Nat the Naturalist: A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas

G Manville Fenn

"Nat the Naturalist"

Chapter One.

Why I went to my Uncle’s.

“I don’t know what to do with him. I never saw such a boy—a miserable little coward, always in mischief and doing things he ought not to do, and running about the place with his whims and fads. I wish you’d send him right away, I do.”

My aunt went out of the room, and I can’t say she banged the door, but she shut it very hard, leaving me and my uncle face to face staring one at the other.

My uncle did not speak for some minutes, but sat poking at his hair with the waxy end of his pipe, for he was a man who smoked a great deal after dinner; the mornings he spent in his garden, being out there as early as five o’clock in the summer and paying very little attention to the rain.

He was a very amiable, mild-tempered man, who had never had any children, in fact he did not marry till quite late in life; when I remember my poor father saying that it was my aunt married my uncle, for uncle would never have had the courage to ask her.

I say “my poor father”, for a couple of years after that marriage, the news came home that he had been lost at sea with the whole of the crew of the great vessel of which he was the surgeon.

I remember it all so well; the terrible blank and trouble that seemed to have come upon our house, with my mother’s illness that followed, and that dreadful day when Uncle Joseph came down-stairs to me in the dining-room, and seating himself by the fire filled and lit his pipe, took two or three puffs, and then threw the pipe under the grate, let his head go down upon his hands, and cried like a child.

A minute or two later, when I went up to him in great trouble and laid my hand upon his shoulder, saying, “Don’t cry, uncle; she’ll be better soon,” he caught me in his arms and held me to his breast.

“Nat, my boy,” he said, “I’ve promised her that I’ll be like a father to you now, and I will.”

I knew only too soon why he said those words, for a week later I was an orphan boy indeed; and I was at Uncle Joseph’s house, feeling very miserable and unhappy in spite of his kind ways and the pains he took to make me comfortable.

I was not so wretched when I was alone with uncle in the garden, where he would talk to me about his peas and potatoes and the fruit-trees, show me how to find the snails and slugs, and encourage me to shoot at the thieving birds with a crossbow and arrow; but I was miserable indeed when I went in, for my aunt was a very sharp, acid sort of woman, who seemed to have but one idea, and that was to keep the house so terribly tidy that it was always uncomfortable to the people who were in it.

It used to be, “Nat, have you wiped your shoes?”

“Let me look, sir. Ah! I thought so. Not half wiped. Go and take them off directly, and put on your slippers. You’re as bad as your uncle, sir.”

I used to think I should like to be as good.

“I declare,” said my aunt, “I haven’t a bit of peace of my life with the dirt and dust. The water-cart never comes round here as it does in the other roads, and the house gets filthy. Moil and toil, moil and toil, from morning to night, and no thanks whatever.”

When my aunt talked like this she used to screw up her face and seem as if she were going to cry, and she spoke in a whining, unpleasant tone of voice; but I never remember seeing her cry, and I used to wonder why she would trouble herself about dusting with a cloth and feather brush from morning to night, when there were three servants to do all the work.

I have heard the cook tell Jane the housemaid that Mrs Pilgarlic was never satisfied; but it was some time before I knew whom she meant; and to this day I don’t know why she gave my aunt such a name.

Whenever aunt used to be more than usually fretful, as time went on my uncle would get up softly, give me a peculiar look, and go out into the garden, where, if I could, I followed, and we used to talk, and weed, and train the flowers; but very often my aunt would pounce upon me and order me to sit still and keep out of mischief if I could.

I was very glad when my uncle decided to send me to school, and I used to go to one in our neighbourhood, so that I was a good deal away from home, as uncle said I was to call his house now; and school and the garden were the places where I was happiest in those days.

“Yes, my boy,” said my uncle, “I should like you to call this home, for though your aunt pretends she doesn’t like it, she does, you know, Nat; and you mustn’t mind her being a bit cross, Nat. It isn’t temper, you know, it’s weakness. It’s her digestion’s bad, and she’s a sufferer, that’s what she is. She’s wonderfully fond of you, Nat.”

I remember thinking that she did not show it.

“And you must try and get on, Nat, and get lots of learning,” he would often say when we were out in the garden. “You won’t be poor when you grow up, for your poor mother has left you a nice bit of money, but you might lose that, Nat, my boy; nobody could steal your knowledge, and—ah, you rascal, got you, have I?”

This last was to a great snail which he raked out from among some tender plants that had been half eaten away.

“Yes, Nat, get all the knowledge you can and work hard at your books.”

But somehow I didn’t get on well with the other boys, for I cared so little for their rough games. I was strong enough of my age, but I preferred getting out on to Clapham Common on half-holidays, to look for lizards in the furze, or to catch the bright-coloured sticklebacks in the ponds, or else to lie down on the bank under one of the trees, and watch the efts coming up to the top to make a little bubble and then go down again, waving their bodies of purple and orange and the gay crests that they sometimes had all along their backs in the spring.

When I used to lie there thinking, I did not seem to be on Clapham Common, but far away on the banks of some huge lake in a foreign land with the efts and lizards, crocodiles; and the big worms that I sometimes found away from their holes in wet weather became serpents in a moist jungle.

Of course I got all these ideas from books, and great trouble I found myself in one day for playing at tiger-hunting in the garden at home with Buzzy, my aunt’s great tabby tom-cat; and for pretending that Nap was a lion in the African desert. But I’ll tell you that in a chapter to itself, for these matters had a good deal to do with the alteration in my mode of life.

Chapter Two.

First Thoughts of Hunting.

As I told you, my uncle had no children, and the great house at Streatham was always very quiet. In fact one of my aunt’s strict injunctions was that she should not be disturbed by any noise of mine. But aunt had her pets—Buzzy, and Nap.

Buzzy was the largest striped tom-cat, I think, that I ever saw, and very much to my aunt’s annoyance he became very fond of me, so much so that if he saw me going out in the garden he would leap off my aunt’s lap, where she was very fond of nursing him, stroking his back, beginning with his head and ending by drawing his tail right through her hand; all of which Buzzy did not like, but he would lie there and swear, trying every now and then to get free, but only to be held down and softly whipped into submission.

Buzzy decidedly objected to being nursed, and as soon as he could get free he would rush after me down the garden, where he would go bounding along, arching his back, and setting up the fur upon his tail. Every now and then he would hide in some clump, and from thence charge out at me, and if I ran after him, away he would rush up a tree trunk, and then crouch on a branch with glowing eyes, tearing the while with his claws at the bark as if in a tremendous state of excitement, ready to bound down again, and race about till he was tired, after which I had only to stoop down and say, “Come on,” when he would leap on to my back and perch himself upon my shoulder, purring softly as I carried him round the grounds.

I used to have some good fun, too, with Nap, when my aunt was out; but she was so jealous of her favourite’s liking for me that at last I never used to have a game with Nap when she was at home.

Buzzy could come out and play quietly, but Nap always got to be so excited, lolling out his tongue and yelping and barking with delight as he tore round after me, pretending to bite and worry me, and rolling over and over, and tumbling head over heels as he capered and bounded about.

I think Nap was the ugliest dog I ever saw, for he was one of those dirty white French poodles, and my aunt used to have him clipped, to look like a lion, as she said, and have him washed with hot soap and water every week.

Nothing pleased Nap better than to go out in the garden with me, but I got into sad trouble about it more than once.

“Look at him, Joseph,” my aunt would say, “it’s just as if it was done on purpose to annoy me. Beautifully washed as he was yesterday, and now look at him with his curly mane all over earth, and with bits of straw and dead leaves sticking in it. If you don’t send that boy away to a boarding-school I won’t stay in the house.”

Then my uncle would look troubled, and take me into his own room, where he kept his books and garden seeds.

“You mustn’t do it, Nat, my boy, indeed you mustn’t. You see how it annoys your aunt.”

“I didn’t think I was doing any harm, uncle,” I protested. “Nap jumped out of the window, and leaped up at me as if he wanted a game, and I only raced round the garden with him.”

“You didn’t rub the earth and dead leaves in his coat then, Nat?” said my uncle.

“Oh no!” I said; “he throws himself on his side and pushes himself along, rubs his head on the ground, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. I think it’s because he has got f—”

“Shush! Hush! my dear boy,” cried my uncle, clapping his hand over my lips. “If your aunt for a moment thought that there were any insects in that dog, she would be ill.”

“But I’m sure that there are some in his coat, uncle,” I said, “for if you watch him when he’s lying on the hearth-rug to-night, every now and then he jumps up and snaps at them, and bites the place.”

“Shush! yes, my boy,” he whispered; “but don’t talk about it. Your aunt is so particular. It’s a secret between us.”

I couldn’t help smiling at him, and after a moment or two he smiled at me, and then patted me on the shoulder.

“Don’t do anything to annoy your aunt, my boy,” he said; “I wouldn’t play with Nap if I were you.”

“I’ll try not to, uncle,” I said; “but he will come and coax me to play with him sometimes.”

“H’m! yes,” said my uncle thoughtfully, “and it does do him good, poor dog. He eats too much, and gets too fat for want of exercise. Suppose you only play with him when your aunt goes out for a walk.”

“Very well, uncle,” I said, and then he shook hands with me, and gave me half a crown.

I couldn’t help it, I was obliged to spend that half-crown in something I had been wanting for weeks. It was a large crossbow that hung up in the toy-shop window in Streatham, and that bow had attracted my attention every time I went out.

To some boys a crossbow would be only a crossbow, but to me it meant travels in imagination all over the world. I saw myself shooting apples off boys’ heads, transfixing eagles in their flight, slaying wild beasts, and bringing home endless trophies of the chase, so at the first opportunity I was off to the shop, and with my face glowing with excitement and delight I bought and took home the crossbow.

“Hallo, Nat!” said Uncle Joseph. “Why, what’s that—a crossbow?”

“Yes, uncle; isn’t it a beauty?” I cried excitedly.

“Well, yes, my boy,” he said; “but, but—how about your aunt? Suppose you were to break a window with that, eh? What should we do?”

“But I won’t shoot in that direction, uncle,” I promised.

“Or shoot out Jane’s or Cook’s eye? It would be very dreadful, my boy.”

“Oh, yes, uncle,” I cried; “but I will be so careful, and perhaps I may shoot some of the birds that steal the cherries.”

“Ah! yes, my boy, so you might,” he said rubbing his hands softly. “My best bigarreaus. Those birds are a terrible nuisance, Nat, that they are. You’ll be careful, though?”

“Yes, I’ll be careful, uncle,” I said; and he went away nodding and smiling, while I went off to Clapham Common to try the bow and the short thick arrows supplied therewith.

It was glorious. At every twang away flew the arrow or the piece of tobacco-pipe I used instead; and at last, after losing one shaft in the short turf, I found myself beside the big pond over on the far side, one that had the reputation of being full of great carp and eels.

My idea here was to shoot the fish, but as there were none visible to shoot I had to be content with trying to hit the gliding spiders on the surface with pieces of tobacco-pipe as long as they lasted, for I dared not waste another arrow, and then with my mind full of adventures in foreign countries I walked home.

The next afternoon my aunt went out, and I took the bow down the garden, leaving my uncle enjoying his pipe. I had been very busy all that morning, it being holiday time, in making some fresh arrows for a purpose I had in view, and, so as to be humane, I had made the heads by cutting off the tops of some old kid gloves, ramming their finger-ends full of cotton-wool, and then tying them to the thin deal arrows, so that each bolt had a head like a little soft leather ball.

“Those can’t hurt him,” I said to myself; and taking a dozen of these bolts in my belt I went down the garden, with Buzzy at my heels, for a good tiger-hunt.

