to carry the game home. But in this monotonous country, with its stretches of th.o.r.n.y bush and mimosa-trees, nothing is easier than to miss a track, and Mr. Oswell, though nicknamed by the Kaffirs, 'Jlaga,'

the watchful or wide-awake, found himself on this occasion at fault. No waggons or encampment came in sight. He tried to retrace his steps and start again, or, by making a circle, to strike his original track, but all in vain. It had been ten in the morning when he left the camp, and at sunset he was still seeking it, without food, unarmed save for his useless, unloaded gun.

The situation would have been ludicrous had it been less serious; but Mr. Oswell, feeling sure that his friends would seek him at nightfall, followed the track of beasts to a pool of water, and determined to wait there until he should hear some sound of them. The fuel about was scanty, but he collected what he could until the short twilight of the tropics darkened into night, and then, with the idea of saving firewood, climbed a tree. But now the cold became intense. The heat of the day had been followed by sharp frost, and the unfortunate sportsman, with no extra covering, became so numb that he decided to descend from his perch and light his fire. He had clambered down to the lowest bough, and was about to drop to the ground, when something stirred below him. A moving body parted the bushes, and he heard at his feet an unmistakable sound, the pant of a questing lion. Had he dropped a moment sooner, he would have fallen right on to the top of the beast. We need hardly say that he returned very swiftly to his upper story, and, crouching there, could hear distinctly two lions, hunting in a circle round about the water, pa.s.sing and saluting each other, like sentinels on their beat.

It was a trying situation, certainly, to have to sit, clinging with frozen fingers to the branches, only a few feet above the heads of the other 'mighty hunters,' who seemed to have resumed, in the night hours, their rule of the land he had dared to dispute with them.

But the horror of darkness came to an end at last. The moon rose, silvering the pool and showing the wide stretch of bush, and, at the same moment, sounded, still far away, the report of guns, a volley of firing which could only come from his own party. The sound must have been like new life to the chilled, lonely man, nerving him to a desperate effort to join those who were seeking for him. Those guns were as the voices of his friends, and he would sooner risk everything in an attempt to reach them than die of cold within hearing of their summons.

He waited until the two lions were, as he judged, at the furthest point of their round, then he dropped noiselessly to the ground. The firing continued at intervals, and he made for it through the bush, running, pausing, listening, with breath held, for the rustle or movement among the gra.s.s and undergrowth that might mean sudden death. He says himself that his uncertain course and frequent stoppages probably saved him, since the wild beast distrusts any prey that does not go straight forward, as if expecting counter-manoeuvres. It was an hour's journey--a trial, certainly, to the stoutest nerves. But the haven of safety was reached at last. The anxious searchers heard their guns answered by the shout of their lost companion, and the exhausted sportsman found welcome and food and fire awaiting him. As he sat, thawing his numbed fingers by the cheerful blaze, a distant roar sounded among the bushes, the voice of a lion who scents his prey. The Kaffir servants looked at each other and at their master.

'He has found your track, Jlaga,' said one of them.

The race had been a close one indeed; a few minutes' difference, and the story of that night under the African sky would never have come home to England.

MARY H. DEBENHAM.

THEMISTOCLES AND THE GREEK GENERALS.

The Athenian general and statesman, Themistocles, was one of the few Greeks who, when Xerxes, the King of Persia, invaded Greece with a great army and a huge fleet, thought it possible to resist the Great King (that was the t.i.tle which the king of the Persian Empire bore). He had much difficulty in persuading the generals of the other Greek states to fight at all, or even to await the coming of the enemy; some he bribed, others he bullied, till at length the Persian fleet was totally defeated off the island of Salamis.

After this victory, there were great rejoicings, and it was resolved to give splendid honours to the general who was considered the worthiest, and also to him who came next in glory. The generals therefore voted to see who should be considered first and who second.

For the first place, no one got more than one vote; each general had voted for himself for the first prize! But Themistocles was unanimously declared to have won the second prize, for though no one of them liked to admit that Themistocles was better than himself, they were each certain that he was superior to all the rest. So no one got the first prize, but special honours were paid to Themistocles.

A SILENT REPROOF.

Many years ago a number of persons were travelling by coach northwards towards Paisley. Some of them were Scottish farmers; others, tradesmen or persons of good position in Paisley; and one was a Scotsman of superior appearance, who, judging by his conversation, had travelled a good deal and seen much of his fellow-men. He recounted many interesting experiences as they journeyed along, and they all chatted freely and pleasantly with each other.

The road was a hilly and rough one, and at a lonely spot where it was especially bad, the coach was so severely jolted that one of the axles broke. Fortunately, no one was injured, and when all had alighted from the coach, they began to inspect the damaged axle. The pa.s.senger whose conversation had proved so interesting came to their a.s.sistance, and examined the axle critically. Presently, he asked the coachman if there were any blacksmith near at hand. There was not a house in sight, and the coachman told him that the forge of the nearest blacksmith was a mile or two away.

'Help me to carry the broken parts to the smith,' said the other, 'and I will see that they are properly mended.'

So they carried the broken axle across the moors to the blacksmith's shop, but they found that the blacksmith was not at home. Nothing daunted, the pa.s.senger who had undertaken to see the axle repaired lighted the blacksmith's fire, set the bellows to work, and, with the help of one of his fellow-pa.s.sengers, mended the axle himself. They carried it back to the coach, fixed it in its place, put on the wheels, and the coach started off again upon its journey.

But now the pa.s.sengers, instead of being grateful for the fortunate help which had been given them, began to hold aloof from the man who had mended the axle, and they had little to say to him. From his conversation they had taken him to be a gentleman, but he had shown them now that he was nothing but a common blacksmith. So for the rest of the journey they neglected him, and he sat lost in his own thoughts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They began to examine the damaged axle."]

When the travellers reached the end of the stage they separated, and each went his own way. On the following morning one of them had business with the Earl of Eglinton at Eglinton Castle. He reached the castle in good time, and after being announced, was shown into a room where the Earl was seated at breakfast. But judge of his surprise when he found that his fellow-traveller of the previous day, the very man who had mended the broken axle of the coach, was sitting at breakfast with the Earl. He was not, then, a blacksmith, after all! No; he was John Rennie, the constructor of the Waterloo, Southward, and London Bridges, the Plymouth Breakwater, and the London Docks; in fact, the greatest engineer of his time, and a man honoured by all who knew him. He had learnt his trade thoroughly, from the very bottom, and was not above making use of it in the humblest way--even as a blacksmith.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The kitten at once began lapping."]