Chapter II (1)

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.