For the next half-hour Streatham was nowhere, and that old-fashioned garden with its fruit-trees had become changed into a wild jungle, through which a gigantic tiger kept charging, whose doom I had fixed. Shot after shot I had at the monster—once after it had bounded into the fork of a tree, another time as it was stealing through the waving reeds, represented by the asparagus bed. Later on, after much creeping and stalking, with the tiger stalking me as well as springing out at me again and again, but never getting quite home, I had a shot as it was lurking beside the great lake, represented by our tank. Here its striped sides were plainly visible, and, going down on hands and knees, I crept along between two rows of terrible thorny trees that bore sweet juicy berries in the season, but which were of the wildest nature now, till I could get a good aim at the monster’s shoulder, and see its soft lithe tail twining and writhing like a snake.

I crept on, full of excitement, for a leafy plant that I refused to own as a cabbage no longer intercepted my view. Then lying flat upon my chest I fitted an arrow to my bow, and was cautiously taking aim, telling myself that if I missed I should be seized by the monster, when some slight sound I made caused it to spring up, presenting its striped flank for a target as it gazed here and there.

Play as it was, it was all intensely real to me; and in those moments I was as full of excitement as if I had been in some distant land and in peril of my life.

Then, after long and careful aim, twang went the bow, and to my intense delight the soft-headed arrow struck the monster full in the flank, making it bound up a couple of feet and then pounce upon the bolt, and canter off at full speed towards a dense thicket of scarlet-runners.

“Victory, victory!” I cried excitedly; “wounded, wounded!” and I set off in chase, but approaching cautiously and preparing my bow again, for I had read that the tiger was most dangerous when in the throes of death.

I forget what I called the scarlet-runner thicket, but by some eastern name, and drawing nearer I found an opportunity for another shot, which missed.

Away bounded Buzzy, evidently enjoying the fun, and I after him, to find him at bay beneath a currant bush.

I was a dozen yards away in the central path, and, of course, in full view of the upper windows of the house; but if I had noted that fact then, I was so far gone in the romance of the situation that I daresay I should have called the house the rajah’s palace. As it was I had forgotten its very existence in the excitement of the chase.

“This time, monster, thou shalt die,” I cried, as I once more fired, making Buzzy leap into the path, and then out of sight amongst the cabbages.

“Hurray! hurray!” I shouted, waving my crossbow above my head, “the monster is slain! the monster is slain!”

There was a piercing shriek behind me, and I turned, bow in hand, to find myself face to face with my aunt.

Chapter Three.

How I Hunted the Lion in No-man’s-Land and what Followed.

My aunt’s cry brought out Uncle Joseph in a terrible state of excitement, and it was not until after a long chase and Buzzy was caught that she could be made to believe that he had not received a mortal wound. And a tremendous chase it was, for the more Uncle Joseph and I tried to circumvent that cat, the more he threw himself into the fun of the hunt and dodged us, running up trees like a squirrel, leaping down with his tail swollen to four times its usual size, and going over the beds in graceful bounds, till Uncle Joseph sat down to pant and wipe his face while I continued the chase; but all in vain. Sometimes I nearly caught the cat, but he would be off again just as I made a spring to seize him, while all Aunt Sophia’s tender appeals to “poor Buzzy then,” “my poor pet then,” fell upon ears that refused to hear her.

“Oh how stupid I am!” I said to myself. “Oh, Buzzy, this is too bad to give me such a chase. Come here, sir, directly;” and I stooped down.

It had the required result, for Buzzy leaped down off the wall up which he had scrambled, jumped on to my back, settled himself comfortably with his fore-paws on my shoulder, and began to purr with satisfaction.

“I am glad, my boy,” said Uncle Joseph, “so glad you have caught him; but have you hurt him much?”

“He isn’t hurt at all, uncle,” I said. “It was all in play.”

“But your aunt is in agony, my boy. Here, let me take the cat to her.”

He stretched out his hands to take the cat from my shoulder, but Buzzy’s eyes dilated and he began to swear, making my uncle start back, for he dreaded a scratch from anything but a rose thorn, and those he did not mind.

“Would you mind taking him to your aunt, Natty, my boy?” he said.

“No, uncle, if you’ll please come too,” I said. “Don’t let aunt scold me, uncle; I’m very sorry, and it was only play.”

“I’ll come with you, Nat,” he said, shaking his head; “but I ought not to have let you have that bow, and I’m afraid she will want it burnt.”

“Will she be very cross?” I said.

“I’m afraid so, my boy.” And she really was.

“Oh you wicked, wicked boy,” she cried as I came up; “what were you doing?”

“Only playing at tiger-hunting, aunt,” I said.

“With my poor darling Buzzy! Come to its own mistress then, Buzzy,” she cried pityingly. “Did the wicked, cruel boy—oh dear!”

Wur–r–ur! spit, spit!

That was Buzzy’s reply to his mistress’s attempt to take him from my shoulder, and he made an attempt to scratch.

“And he used to be as gentle as a lamb,” cried my aunt. “You wicked, wicked boy, you must have hurt my darling terribly to make him so angry with his mistress whom he loves.”

I protested that I had not, but it was of no use, and I was in great disgrace for some days; but Aunt Sophia forgot to confiscate my crossbow.

The scolding I received ought to have had more effect upon me, but it did not; for it was only a week afterwards that I was again in disgrace, and for the same fault, only with this difference, that in my fancy the garden had become a South African desert, and Nap was the lion I was engaged in hunting.

I did him no harm, I am sure, but a great deal of good, with the exercise; and the way in which he entered into the sport delighted me. He charged me and dashed after me when I fled; when I hid behind trees to shoot at him he seized the arrows, if they hit him, and worried them fiercely; while whenever they missed him, in place of dashing at me he would run after the arrows and bring them in his mouth to where he thought I was hiding.

I don’t think Nap had any more sense than dogs have in general, but he would often escape from my aunt when I came home from school, and run before me to the big cupboard where I kept my treasures, raise himself upon his hind-legs, and tear at the door till I opened it and took out the crossbow, when he would frisk round and round in the highest state of delight, running out into the garden, dashing back, running out again, and entering into the spirit of the game with as much pleasure as I did.

But the fun to be got out of a crossbow gets wearisome after a time, especially when you find that in spite of a great deal of practice it is very hard to hit anything that is at all small.

The time glided on, and I was very happy still with my uncle; but somehow Aunt Sophia seemed to take quite a dislike to me; and no matter how I tried to do what was right, and to follow out my uncle’s wishes, I was always in trouble about something or another.

One summer Uncle Joseph bought me a book on butterflies, with coloured plates, which so interested me that I began collecting the very next day, and captured a large cabbage butterfly.

No great rarity this, but it was a beginning; and after pinning it out as well as I could I began to think of a cabinet, collecting-boxes, a net, and a packet of entomological pins.

I only had to tell Uncle Joseph my wants and he was eager to help me.

“Collecting-boxes, Nat?” he said, rubbing his hands softly; “why, I used to use pill-boxes when I was a boy: there are lots up-stairs.”

He hunted me out over a dozen that afternoon, and supplied me with an old drawer and a piece of camphor, entering into the matter with as much zest as I did myself. Then he obtained an old green gauze veil from my aunt, and set to work with me in the tool-house to make a net, after the completion of which necessity he proposed that we should go the very next afternoon as far as Clapham Common to capture insects.

He did not go with me, for my aunt wanted him to hold skeins of wool for her to wind, but he made up to me for the disappointment that evening by sitting by me while I pinned out my few but far from rare captures, taking great pleasure in holding the pins for me, and praising what he called my cleverness in cutting out pieces of card.

I did not know anything till it came quite as a surprise, and it was smuggled into the house so that my aunt did not know, Jane, according to uncle’s orders, carrying it up to my bedroom.

It was a large butterfly-case, made to open out in two halves like a backgammon board; and in this, as soon as they were dry, I used to pin my specimens, examining them with delight, and never seeming to weary of noting the various markings, finding out their names, and numbering them, and keeping their proper titles in a book I had for the purpose.

I did not confine myself to butterflies, but caught moths and beetles, with dragon-flies from the edges of the ponds on Clapham Common, longing to go farther afield, but not often obtaining a chance. Then, as I began to find specimens scarce, I set to collecting other things that seemed interesting, and at last, during a visit paid by my aunt to some friends, Uncle Joseph took me to the British Museum to see the butterflies there, so, he said, that I might pick up a few hints for managing my own collection.

That visit turned me into an enthusiast, for before we returned I had been for hours feasting my eyes upon the stuffed birds and noting the wondrous colours on their scale-like feathers.

I could think of scarcely anything else, talk of nothing else afterwards for days; and nothing would do but I must begin to collect birds and prepare and stuff them for myself.

“You wouldn’t mind, would you, uncle?” I said.

“Mind? No, my boy,” he said, rubbing his hands softly; “I should like it; but do you think you could stuff a bird?”

“Not at first,” I said thoughtfully; “but I should try.”

“To be sure, Nat,” he cried smiling; “nothing like trying, my boy; but how would you begin?”

This set me thinking.

“I don’t know, uncle,” I said at last, “but it looks very easy.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Nat; so do lots of things,” he cried, laughing; “but sometimes they turn out very hard.”

“I know,” I said suddenly.

“I know,” I said, “I could find out how to do it.”

“Have some lessons, eh?” he said.

“No, uncle.”

“How would you manage it then, Nat?”

“Buy a stuffed bird, uncle, and pull it to pieces, and see how it is done.”

“To be sure, Nat,” he cried; “to be sure, my boy. That’s the way; but stop a moment; how would you put it together again?”

“Oh! I think I could, uncle,” I said; “I’m nearly sure I could. How could I get one to try with?”

“Why, we might buy one somewhere,” he said thoughtfully; “for I don’t think they’d lend us one at the British Museum; but I tell you what, Nat,” he cried: “I’ve got it.”

“Have you, uncle?”

“To be sure, my boy. There’s your aunt’s old parrot that died and was stuffed. Don’t you know?”

I shook my head.

“It was put somewhere up-stairs in the lumber-room, and your aunt has forgotten all about it. You might try with that.”

“And I’d stuff it again when I had found out all about it, uncle,” I said.

“To be sure, my boy,” said uncle, thoughtfully; “I wonder whether your aunt would want Buzzy and Nap stuffed if they were to die?”

“She’d be sure to; aunt is so fond of them,” I said. “Why, uncle, I might be able to do it myself.”

“Think so?” he said thoughtfully. “Why, it would make her pleased, my boy.”

But neither Buzzy nor Nap showed the slightest intention of dying so as to be stuffed, and I had to learn the art before I could attempt anything of the kind.

Chapter Four.

The Remains of Poor Polly.

The very first opportunity, my uncle took me up with him to the lumber-room, an attic of which my aunt kept the key; and here, after quite a hunt amongst old portmanteaux, broken chairs, dusty tables, bird-cages, wrecked kennels, cornice-poles, black-looking pictures, and dozens of other odds and ends, we came in a dark corner upon the remains of one of my aunt’s earliest pets. It was the stuffed figure of a grey parrot that had once stood beneath a glass shade, but the shade was broken, and poor Polly, who looked as if she had been moulting ever since she had been fixed upon her present perch, had her head partly torn from her shoulders.

“Here she is,” said my uncle. “Poor old Polly! What a bird she was to screech! She never liked me, Nat, but used to call me wretch, as plain as you could say it yourself. It was very wicked of me, I dare say, Nat, but I was so glad when she died, and your aunt was so sorry that she cried off and on for a week.”

“But she never was a pretty bird, uncle,” I said, holding the stuffed creature to the light.

“No, my boy, never, and she used to pull off her feathers when she was in a passion, and call people wretch. She bit your aunt’s nose once. But do you think it will do?”

“Oh yes, uncle,” I said; “but may I pull it to pieces?”

“Well, yes, my boy, I think so,” he said dreamily. “You couldn’t spoil it, could you?”

“Why, it is spoiled already, Uncle Joe,” I said.

“Yes, my boy, so it is; quite spoiled. I think I’ll risk it, Nat.”

“But if aunt would be very cross, uncle, hadn’t I better leave it?” I said.

“If you didn’t take it, Nat, she would never see it again, and it would lie here and moulder away. I think you had better take it, my boy.”

I was so eager to begin that I hesitated no more, but took the bird out into the tool-house, where I could make what aunt called “a mess” without being scolded, and uncle put on his smoking-cap, lit his pipe, and brought a high stool to sit upon and watch me make my first attempt at mastering a mystery.

The first thing was to take Polly off her perch, which was a piece of twig covered with moss, that had once been glued on, but now came away in my hands, and I found that the bird had been kept upright by means of wires that ran down her legs and were wound about the twig.

Uncle smoked away as solemnly as could be, while I went on, and he seemed to be admiring my earnestness.

“There’s wire up the legs, uncle,” I cried, as I felt about the bird.

“Oh! is there?” he said, condescendingly.

“Yes, uncle, and two more pieces in the wings.”

“You don’t say so, Nat!”

“Yes, uncle, and another bit runs right through the body from the head to the tail; and—yes—no—yes—no—ah, I’ve found out how it is that the tail is spread.”

“Have you, Nat?” he cried, letting his pipe out, he was so full of interest.

“Yes, uncle; there’s a thin wire threaded through all the tail feathers, just as if they were beads.”

“Why, what a boy you are!” he cried, wonderingly.

“Oh, it’s easy enough to find that out, uncle,” I said, colouring. “Now let’s see what’s inside.”

“Think there’s anything inside, Natty, my boy?”

“Oh yes, uncle,” I said; “it’s full of something. Why, it’s tow.”

“Toe, my boy!” he said seriously, “parrot’s toe?”

“T-o-w. Tow, uncle, what they use to clean the lamps. I can stuff a bird, uncle, I know.”

“Think you can, Natty?”

“Yes, to be sure,” I said confidently. “Why, look here, it’s easy to make a ball of tow the same shape as an egg for the body, and then to push wires through the body, and wings, and legs; no, stop a moment, they seem to be fastened in. Yes, so they are, but I know I can do it.”

Uncle Joe held his pipe in his mouth with his teeth and rubbed his hands with satisfaction, for he was as pleased with my imagined success as I was, and as he looked on I pulled out the stuffing from the skin, placing the wings here, the legs there, and the tail before me, while the head with its white-irised glass eye was stuck upon a nail in the wall just over the bench.

“I feel as sure as can be, uncle, that I could stuff one.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “Wretch! wretch! wretch! That’s what Polly would say if she could speak. See how you’ve pulled her to pieces.”

I looked up as he spoke, and there was the head with its queer glass eyes seeming to stare hard at me, and at the mess of skin and feathers on the bench.

“Well, I have pulled her to pieces, haven’t I, uncle?” I said.

“That you have, my boy,” he said, chuckling, as if he thought it very good fun.

“But I have learned how to stuff a bird, uncle,” I said triumphantly.

“And are you going to stuff Polly again?” he asked, gazing at the ragged feathers and skin.

I looked at him quite guiltily.

“I—I don’t think I could put this one together again, uncle,” I said. “You see it was so ragged and torn before I touched it, and the feathers are coming out all over the place. But I could do a fresh one. You see there’s nothing here but the skin. All the feathers are falling away.”

“Yes,” said my uncle, “and I know—”

“Know what, uncle?”

“Why, they do the skin over with some stuff to preserve it, and you’ll have to get it at the chemist’s.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“And I don’t know, Natty,” he said, “but I think you might try and put poor old Polly together again, for I don’t feel quite comfortable about her; you have made her in such a dreadful mess.”

“Yes, I have, indeed, uncle,” I said dolefully, for the eagerness was beginning to evaporate.

“And your aunt was very fond of her, my boy, and she wouldn’t like it if she knew.”

“But I’m afraid I couldn’t put her together again now, uncle;” and then I began to tremble, and my uncle leaped off his stool, and broke his pipe: for there was my aunt’s well-known step on the gravel, and directly after we heard her cry:

“Joseph! Nathaniel! What are you both doing?” And I knew that I should have to confess.

Chapter Five.

How my Uncle and I put Humpty Dumpty together again.

My uncle stood by me very bravely when Aunt Sophia entered the tool-house with an exclamation of surprise. For a few minutes she could not understand what we had been about.

“Feathers—a bird—a parrot!” she exclaimed at last. “Why, it is like poor Polly.”

I looked very guiltily at my uncle and was about to speak, but he made me a signal to be silent.

“Yes, my dear,” he faltered, “it—it was poor Polly. We—we found her in the lumber-room—all in ruins, my dear, and we—we have been examining her.”

“I don’t believe it,” said my aunt sharply. “That mischievous boy has been at his tricks again.”

“I assure you, my dear,” cried my uncle, “I had to do with it as well. I helped him. Nat wants to understand bird-stuffing, and we have been to the museum and then we came home.”

“Well, of course you did,” said my aunt tartly; “do you suppose I thought you stopped to live in the museum?”

“No, my dear, of course not,” said my uncle, laughing feebly. “We are studying the art of taxidermy, my dear, Nat and I.”

He added this quite importantly, putting his eyeglasses on and nodding to me for my approval and support.

“Bless the man! Taxi what?” cried my aunt, who seemed to be fascinated by Polly’s eyes; and she began to softly scratch the feathers on the back of the head.

“Taxi-dermy,” said my uncle, “and—and, my dear, I wouldn’t scratch Polly’s head if I were you; the skins are preserved with poison.”

“Bless my heart!” exclaimed my aunt, snatching back her hand; and then holding out a finger to me: “Wipe that, Nat.”

I took out my handkerchief, dipped a corner in the watering-pot, and carefully wiped the finger clear of anything that might be sticking to it, though, as my own hands were so lately in contact with Polly’s skin, I don’t believe that I did much good; but it satisfied my aunt, who turned once more to Uncle Joe.

“Now then, Joseph; what did you say?”

“Taxi-dermy, my dear,” he said again importantly; “the art of preserving and mounting the skins of dead animals.”

“And a nice mess you’ll both make, I dare say,” cried my aunt.

“But not indoors, my dear. We shall be very careful. You see Polly had been a good deal knocked about. Your large black box had fallen right upon her, and her head was off, my dear. The glass shade was in shivers.”

“Poor Polly, yes,” said my aunt, “I had her put there because of the moths in her feathers. Well, mind this, I shall expect Natty to repair her very nicely; and you must buy a new glass shade, Joseph. Ah, my precious!”

This was to Nap, who, in reply to her tender speech, made three or four bounds to get to me, but aunt caught him by the ear and held him with the skin of his face pulled sidewise, so that he seemed to be winking at me as he lolled out his thin red tongue, and uttered a low whine.

“But mind this, I will not have any mess made indoors.”

As she spoke my aunt stooped down and took Nap in her arms, soiling her handsome silk dress a good deal with the dog’s dirty feet. Then she walked away saying endearing things to Nap, who only whined and struggled to get away in the most ungrateful fashion; while my uncle took off his glasses, drew a long breath, and said as he wiped his face with his red silk handkerchief:

“I was afraid she was going to be very cross, my boy. She’s such a good woman, your dear aunt, my boy, and I’m very proud of her; but she does upset me so when she is cross.”

“I was all of a fidge, uncle,” I said laughing.

“So was I, Nat, so was I. But don’t laugh, my boy. It is too serious a thing for smiles. It always puts me in such a dreadful perspiration, Nat, for I don’t like to be angry too. Never be angry with a woman when you grow up, Nat, my boy; women, you see, belong to the weaker sex.”

“Yes, uncle,” I said wonderingly; and then he began to beam and smile again, and rubbed his hands together softly as he looked at our work.

“But you will have to put Polly together again, Nat,” he said at last.

“Put her together again, uncle!” I said in dismay. “Why, it’s like Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall—all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—”

“Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,” said my uncle quite seriously. “But we must put Polly together again, Natty. There’s your aunt, you know.”

“Yes, uncle, there’s Aunt Sophia,” I said ruefully; “but the feathers are all out of the skin, and the skin’s all in pieces. I’m afraid she will never look decent, try how I may.”

My uncle rubbed his head softly.

“It does look as if it would be a terrible job, Nat,” he said; “but it must be done, and I’m afraid if you made her look as well as she did when we found her, your aunt wouldn’t be satisfied.”

“I’m sure I couldn’t make her look as well as she did then, uncle,” I replied despairingly; “but I’ll try.”

“Yes, do, my boy. That’s right, try. And look here, Nat—I’ll help you.”

I was very glad to hear Uncle Joseph say that, though I did not think he would be able to help me much; and so as to lose no time we began at once to think the matter out, and uncle said yes to all I proposed to do, which was his idea of helping me; for he said I drove in the nails and he clinched them.

After a bit of thinking I came to the conclusion that I have since learned was the very best one I could have arrived at, that the proper thing to do was to fix on Polly’s wire legs as neatly made a body as I could, and then to stick the feathers all over it in their proper places. But then what was the body to be made of? Clay or putty could be easily moulded into shape, but they would be too heavy. Papier-mâché would have been the thing, but I did not know how to make it, so at last I decided to cut out a body from a piece of wood.

“The very thing, Nat,” said my uncle. “Stop a minute, my boy, till I’ve lit my pipe, and then we’ll begin.”

I waited till my uncle said he was ready, and then we did begin, that is to say, he went on smoking while I sawed off a piece of wood that I thought would do.

I need not tell you all about that task; how laboriously I carved away day after day at that piece of wood with my pocket-knife, breaking one in the work; how I mounted the piece of wood at last on wires, and then proceeded, by the help of a little glue-pot that my uncle bought on purpose, to stick Polly’s feathers on again. By the way, I think I fastened on her wings with tin tacks. It was a very, very long job; but at every stage my uncle sat and expressed his approval, and every spare hour was spent in the tool-house, where I patiently worked away.

I grew very tired of my task, but felt that I must finish it, and I have often thought since what a splendid lesson it proved.

And so I worked on and on, sticking little patches of skin here, feathers there, and I am afraid making such blunders as would have driven a naturalist frantic, for I am sure that patches of feathers that belonged to the breast were stuck on the back, and smooth back feathers ornamented Polly’s breast. The head was tolerably complete, so that was allowed to hang on the nail in the wall, where it seemed to watch the process of putting together again; but the tail was terrible, and often made me feel ready to give up in despair.

But here my uncle really did help me, for when ever he saw me out of heart and tired he used to say:

“Suppose we give up now for a bit, Nat, and have a run.”

Then when the time came for another try at Polly we used to laugh and say that we would have another turn at Humpty Dumpty.

At last—and I don’t know how long it took—the time had come when Polly’s head was to cease from staring down in a ghastly one-eyed way at her body, and it was to come down and crown the edifice.

I remember it so well. It was a bright, sunny half-holiday, when I was longing to be off fishing, but with Humpty Dumpty incomplete there was no fishing for me, especially as Aunt Sophia had been asking how soon her pet was to be finished.

“Come along, Nat,” said Uncle Joseph, “and we’ll soon finish it.”

I smiled rather sadly, for I did not feel at all sanguine. I made the glue-pot hot, however, and set to work, rearranging a patch or two of feathers that looked very bad, and then I stared at uncle and he gazed at me.

I believe we both had some kind of an idea that the sort of feather tippet that hung from Polly’s head would act as a cloak to hide all the imperfections that were so plain. Certainly some such hopeful idea was in my brain, though I did not feel sanguine.

“Now then, my boy, now then,” cried my uncle, as at last I took Polly’s head from the nail, and he rubbed his hands with excitement. “We shall do it at last.”

I fancy I can smell the hot steaming glue now as I went about that day’s work, for I kept on stirring it up and thinking how much I ought to put in the bird’s neck and upon its skull to keep from soiling and making sticky all its feathers. It took some consideration, and all the while dear Uncle Joe watched me as attentively as if I were going to perform some wonderful operation. He even held his breath as I began to glue the head, and uttered a low sigh of relief as I replaced the brush in the pot.

Then as carefully as I could I fixed the head in its place, securing it the more tightly by driving a long thin stocking-needle right through the skull into the wood.

And there it was, the result of a month’s spare time and labour, and I drew back to contemplate this effort of genius.

I can laugh now as I picture the whole scene. The rough bench on which stood the bird, the wall on which hung the garden tools, Uncle Joe with his pipe in one hand, his other resting upon his knee as he sat upon an upturned tub gazing straight at me, and I seem to see my own boyish self gazing at my task till I utterly broke down with the misery and vexation of my spirit, laying my head upon my arms and crying like a girl.

For a few minutes Uncle Joe was so taken aback that he sat there breathing hard and staring at me.

“Why, Nat—Nat, my boy,” he said at last, as he got down off the tub and stood there patting my shoulders. “What is the matter, my boy; are you poorly?”

“No—no—no,” I sobbed. “It’s horrid, horrid, horrid!”

“What’s horrid, Natty?” he said.

“That dreadful bird. Oh, uncle,” I cried passionately, “I knew I couldn’t do it when I began.”

“The bird? What! Humpty Dumpty? What! Polly? Why, my boy, she’s splendid, and your aunt will be so—”

“She’s not,” I cried, flashing into passion. “She isn’t like a bird at all. I know how soft and rounded and smooth birds are; and did you ever see such a horrid thing as that? It’s a beast, uncle! It’s a regular guy! It’s a—oh, oh!”

In my rage of disappointment at the miserable result of so much hard work I tore the lump of feathered wood from the bench, dashed it upon the ground, and stamped upon it. Then my passion seemed to flash away as quickly as it had come, and I stood staring at Uncle Joe and Uncle Joe stared at me.

Chapter Six.

A Piece of Deceit that was not carried out.

For a few minutes neither of us spoke. Uncle Joe seemed to be astounded and completely taken off his balance. He put on his glasses and took them off over and over again. He laid down his pipe and rubbed his hands first and then his face with his crimson silk handkerchief, ending by taking off his glasses and rolling them in the handkerchief, flipping them afterwards under the bench all amongst the broken flower-pots. And all the time I felt a prey to the bitterest remorse, and as if I had done something so wicked that I could never be forgiven again.

“Oh, uncle! dear Uncle Joe,” I cried passionately. “I am so—so sorry.”

“Sorry, Nat!” he said, taking my outstretched hands, and then drawing me to his breast, holding me there and patting my back with both his hands. “Sorry, Nat! yes, that’s what I felt, my boy. It was such a pity, you know.”

“Oh, no, Uncle Joe,” I cried, looking down at my work. “It was horrible, and I’ve been more ashamed of it every day.”

“Have you, Nat, my boy?” he said. “Oh, yes, uncle, but I kept on hoping that—that somehow—somehow it would come better.”

“That’s what I’ve been hoping, my boy,” he said, “for you did try very hard.”

“Yes, uncle, I tried very, very hard, but it never did come better.”

“No, my boy, you are quite right; it never did come any better, but I hoped it would when you put on its head.”

“So did I, uncle, but it only seemed to make it look more ridiculous, and it wasn’t a bit like a bird.”

“No, my boy, it wasn’t a bit like a bird,” he said weakly.

“Then why did you say it was capital, uncle?” I cried sharply.

“Well, my boy, because—because I—that is—I wanted to encourage you, and,” he cried more confidently, “it was capital for you.”

“Oh, Uncle Joe, it was disgraceful, and I don’t know what aunt would have said.”

“I don’t know what she will say now,” said my uncle ruefully, as he gazed down at Humpty Dumpty’s wreck, where it lay crushed into the dust. “I’m afraid she’ll be very cross. You see I half told her that it would be done to-day, and I’m afraid—”

“Oh, uncle, why did you tell her that?” I said reproachfully.

“Well, my boy, you see she had been remonstrating a little about our being out here so much, and I’m afraid I have been preparing her for a surprise.”

“And now she’ll be more cross than ever, uncle,” I said, picking up the bird.

“Yes, my boy, now she’ll be more cross than ever. It’s a very bad job, Nat, and I don’t like to see you show such a temper as that.”

“I’m very sorry, Uncle Joe,” I said humbly. “I didn’t mean to fly out like that. It’s just like Jem Boxhead at our school.”

“Does he fly out into tempers like that, Nat?”

“Yes, uncle, often.”

“It’s a very bad job, my boy, and I never saw anything of the kind before in you. It isn’t a disease, temper isn’t, or I should think you had caught it. You couldn’t catch a bad temper, you know, my boy. But don’t you think, Natty, we might still manage to put Humpty Dumpty together again?”

“No, uncle,” I said, “it’s impossible;” and I know now that it was an impossibility from the first, for my hours of experience have taught me that I had engaged upon a hopeless task.

He took out his crimson handkerchief, and reseating himself upon the tub began wiping his face and hands once more.

“You’ve made me very hot, Natty,” he said. “What is to be done?”

“I don’t know, uncle,” I said dolefully. “But are you very cross with me?”

“Cross, my boy? No. I was only thinking how much you are like my poor sister, your dear mother, who would go into a temper like that sometimes when we were boy and girl.”

“Please, uncle,” I said, laying my hand upon his arm, “I’ll try very hard not to go into a temper again like that.”

“Yes, yes, do, my boy,” he said, taking my hand in his and speaking very affectionately. “Don’t give way to temper, my boy, it’s a bad habit. But I’m not sorry, Nat, I’m not a bit sorry, my dear boy, to see that you’ve got some spirit in you like your poor mother. She was so different to me, Nat. I never had a bit of spirit, and people have always done as they pleased with me.”

I could not help thinking about my aunt just then, but I said nothing, and it was Uncle Joe who began again about the parrot.

“So you think we could not put Humpty Dumpty together again, Nat?”

“No, uncle,” I said despairingly, “I’m sure we could not. It’s all so much lost time.”

“There’s plenty more time to use, Nat, for some things,” he said dreamily, “but not for doing our work, and—and, my boy, after your aunt has let us be out here so much, I’m afraid that I dare not tell her of our failure.”

“Then what’s to be done, uncle?” I said.

“I’m afraid, my boy, we must be very wicked and deceitful.”

“Deceitful, uncle?”

“Yes, my boy, or your aunt will never forgive us.”

“Why, what do you mean, uncle?” I said.

“I’ve been thinking, my boy, that I might go out somewhere and buy a grey parrot—one already stuffed. I dare not face her without.”

I felt puzzled, and with a strong belief upon me that we were going to do a very foolish thing.

“Wouldn’t it be better to go and tell Aunt Sophia frankly that we have had an accident, and spoiled the parrot, uncle?”

“Yes, my boy, much better,” he said, “very much better; but—but I dare not do it, Nat, I dare not do it.”

I felt as if I should like to say, “I’ll do it, uncle,” but I, too, shrank from the task, and we were saved from the underhanded proceeding by the appearance of my aunt at the tool-house door.

My unfortunate attempt at restuffing poor Polly made me less a favourite than ever with Aunt Sophia, who never let a day pass without making some unpleasant allusion to my condition there. My uncle assured me that I was in no wise dependent upon them, for my mother’s money gave ample interest for my education and board, but Aunt Sophia always seemed to ignore that fact, so that but for Uncle Joe’s kindness I should have been miserable indeed.

The time slipped away, and I had grown to be a tall strong boy of fifteen; and in spite of my aunt’s constant fault-finding I received sufficient encouragement from Uncle Joe to go on with my natural history pursuits, collecting butterflies and beetles, birds’ eggs in the spring, and stuffing as many birds as I could obtain.

Some of these latter were very roughly done, but I had so natural a love for the various objects of nature, that I find the birds I did in those days, rough as they were, had a very lifelike appearance. I had only to ask my uncle for money to buy books or specimens and it was forthcoming, and so I went on arranging and rearranging, making a neatly written catalogue of my little museum in the tool-house, and always helped by Uncle Joe’s encouragement.

I suppose I was a strange boy, seeking the companionship of my school-fellows but very little, after my aunt had refused to let any of them visit me, or to let me go to their homes. I was driven thus, as it were, upon my own resources, and somehow I did not find mine to be an unhappy life; in fact so pleasant did it seem that when the time came for me to give it up I was very sorry to leave it, and felt ready to settle down to aunt’s constant fault-finding for the sake of dear tender-hearted old Uncle Joe, who was broken completely in spirit at my having to go.

“But it’s right, Nat, my boy, quite right,” he said, “and you would only be spoiled if you stayed on here. It is time now that you began to think of growing to be a man, and I hope and pray that you’ll grow into one of whom I can be proud.”

Chapter Seven.

The Return of the Wanderer.

One day when I came home from school I was surprised to find a tall dark gentleman in the drawing-room with my uncle and aunt. He was so dark that he looked to me at first to be a foreigner, and his dark keen eyes and long black beard all grizzled with white hairs made him so very different to Uncle Joseph that I could not help comparing one with the other.

“This is Master Nathaniel, I suppose,” said the stranger in a quick sharp way, just as if he was accustomed to order people about.

“Yes, that’s Joseph’s nephew,” said my aunt tartly, “and a nice boy he is.”

“You mean a nasty one,” I said to myself, as I coloured up, “but you needn’t have told a stranger.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Joseph, “he is a very nice boy, Richard, and I’m very proud of him.”

My aunt gave a very loud sniff.

“Suppose we shake hands then, Nathaniel,” said the stranger, whom I immediately guessed to be my Aunt Sophia’s brother Richard, who was a learned man and a doctor, I had heard.

He seemed to order me to shake hands with him, and I went up and held out mine, gazing full in his dark eyes, and wondering how much he knew.

“Well done, youngster,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze that hurt me ever so, but I would not flinch. “I like to see a boy able to look one full in the face.”

“Oh! he has impudence enough for anything,” said my aunt.

“Oh! has he?” said our visitor smiling. “Well, I would rather see a boy impudent than a milksop.”

“Nat was never impudent to me,” said my uncle, speaking up for me in a way that made my aunt stare.

“I see—I see,” said our visitor. “You never were fond of boys, Sophy.”

“No, indeed,” said my aunt.

“Cats and dogs were always more in your way,” said our visitor. “Get out!”

This was to Nap, who had been smelling about him for some time, and he gave him so rough a kick that the dog yelped out, and in a moment the temper that I had promised my uncle to keep under flashed forth again, as I caught at Nap to protect him, and flushing scarlet—

“Don’t kick our dog,” I said sharply.

I’ve often thought since that my aunt ought to have been pleased with me for taking the part of my old friend and her favourite, but she turned upon me quickly.

“Leave the room, sir, directly. How dare you!” she cried. “To dare to speak to a visitor like that!” and I had to go out in disgrace, but as I closed the door I saw our visitor laughing and showing his white teeth.

“I shall hate him,” I said to myself, as I put my hands in my pockets and began to wander up and down the garden; but I had hardly gone to and fro half a dozen times before I heard voices, and I was about to creep round by the side path and get indoors out of the way when Mr Richard Burnett caught sight of me, and shouted to me to come.

I went up looking hurt and ill-used as he was coming down the path with Uncle Joe; but he clapped me on the shoulder, swung me round, and keeping his arm half round my neck, walked me up and down with them, and I listened as he kept on telling Uncle Joseph about where he had been.

“Five years in South America, wandering about away from civilisation, is a long time, Joe; but I shall soon be off again.”

I pricked up my ears.

“Back to South America, Dick?”

“No, my dear boy, I shall go in another direction this time.”

“Where shall you go this time, sir?” I said eagerly.

“Eh? where shall I go, squire?” he said sharply. “Right away to Borneo and New Guinea, wherever I am likely to collect specimens and find new varieties.”

“Do you collect, sir?” I said excitedly.

“To be sure I do, my boy. Do you?” he added with a smile.

“Yes, sir, all I can.”

“Oh yes! he has quite a wonderful collection down in the tool-house, Richard. Come and see.”

Our visitor smiled in such a contemptuous way that I coloured up again, and felt as if I should have liked to cry, “You sha’n’t see them to make fun of my work.” But by that time we were at the tool-house door, and just inside was my cabinet full of drawers that uncle had let the carpenter make for me, and my cases and boxes, and the birds I had stuffed. In fact by that time, after a couple of years collecting, the tools had been ousted to hang in another shed, and the tool-house was pretty well taken up with my lumber.

“Why, hallo!” cried our visitor; “who stuffed those birds?”

I answered modestly enough that it was I.

“And what’s in these drawers, eh?” he said, pulling them out sharply one after the other, and then opening my cases.

“Nat’s collections,” said my uncle very proudly. “Here’s his catalogue.”

“Neatly written out—numbered—Latin names,” he said, half to himself. “Why, hallo, young fellow, I don’t wonder that your Aunt Sophia says you are a bad character.”

“But he isn’t, Dick,” said Uncle Joe warmly; “he’s a very good lad, and Sophy don’t mean what she says.”

“She used to tell me I should come to no good in the old days when I began to make a mess at home, Joe,” he said merrily. “Why, Nat, my boy, you and I must be good friends. You would like to come and see my collection, eh?”

“Will you—will you show it to me, sir?” I said, catching him in my excitement by the sleeve.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said drily; “you looked daggers at me because I kicked your aunt’s pet.”

“I couldn’t help it, sir,” I said; “Nap has always been such good friends with me that I didn’t like to see him hurt.”

“Then I beg Nap’s pardon,” he said smiling. “I thought he was only a useless pet; but if he can be a good friend to you he is a better dog than I thought for.”

“He’d be a splendid dog to hunt with, sir, if he had a chance.”

“Would he? Well, I’m glad of it, and you shall come and see my collection, and help me catalogue and arrange them if you like. Here, hi! stop a minute: where are you going?”

“Only to fetch my cap, sir,” I said excitedly, for the idea of seeing the collections of a man who had been five years in South America seemed to set me on fire.

“Plenty of time yet, my boy,” he said, showing white teeth in a pleasant smile; “they are in the docks at Southampton, on board ship. Wait a bit, and you shall see all.”

Chapter Eight.

I find myself a Brother Naturalist.

I stood looking very hard at our visitor, Doctor Burnett, and thought how very different he was to Aunt Sophia. Only a little while before, I had felt as if I must hate him for behaving so badly to Nap, and for talking to me in such a cold, contemptuous way. It had seemed as if he would join with Aunt Sophia in making me uncomfortable, and I thought it would have been so much pleasanter if he had stayed away.

But now, as I stood watching him, he was becoming quite a hero in my eyes, for not only had he been abroad seeing the wonders of the world, but he had suddenly shown a liking for me, and his whole manner was changed.

When he had spoken to me in the house it had been in a pooh-poohing sort of fashion, as if I were a stupid troublesome boy, very much in the way, and as if he wondered at his sister and brother-in-law’s keeping me upon the premises; but now the change was wonderful. The cold distant manner had gone, and he began to talk to me as if he had known me all my life.

“Shall we go round the garden again, Dick?” said my uncle, after standing there nodding and smiling at me, evidently feeling very proud that his brother-in-law should take so much notice of the collection.

“No,” said our visitor sharply. “There, get your pipe, Joe, and you can sit down and look on while I go over Nat’s collection. We naturalists always compare notes—eh, Nat?”

I turned scarlet with excitement and pleasure, while Uncle Joseph rubbed his hands, beaming with satisfaction, and proceeded to take down his long clay pipe from where it hung upon two nails in the wall, and his little tobacco jar from a niche below the rafters.

“That’s what I often do here, Dick,” he said; “I sit and smoke and give advice—when it is asked, and Nat goes on with his stuffing and preserving.”

“Then now, you may sit down and give advice—when it is asked,” said our visitor smiling, “while Nat and I compare notes. Who taught you how to stuff birds, Nat?”

“I—I taught myself, sir,” I replied.

“Taught yourself?” he said, pinching one of my birds—a starling that I had bought for a penny of a man with a gun.

“Yes, sir; I pulled Polly to pieces.”

“You did what?” he cried, bursting into a roar of laughter. “Why, who was Polly—one of the maids?”

“Oh no, sir! Aunt Sophy’s stuffed parrot.”

“Well, really, Nat,” he said, laughing most heartily, “you’re the strangest boy I ever met.”

“Am I, sir?” I said, feeling a little chilled again, for he seemed to be laughing unpleasantly at me.

“That you are, Nat; but I like strange boys. So you pulled Polly to pieces, eh? And found out where the naturalists put the wires, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how do you preserve the skins?”

“With arsenical soap, sir.”

“That’s right; so do I.”

“But it’s very dangerous stuff, sir,” I said eagerly.

“Not if it is properly used, my boy,” he said, taking up bird after bird and examining it carefully. “A fire is a very dangerous thing if you thrust your hand into it, and Uncle Joe’s razors are dangerous things if they are not properly used. You see I don’t trouble them much,” he added smiling.

“No, indeed, sir,” I said, as I glanced at his long beard.

“I don’t have hot water for shaving brought to me, Nat, when I’m at sea, my boy, or out in the jungle. It’s rough work there.”

“But it must be very nice, sir,” I said eagerly.

“Very, my boy, when you lie down to sleep beneath a tree, so hungry that you could eat your boots, and not knowing whether the enemy that attacks you before morning will be a wild beast, a poisonous serpent, or a deadly fever.”

“But it must be very exciting, sir,” I cried.

“Very, my boy,” he said drily. “Yes: that bird’s rough, but I like the shape. There’s nature in it—at least as much as you can get by imitation. Look, Joe, there’s a soft roundness about that bird. It looks alive. Some of our best bird-stuffers have no more notion of what a bird is like in real life than a baby. What made you put that tomtit in that position, Nat?” he said, turning sharply to me.

“That?—that’s how they hang by the legs when they are picking the buds, sir,” I said nervously, for I was quite startled by his quick, sudden way.

“To be sure it is, Nat, my boy. That’s quite right. Always take nature as your model, and imitate her as closely as you can. Some of the stuffed birds at the British Museum used to drive me into a rage. Glad to see you have the true ring in you, my boy.”

I hardly knew what he meant by the “true ring”, but it was evidently meant kindly, and I felt hotter than ever; but my spirits rose as I saw how pleased Uncle Joe was.

“You can stuff birds, then, sir?” I said, after a pause, during which our visitor made himself very busy examining everything I had.

“Well, yes, Nat, after a fashion. I’m not clever at it, for I never practise mounting. I can make skins.”

“Make skins, sir?”

“Yes, my boy. Don’t you see that when I am in some wild place shooting and collecting, every scrap of luggage becomes a burden.”

“Yes, sir; of course,” I said, nodding my head sagely, “especially if the roads are not good.”

“Roads, my boy,” he said laughing; “the rivers and streams are the only roads in such places as I travel through. Then, of course, I can’t use wires and tow to distend my birds, so we make what we call skins. That is to say, after preparing the skin, all that is done is to tie the long bones together, and fill the bird out with some kind of wild cotton, press the head back on the body by means of a tiny paper cone or sugar-paper, put a band round the wings, and dry the skin in the sun.”

“Yes, I know, sir,” I cried eagerly; “and you pin the paper round the bird with a tiny bamboo skewer, and put another piece of bamboo through from head to tail.”

“Why, how do you know?” he said wonderingly.

“Oh! Nat knows a deal,” said Uncle Joe, chuckling. “We’re not such stupid people as you think, Dick, even if we do stay at home.”

“I’ve got a skin or two, sir,” I said, “and they were made like that.”

As I spoke I took the two skins out of an old cigar-box.

“Oh! I see,” he said, as he took them very gently and smoothed their feathers with the greatest care. “Where did you get these, Nat?”

“I bought them with my pocket-money in Oxford Street, sir,” I said, as Uncle Joe, who had not before seen them, leaned forward.

“And do you know what they are, my boy?” said our visitor.

“No, sir; I have no books with pictures of them in, and the man who sold them to me did not know. Can you tell me, sir?”

“Yes, Nat, I think so,” he said quietly. “This pretty dark bird with the black and white and crimson plumage is the rain-bird—the blue-billed gaper; and this softly-feathered fellow with the bristles at the side of his bill is a trogon.”

“A trogon, sir?”

“Yes, Nat, a trogon; and these little bamboo skewers tell me directly that the birds came from somewhere in the East.”

I looked at him wonderingly.

“Yes, Nat,” he continued, “from the East, where the bamboo is used for endless purposes. It is hard, and will bear a sharp point, and is so abundant that the people seem to have no end to the use they make of it.”

“And have you seen birds like these alive, sir?”

“No, Nat, but I hope to do so before long. That blue-billed gaper probably came from Malacca, and the trogon too. See how beautifully its wings are pencilled, and how the bright cinnamon of its back feathers contrasts with the bright crimson of its breast. We have plenty of trogons out in the West; some of them most gorgeous fellows, with tails a yard long, and of the most resplendent golden metallic green.”

“And humming-birds, sir?”

“Thousands, my boy; all darting through the air like living gems. The specimens brought home are very beautiful, but they are as nothing compared to those fairy-like little creatures, full of life and action, with the sun flashing from their plumage.”

“And are there humming-birds, sir, in the East?” I cried, feeling my mouth grow dry with excitement and interest.

“No, my boy; but there is a tribe of tiny birds there that we know as sun-birds, almost as beautiful in their plumage, and of very similar habit. I hope to make a long study of their ways, and to get a good collection. I know nothing, however, more attractive to a man who loves nature than to lie down beneath some great plant of convolvulus, or any trumpet-shaped blossom, and watch the humming-birds flashing to and fro in the sunlight. Their scale-like feathers on throat and head reflect the sun rays like so many gems, and their colours are the most gorgeous that it is possible to conceive. But there, I tire you. Why, Joe, your pipe’s out!”

“Please go on, sir,” I said in a hoarse whisper, for, as he spoke, I felt myself far away in some wondrous foreign land, lying beneath the trumpet-flowered tree or plant, gazing at the brilliant little creatures he described.

“Do you like to hear of such things, then?” he said smiling.

“Oh! so much, sir!” I cried; and he went on.

“I believe some of them capture insects at certain times, but as a rule these lovely little birds live upon the honey they suck from the nectaries of these trumpet-shaped blossoms; and their bills are long and thin so that they can reach right to the end. Some of these little creatures make quite a humming noise with their wings, and after darting here and there like a large fly they will seem to stop midway in the air, apparently motionless, but with their wings all the while beating so fast that they are almost invisible. Sometimes one will stop like this just in front of some beautiful flower, and you may see it hang suspended in the air, while it thrusts in its long bill and drinks the sweet honey that forms its food.”

“And can you shoot such little things, sir?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, my boy; it is easy enough to shoot them,” he replied. “The difficulty is to bring them down without hurting their plumage, which is extremely delicate. The Indians shoot them with a blow-pipe and pellets and get very good specimens; but then one is not always with the Indians; and in those hot climates a bird must be skinned directly, so I generally trust to myself and get my own specimens.”

“With a blow-pipe, sir?”

“No, Nat; I have tried, but I never got to be very clever with it. One wants to begin young to manage a blow-pipe well. I always shot my humming-birds with a gun.”

“And shot, sir?”

“Not always, Nat. I have brought them down with the disturbance of the air or the wad of the gun. At other times I have used sand, or in places where I had no sand I have used water.”

“Water!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, and very good it is for the purpose, Nat. A little poured into the barrel of the gun after the powder is made safe with a couple of wads, is driven out in a fine cutting spray, which has secured me many a lovely specimen with its plumage unhurt.”

“But don’t it seem rather cruel to shoot such lovely creatures, Dick?” said Uncle Joe in an apologetic tone.

“Well, yes, it has struck me in that light before now,” said our visitor; “but as I am working entirely with scientific views, and for the spread of the knowledge of the beautiful occupants of this world, I do not see the harm. Besides, I never wantonly destroy life. And then, look here, my clear Joe, if you come to think out these things you will find that almost invariably the bird or animal you kill has passed its life in killing other things upon which it lives.”

“Ye–es,” said Uncle Joe, “I suppose it has.”

“You wouldn’t like to shoot a blackbird, perhaps?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Uncle Joe. “They are the wickedest thieves that ever entered a garden; aren’t they, Nat?”

“Yes, uncle, they are a nuisance,” I said.

“Well, suppose you killed a blackbird, Joe,” continued our visitor; “he has spent half his time in killing slugs and snails, and lugging poor unfortunate worms out of their holes; and it seems to me that the slug or the worm is just as likely to enjoy its life as the greedy blackbird, whom people protect because he has an orange bill and sings sweetly in the spring.”

“Ye–es,” said my uncle, looking all the while as if he were terribly puzzled, while I sat drinking in every word our visitor said, feeling that I had never before heard any one talk like that.

“For my part,” continued our visitor, “I never destroy life wantonly; and as for you, young man, you may take this for a piece of good advice—never kill for the sake of killing. Let it be a work of necessity—for food, for a specimen, for your own protection, but never for sport. I don’t like the word, Nat; there is too much cruelty in what is called sport.”

“But wouldn’t you kill lions and tigers, sir?” I said.

“Most decidedly, my boy. That is the struggle for life. I’d sooner kill a thousand tigers, Nat, than one should kill me,” he said laughing; “and for my part—”

“Joseph, I’m ashamed of you. Nathaniel, this is your doing, you naughty boy,” cried my aunt, appearing at the door. “It is really disgraceful, Joseph, that you will come here to sit and smoke; and as for you, Nathaniel, what do you mean, sir, by dragging your un—, I mean a visitor, down into this nasty, untidy place, and pestering him with your rubbish?”

“Oh, it was not Nathaniel’s doing, Sophy,” said our visitor smiling, as he rose and drew aunt’s arm through his, “but mine; I’ve been making the boy show me his treasures. There, come along and you and I will have a good long chat now. Nat, my boy, I sha’n’t forget what we said.”

Chapter Nine.

Uncle Dick’s Boxes.

“I’m afraid we’ve made your aunt very cross, Nat, my boy,” said Uncle Joe, rubbing his hands softly, and looking perplexed and troubled. “Do you think, Nat, that I have been leading you wrong?”

“I hope not, uncle,” I said, “and I don’t think so, for it has been very nice out here in the toolshed, and we have enjoyed ourselves so.”

“Yes, my boy, we have, very much, indeed, but I’m afraid your aunt never forgave us for not putting Humpty Dumpty together again.”

“But, uncle,” I said, “isn’t it unreasonable of Aunt Sophia to expect us to do what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not do?”

He looked at me for a few minutes without speaking, and then he began to smile very slightly, then a little more and a little more, till, instead of looking dreadfully serious, his face was as happy as it could be. Then he began to laugh very heartily, and I laughed too, till the tears were in our eyes.

“Of—of course it was, Nat,” he cried, chuckling and coughing together. “We couldn’t do what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men didn’t manage, Nat, and—yes, my dear, we’re coming.”

Uncle Joe jumped up and went out of the tool-house, for my aunt’s voice could be heard telling us to come in.

“Hush!” he whispered, with a finger on his lips. “Make haste in, Nat, and run up to your room and wash your hands.”

I followed him in, and somehow, whenever Doctor Burnett was in the room, my aunt did not seem so cross, especially as her brother took a good deal of notice of me, and kept on asking me questions.

I soon found, to my great delight, that he was going to stay with us till he started for Singapore, a place whose name somehow set me thinking about Chinese people and Indian rajahs, but that was all; the rest was to me one great mystery, and I used to lie in bed of a night and wonder what sort of a place it could be.

Every day our visitor grew less cool and distant in his ways, and at last my aunt said pettishly:

“Well, really, Richard, it is too bad; this is the third morning this week you have kept that boy away from school by saying you wanted him. How do you expect his education to get on?”

“Get on?” said Doctor Burnett; “why, my dear sister, he is learning the whole time he is with me; I’ll be bound to say that he has picked up more geography since he has been with me than he has all the time he has been to school.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” said my aunt snappishly.

“Then I do,” he said. “Let the boy alone, he is learning a great deal; and I shall want him more this next week.”

“You’d better take him away from school altogether,” said my aunt angrily.

“Well, yes,” said the doctor quietly; “as it is so near his holidays, he may as well stop away the rest of this half.”

“Richard!” cried my aunt as I sat there pinching my legs to keep from looking pleased.

“He will have to work hard at helping me with my collections, which are on the way here, I find, from a letter received this morning. There will be a great deal of copying and labelling, and that will improve his writing, though he does write a fair round hand.”

“But it will be neglecting his other studies,” cried my aunt.

“But then he will be picking up a good deal of Latin, for I shall explain to him the meaning of the words as he writes them, and, besides, telling him as much as I know of natural history and my travels.”

“And what is to become of the boy then?” cried my aunt. “I will not have him turn idler, Richard.”

“Well, if you think I have turned idler, Sophy,” he said laughing, and showing his white teeth, “all I can say is, that idling over natural history and travelling is very hard work.”

“But the boy must not run wild as—”

“I did? There, say it out, Sophy,” said her brother. “I don’t mind, my dear; some people look upon everything they do not understand as idling.”

“I think I understand what is good for that boy,” said my aunt shortly.

“Of course you do,” said the doctor, “and you think it will do him good to help me a bit, Sophy. Come along, Nat, my boy, we are to have the back-room for the chests, so we must make ready, for they will be here to-morrow.”

“Oh, Doctor Burnett,” I cried as soon as we were alone.

“Suppose you call me Uncle Richard for the future, my boy,” he said. “By and by, when we get to know each other better, it will be Uncle Dick. Why not at once, eh?”

“I—I shouldn’t like to call you that, sir,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I—I hardly know, sir, only that you seem so clever and to know so much.”

“Then it shall be Uncle Dick at once,” he said, laughing merrily; “for every day that you are with me, Nat, you will be finding out more and more that I am not so clever as you think.”

So from that day it was always Uncle Dick, and as soon as the great chests arrived we set to work.

I shall never forget those great rough boxes made of foreign wood, nor the intense interest with which I watched them as they were carried in upon the backs of the stout railway vanmen and set carefully in the large back-room.

There were twenty of them altogether, and some were piled upon the others as if they were building stones, till at last the men’s book had been signed, the money paid for carriage, and Uncle Joe, Uncle Dick, and I sat there alone staring at the chests and wondering at their appearance.

For they were battered, and bruised, and chipped away in splinters, so that they looked very old indeed, though, as my uncle told me, there was not one there more than five years old, though they might have been fifty.

Every one had painted upon it in large white letters:

“Dr Burnett, FZS, London,” and I wondered what FZS might mean. Then I noticed that the chests were all numbered, and I was longing intensely for them to be opened, when Uncle Dick, as I suppose I must call him now, made me start by crying out:

“Screw-driver!”

I jumped up and ran to Uncle Joe’s tool-box for the big screw-driver, and was back with it in a very short time, Uncle Dick laughing heartily as he saw my excitement.

“Thank you, Nat, that will do,” he said. “It will be nice and handy for me to-morrow morning.”

“Ha—ha—ha!” he laughed directly after, as he saw my blank disappointed face. “Did you think I was going to open the cases to-day, Nat?”

“I did hope so, sir,” I said stoutly.

“Then I will,” he cried, “for your being so frank. Now then, which shall it be?”

“I should begin with number one, sir,” I said.

“And so we will, Nat. Nothing like order. Look here, my boy. Here is my book for cataloguing.”

He showed me a large blank book ruled with lines, and on turning it over I found headings here and there under which the different specimens were to be placed.

But I could not look much at the book while “our great traveller”, as Uncle Joe used to call him to me, was busy at work with the screw-driver, taking out the great screws, one after another, and laying them in a box.

“Now, Nat,” he said, “suppose after going through all my trouble I find that half my specimens are destroyed, what shall I do?”

“I don’t know, uncle,” I said. “I know what I should do.”

“What, my boy?”

“Go and try and find some more.”

“A good plan,” he said laughing; “and when it means journeying ten or twelve thousand miles, my boy, to seek for more, it becomes a serious task.”

All this while he was working away at the screws, till they were half out and loose enough for me to go on turning them with my fingers, and this, after the first two or three, I did till we came to the last, when my uncle stopped and pretended that it was in so tight that it would not turn.

“Let me try, uncle,” I cried.

“You? Nonsense! boy. There, I think we shall have to give up for to-day.”

He burst out laughing the next moment at my doleful face, gave the screw a few rapid twists; and in a few more moments it was out, and he took hold of the lid.

“Ready?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, quite ready,” said Uncle Joe, who was nearly as much excited as I was myself; and then the lid was lifted and we eagerly looked inside.

There was not much to see, only what looked like another lid, held in its place by a few stout nails. These were soon drawn out though, the second lid lifted, and still there was nothing to see but cotton-wool, which, however, sent out a curious spicy smell, hot and peppery, and mixed with camphor.

Then the treat began, for Uncle Dick removed a few layers of cotton-wool, and there were the birds lying closely packed, and so beautiful in plumage that we—that is, Uncle Joe and I—uttered a cry of delight.

I had never before seen anything so beautiful, I thought, as the gorgeous colours of the birds before me, or they seemed to be so fresh and bright and different to anything I had seen in the museum, Uncle Dick having taken care, as I afterwards found, to reject any but the most perfect skins; and these were before me ready to be taken out and laid carefully upon some boards he had prepared for the purpose, and as I helped him I kept on asking questions till some people would have been answered out. Uncle Dick, however, encouraged me to go on questioning him, and I quickly picked up the names of a good many of the birds.

Now it would be a magnificent macaw all blue and scarlet. Then a long-tailed paroquet of the most delicate green, and directly after quite a trayful of the most lovely little birds I had ever seen. They were about the size of chaffinches for the most part; but while some were of the richest crimson, others were blue and green and violet, and a dozen other shades of colour mixed up in the loveliest way.

“Now what are those, Nat?” said my uncle.

“I don’t know, sir,” I very naturally said.

“What would they be if they were in England and only plain-coloured?”

“Why, I should have said by their beaks, uncle, that they were finches, and lived on seed.”

“Finches they are, Nat, and you are quite right to judge them by their beaks.”

“But I didn’t know that there were finches abroad, Uncle Dick,” I said.

“Then you know now, my boy, and by degrees you will learn that there are finches all over the world, and sparrows, and thrushes, and cuckoos, and larks, and hawks, crows, and all the other birds that you find in England.”

“Why, I thought they were all different, uncle,” I said.

“So most people think,” he said, as he went on unpacking the birds; “the difference is that while our British finches are sober coloured, those of hot countries are brilliant in plumage. So are the crow family and the thrushes, as you will see, while some of the sparrows and tits are perfect dandies.”

“Why, I thought foreign birds were all parrots and humming-birds, and things like that.”

“Well, we have those birds different abroad, Nat,” he replied, “and as I tell you the principal difference is in the gorgeous plumes.”

“But such birds as birds of paradise, uncle?” I said.

“Well, what should you suppose a bird of paradise to be?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, should you think it were a finch, Nat?”

“No, uncle,” I said at once.

“Well, it isn’t a pheasant, is it?”

“Oh no!”

“What then?”

I stood with a tanager in one hand, a lovely manakin in the other, thinking.

“They couldn’t be crows,” I said, “because—”

“Because what?”

“I don’t know, uncle.”

“No, of course you do not, my boy, for crows they really are.”

“What! birds of paradise with their lovely buff plumes, uncle?”

“Yes, birds of paradise with their lovely buff and amber plumes, my boy; they are of the crow family, just as our jays, magpies, and starlings are. You would be surprised, my boy, when you came to study and investigate these matters, how few comparatively are the families and classes to which birds belong, and how so many of the most gorgeous little fellows are only showily-dressed specimens of the familiar flutterers you have at home. Look at that one there, just on the top.”

“What! that lovely orange and black bird, uncle?” I said, picking up the one he pointed at, and smoothing its rich plumage.

“Yes, Nat,” he said; “what is it?”

Uncle Joe took his pipe from his lips, and looked at it very solemnly.

“’Tisn’t a parrot,” he said, “because it has not got a hooky beak.”

“No, it isn’t a parrot, uncle,” I exclaimed; “its beak is more like a starling’s.”

“If it were a starling, what family would it belong to?”

I stopped to think, and then recollected what he had said a short time before.

“A crow, uncle.”

“Quite right, my boy; but that bird is not one of the crows. Try again.”

“I’m afraid to try, uncle,” I said.

“Why, my boy?”

“Because I shall make some silly mistake.”

“Then make a mistake, Nat, and we will try to correct it. We learn from our blunders.”

“It looks to me something of the same shape as a thrush or blackbird, sir,” I said.

“And that’s what it is, my boy. That bird is an oriole—the orange oriole; and there is another, the yellow oriole. Both thrushes, Nat, and out in the East there are plenty more of most beautiful colours, especially the ground-thrushes. But there is someone come to call us to feed, I suppose. We must go now.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “what a pity! we seem to have just begun.”

All the same we had been at work for a very long time, so hands were washed, and we all went in to dinner.

Chapter Ten.

All amongst the Bird Skins.

My aunt waylaid me with a very unpleasant task directly after dinner, but Uncle Dick saw my disappointment, and said that he must have me, so I escaped, and, to my great delight, we went at once to his room to go on unpacking the birds, my excitement and wonder increasing every minute. I was rather disappointed with some of the skins, for they were as plain and ordinary looking as sparrows or larks; but Uncle Dick seemed to set great store by them, and said that some of the plainest were most valuable for their rarity.

Uncle Joe sat and looked on, saying very little, while Uncle Dick and I did the unpacking and arranging, laying the beautiful skins out in rows upon the boards and shelves.

“They wanted unpacking,” said Uncle Dick, “for some of them are quite soft and damp with exposure to the sea air. Well, Nat, what is it?”

“I was hoping to find some birds of paradise, uncle,” I replied.

“Then your hopes will be disappointed, my boy, for the simple reason that my travels have been in Florida, Mexico, Central America, Peru, and Brazil, with a short stay of a few months in the West Indies.”

“And are there no birds of paradise there, uncle?”

“No, my boy, nor yet within thousands of miles. Birds of paradise, as they are called, are found in the isles of the eastern seas, the Aru Isles and New Guinea.”

“Oh! how I should like to go!” I cried.

“You?” he said laughing. “What for, Nat?”

“To shoot and collect, sir,” I cried; “it must be grand.”

“And dangerous, and wearisome,” he said smiling. “You would soon want to come back to Uncle Joe.”

“I shouldn’t like to leave Uncle Joe,” I said thoughtfully; “but I should like to go all the same. I’d take Uncle Joe with me,” I said suddenly. “He’d help me ever so.”

Uncle Dick laughed, and we went on with our task, which never seemed to weary me, so delighted was I with the beauty of the birds. As one box was emptied another was begun, and by the time I had finished the second I thought we had exhausted all the beauty of the collection, and said so, but my uncle laughed.

“Why, we have not begun the chatterers yet, Nat,” he said. “Let me see—yes,” he continued, “they should be in that box upon which your uncle’s sitting.”

Uncle Joe solemnly moved to another case and his late seat was opened, the layers of cotton-wool, in this case a little stained with sea-water, removed, and fresh beauties met my gaze.

“There, Nat,” said Uncle Dick; “those are the fruits of a long stay in Central America and the hotter parts of Peru. What do you think of that bird?”

I uttered an exclamation of delight as I drew forth and laid gently in my hand a short stumpy bird that must in life have been about as big as a very thick-set pigeon. But this bird was almost entirely of a rich orange colour, saving its short wings and tail, which were of a cinnamon-brown, and almost hidden by a fringe of curly, crisp orange plumes, while the bird’s beak was covered by the radiating crest, something like a frill, that arched over the little creature’s head.

“Why, nothing could be more beautiful than that, uncle,” I cried. “What is it?”

“The rock manakin, or chatterer,” he replied; “an inhabitant of the hottest and most sterile parts of Central America. Here is another kind that I shot in Peru. You see it is very similar but has less orange about it, and its crest is more like a tuft or shaving-brush than the lovely radiating ornament of the other bird. That is almost like a wheel of feathers in rapid motion.”

“And as orange as an orange,” said Uncle Joe, approvingly.

“I thought we could not find any more beautiful birds in your boxes, uncle,” I said.

“Oh! but we have not done yet, my boy; wait and see.”

We went on with our task, the damp peculiar odour showing that it was high time the cases were emptied.

“Now, Nat, we are coming to the cuckoos,” he said, as I lifted a thin layer of wool.

“It does seem curious for there to be cuckoos in America,” I said.

“I don’t see why, Nat,” he replied, as he carefully arranged his specimens. “You remember I told you it was a cuckoo, probably from Malacca, that you showed me you had bought; well, those you are about to unpack are some of the American representatives of the family. You will see that they are soft-billed birds, with a very wide gape and bristles like moustaches at the sides like thin bars to keep in the captives they take.”

“And what do they capture, sir?” I asked.

“Oh, caterpillars and butterflies and moths, Nat. Soft-bodied creatures. Nature has given each bird suitable bills for its work. Mind how you take out that bird. No: don’t lift it yet. See, that top row must come out after the whole of that layer which is arranged all over the top row’s tails.”

“What! do their tails go right along the box, uncle?” I cried.

“Yes, some of them, my boy. Be careful: those are very tender and delicate birds.”

I lifted one, and held it out to Uncle Joe, who came down from his seat to examine the glories of the bird I had in my hands.

It was something like the cinnamon-brown and crimson bird I had bought, but much larger. Its breast was of a vivid rosy crimson, and its back and head one mass of the most brilliant golden-green. Not the green of a leaf or strand of grass, but the green of glittering burnished metal that flashed and sparkled in the sunshine. It seemed impossible for it to be soft and downy, for each feather looked harsh, hard, and carved out of the brilliant flashing metal, while turn it which way I would it flashed and looked bright.

“Well, Nat,” said Uncle Dick, “what do you say to that?”

“Oh, uncle,” I cried; “it is wonderful! But that cannot be a cuckoo.”

“Why not, Nat? If cuckoos are slaty coloured here and have breasts striped like a hawk, that is no reason why in the hot climates, where the sun burns your skin brown, they should not be brightly coloured in scarlet and green. You have seen that the modest speckled thrush of England has for relatives thrushes of yellow and orange. What has the poor cuckoo done that his hot country friends should not be gay?”

“But do these lovely creatures suck all the little birds’ eggs to make their voices clear?”

“And when they cry ‘cuckoo’ the summer draws near, eh, Nat? No, my boy, I think not. To begin with, I believe that it is all a vulgar error about the cuckoo sucking little birds’ eggs. Doubtless cuckoos have been shot with eggs in their mouths, perhaps broken in the fall, but I think the eggs they carried were their own, which, after laying, they were on their way to put in some other bird’s nest to be hatched, as it is an established fact they do; and because they are very small eggs people think they are those of some other bird that the cuckoo has stolen.”

“Are cuckoos’ eggs small, uncle?” I said.

“Very, my boy, for so large a bird. I have seen them very little larger than the wagtail’s with which they were placed. Then as to their crying ‘cuckoo’ when summer draws near. I have heard their notes, and they live in a land of eternal summer. But go on emptying the case.”

I drew out specimen after specimen, some even more beautiful than the first I had taken from the case, though some were far more sober in their hues; but I had not taken out one yet from the top row. When at last I set one of these free, with his tail quite a yard in length, my admiration knew no bounds.

In colouring it was wonderfully like the first which I have described, but in addition it had a golden-green crest, and the long feathers of the tail were of the same brilliant metallic colour. It seemed to me then—and though now I find beauties in sober hues I do not think I can alter my opinion—one of the loveliest, I should say one of the most magnificent, birds in creation, and when fourteen of these wonderful creatures were laid side by side I could have stopped for hours revelling in their beauties.

“Well, Nat,” said my uncle, who quite enjoyed my thorough admiration, “I should make quite a naturalist of you if I had you with me.”

“Oh, if I could go!” I cried in an excited tone, at which he merely laughed. “I’d give anything to see those birds alive.”

“It requires some work and patience, my boy. I was a whole year in the most inaccessible places hunting for those trogons before I got them.”

“Trogons! Yes, you said they were trogons.”

“Trogon resplendens. Those long-tailed feathers are fitly named, Nat, for they are splendid indeed.”

“Glorious!” I cried enthusiastically; and though we worked for some time longer my help was very poor, on account of the number of times I kept turning to the splendid trogons to examine their beauties again and again.

Chapter Eleven.

My Hopes.

It was a long task, the emptying of those cases, even to get to the end of the birds, and I could not help thinking, as day after day crept by, what a wonderfully patient collector my Uncle Richard must have been. Certainly he had been away for years and had travelled thousands of miles, but the labour to obtain all these birds, and then carefully skin, prepare, and fill them with wool, must have been tremendous.

“And did you shoot them all, uncle?” I asked one day.

“With very few exceptions, my boy,” he replied, laying down his pen for a minute to talk. “I might have bought here and there specimens of the natives, but they are very rough preservers of birds, and I wanted my specimens to be as perfect as could be, as plenty of poor ones come into this country, some of which are little better than rubbish, and give naturalists a miserable idea of the real beauty of the birds in their native homes. But no one can tell the immense amount of labour it cost me to make this collection, as you will see, Nat, when we open this next case.”

Uncle Dick was right. I was astonished as we emptied the next case, which was full of tiny specimens, hundreds upon hundreds of humming-birds, with crests and throats like beautiful precious stones, and all so small that it seemed wonderful how they could have been skinned and preserved.

The more I worked with Uncle Dick the more I wondered, and the stronger grew my desire to follow in his steps. So when we had all the birds out so that they could dry in the warm air of the room, there were the cases full of beetles of all kinds, with glistening horny wing-cases; butterflies so large and beautiful that I used to lean over them, feast my eyes on their colours, and then go into day-dreams, in which I pictured to myself the wonderful far-off lands that produced such creatures, and think and think how it would be possible to go out there all alone, as my uncle had gone, and spend years in collecting these various objects to bring home.

Then I used to wake up again and work hard with my uncle, writing out names in his lists, all as carefully as I could, but of course making plenty of mistakes in the Latin names, while Uncle Joe used to sit and smoke and look on, rarely speaking for fear of interrupting us, till Uncle Dick looked up and started a conversation by way of a rest.

Then all the different birds when thoroughly dry had to be repacked in the boxes, with plenty of camphor and other preservative spices and gums to keep the various insects away, and quite a couple of months had slipped away before we were nearly done.

I ought to have been back at school, but Uncle Dick would not hear of my going, and he seemed to have such influence over my aunt that his word was quite law.

“No, Sophy, I have not half done with him,” he said one evening. “I don’t want to flatter the boy, but he is very valuable to me. I could easily get a clerk or copyist to make out my lists and help me select and rearrange my specimens; but he would do it mechanically. Nat takes an interest in what he is doing, and is a naturalist at heart.”

“But he ought to be going on with his studies,” said Aunt Sophia. “It is quite time he was back at school.”

“He is learning a great deal more than he would at school,” said Uncle Dick; “and his handwriting is a good deal improved. It is more free and quicker.”

“But there are his other studies,” said Aunt Sophia, who was in a bad humour.

“Well, Sophy, he has picked up a great deal of Latin since he has been helping me; knows ten times as much as he did about America and the West Indian Islands, and has picked up a host of little natural history facts, for he is always asking questions.”

“Oh yes,” said my aunt tartly, “he can ask questions enough! so can all boys.”

“But not sensible questions, my dear,” said Uncle Dick smiling; but my aunt kept looking angrily at me as I sat hearing all that was going on.

“Sensible questions, indeed!” she said; “and pray, of what use is it going to be to him that he knows how to stick a pin through a butterfly and leave the poor thing to wriggle to death.”

“Naturalists do not stick pins through butterflies and leave them to wriggle to death,” said Uncle Dick, looking at me and smiling. “Suppose they did, Nat, what would happen?”

“It would be very cruel, uncle, and would spoil the specimen,” I said promptly.

“To be sure it would, Nat.”

“It’s all waste of time, Richard, and the boy shall go back to school.”

“I have not done with Nat yet, Sophy, and I shall be obliged by your ceasing to talk nonsense. It worries me.”

This was said in so quiet and decided a way, and in the voice of one so accustomed to command, that my aunt said:

“Well, Richard, I suppose it must be as you wish.”

“Yes, if you please,” he said quietly. “I have the boy’s interest at heart as much as you.”

As the time went on my aunt and Uncle Dick had two or three little encounters over this, in all of which Aunt Sophy was worsted; Uncle Dick quietly forcing her to let him have his own way in everything.

This set me thinking very much about the future, for I knew that in less than two months’ time Uncle Dick would be off upon his new expedition; one that was to be into the most unfrequented regions of the East Indian Islands, though he had said very little about it in my presence.

“I should like to know all about where you are going, Uncle Dick,” I said one afternoon, as we were working together.

“Why, my boy?”

“Because it is so interesting to know all about foreign lands, uncle.”

“Well, my boy, I think of going from here straight away to Singapore, either with or without a stay at Ceylon. From Singapore I mean to traverse most of the islands along the equator, staying longest at such of them as give me plenty of specimens. Then I shall go on and on to New Guinea, collecting all the time, spending perhaps four or five years out there before I return; that is, if the Malays and Papuans will be kind enough to leave me alone and not throw spears at me.”

“You will go where all the most beautiful birds are plentiful, uncle?” I said.

“Yes, my boy, collecting all the time.”

“Shall you go alone, uncle?” I ventured to say after a pause.

“Yes, my boy, quite alone, except that I shall engage one or two native servants at the places where I stay, and perhaps I shall buy a boat for my own special use to cruise from island to island. Why, what are you sighing about, boy?”

“I was thinking about your going out there, uncle, all alone.”

“Well, my boy, do you suppose I shall be frightened?”

“No, uncle, of course not; but won’t you be dull?”

“I shall be too busy to be dull, my boy. The only likely time for me to be dull is of an evening, and then I shall go to sleep.”

He went on with his work until it grew dark, and then at his request I lit the lamp, placed it down close to his writing, and remained standing there by his elbow wanting to speak but not daring to do so, till he suddenly turned round and looked me in the face.

“Why, Nat, my boy, what’s the matter? Are you unwell?”

“No, uncle,” I said slowly.

“What then? Is anything wrong?”

“I—I was thinking about when you are gone, uncle.”

“Ah! yes, my boy; you’ll have to go back to school then and work away at your ciphering and French. I shall often think about you, Nat, when I am busy over the birds I have shot, skinning and preserving them; and when I come back, Nat, you must help me again.”

“When you come back?” I said dolefully.

“Yes, my lad. Let me see—you are fourteen now. In four or five years you will have grown quite a man. Perhaps you will not care to help me then.”

“Oh, uncle!” I cried; for I could keep it back no longer. It had been the one great thought of my mind night and day for weeks now, and if my prayer were not gratified the whole of my future seemed to be too blank and miserable to be borne.

“Why, what is it, my boy?” he said. “Nat, my lad, don’t be afraid to speak out. Is anything wrong?”

“Yes, uncle,” I panted; for my words seemed to choke me.

“Speak out then, my boy, what is it?”

“You—you are going away, uncle.”

“Well, Nat, you’ve known that for months,” he said, with a smile.

“Yes, uncle; but don’t go by yourself,” I cried. “Take me with you; I won’t want much to eat—I won’t give you any trouble; and I’ll work so very, very hard to help you always, and I could be useful to you. Pray—pray, uncle, take me too.”

He pushed his chair away from the table and sat gazing at me with a frown upon his face, then he jumped up and began walking swiftly up and down the room.

“I would hardly let you know that I was with you, uncle, and there should be nothing you wanted that I would not do. Don’t be angry with me for asking to go, for I do want to go with you so very, very much.”

“Angry, my boy! No, not angry,” he cried; “but no, no; it is impossible.”

“Don’t say that, uncle,” I cried; “I would work so hard.”

“Yes, yes, my boy, I know that; but it would not be just to you to drag you away there to those wild lands to live like a savage half your time.”

“But I should like that, uncle,” I cried excitedly.

“To expose you to risks of voyaging, from the savages, and from disease. No, no, Nat, you must not ask me. It would not do.”

“Oh, uncle!” I cried, with such a pitiful look of disappointment on my face, that he stopped and laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“Why, Nat, my boy,” he said in a soft, gentle way, very different to his usual mode of speaking, “nothing would be more delightful to me than to have you for my companion; not for my servant, to work so hard, but to be my friend, helpmate, and counsellor in all my journeyings. Why, it would be delightful to have you with me, boy, to enjoy with me the discovery of some new specimen.”

“Which we had hunted out in some wild jungle where man had never been before, uncle!”

“Bird or butterfly, it would be all the same, Nat; we should prize it and revel in our discovery.”

“Yes, and I’d race you, uncle, and see which could find most new sorts.”

“And of an evening we could sit in our tent or hut, and skin and preserve, or pin out what we had found during the day, Nat, eh?”

“Oh, uncle, it would be glorious!” I cried excitedly. “And I say—birds of paradise! We would make such a collection of all the loveliest kinds.”

“Then we should have to hunt and fish, Nat, for the pot, for there would be no butchers’ and fishmongers’ shops, lad.”

“Oh! it would be glorious, uncle!” I cried.

“Glorious, my boy!” he said as excitedly as I; “why, we should get on splendidly, and—tut, tut, tut! what an idiot am I! Hold your tongue, sir, it is impossible!”

“Uncle!”

“Here have I been encouraging the boy, instead of crushing the idea at once,” he cried impatiently. “No, no, no, Nat, my boy. It was very foolish of me to speak as I did. You must not think of it any more.”

“Oh! uncle, don’t talk to me like that,” I cried. “Pray, pray take me with you.”

“I tell you no, boy,” he said impatiently. “It would be unjust to you to encourage you to lead such a vagabond life as mine. Say no more about it, sir,” he added harshly. “It is impossible!”

A deep sigh escaped my lips, and then I was silent, for my uncle turned to his writing again, and for the next week he was cold and distant to me, while I went on with my task in a dull, spiritless manner, feeling so miserable that I was always glad to go and hide myself away, to sit and think, and wonder what I should do when my uncle had gone.

Chapter Twelve.

Uncle Dick Says “Yes!”

It was about a fortnight after this conversation, during the whole of which time Uncle Dick seemed to have kept me so at arm’s-length that my very life had become wretched in the extreme, when, being in the drawing-room one evening, my aunt, who had been talking to him about his preparations for going away in three weeks’ time, suddenly drew his attention to me.

“Do you see how ill and white this boy has turned, Richard? Now it’s of no use you denying it; he’s quite upset with your nasty birds and stuff.”

“No, he is not,” cried Uncle Dick suddenly; and his whole manner changed. “The boy is fretting.”

“Fretting!” cried my aunt; “with plenty to eat and drink, and a good bed to sleep on! What has he to fret about?”

“He is fretting because he has taken it into his head that he would like to go with me.”

“Like to go with you, Dick?” cried Uncle Joe, laying hold of the arms of his easy-chair.

“Yes, Joe, I’m afraid I have turned his head with my descriptions of collecting abroad.”

To my utter astonishment, as I sat there with my face burning, and my hands hot and damp, Aunt Sophy did not say a word.

“But—but you wouldn’t like to go with your Uncle Richard, Nat, would you?” said Uncle Joe.

“I can’t help it, uncle,” I said, as I went to him; “but I should like to go. I don’t want to leave you, but I’d give anything to go collecting with Uncle Dick, anywhere, all over the world.”

Uncle Joe took out his red handkerchief and sat wiping his face.

“I have turned it over in my mind a dozen times,” said Uncle Dick, “and sometimes I have thought that it would be an injustice to the boy, sometimes I have concluded that with his taste for natural history, his knowledge of treating skins and setting out butterflies and moths, it would be a shame not to give him every encouragement.”

“How?” said my aunt, drily.

“By taking him with me and letting him learn to be a naturalist.”

“Humph!” said my aunt; “take him with you right away on your travels?”

“Yes,” said my Uncle Dick.

“But I don’t think it would be right,” said Uncle Joseph softly.

“Don’t be stupid, Joe,” said my aunt sharply; “why shouldn’t the boy go, I should like to know?”

“Oh, aunt!” I cried excitedly.

“Yes, sir, and oh, aunt, indeed!” she cried, quite mistaking my meaning. “Do you suppose that you are to stay here idling away your time all your life—and—”

“That will do,” cried Uncle Dick quickly. “Nat, my boy, I have held off from taking you before; but if your Uncle Joseph will give his consent as your guardian, you shall come with me as my pupil, companion, and son, if you will, and as far as in me lies I will do my duty by you. What say you, Joe?” he continued, as I ran to him and took his extended hands.

My aunt looked at me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved his hand and said sadly:

“It will be a great grief to me, Dick, a great grief,” he said, “and I shall miss my boy Nat very, very much; but I won’t stand in his light, Dick. I know that I can trust you to do well by the boy.”

“I will, Joe, as well as if he were my own.”

“I know it, Dick, I know it,” said Uncle Joe softly; “and I can see that with you he will learn a very, very great deal. Nat, my boy, you are very young yet, but you are a stout, strong boy, and your heart is in that sort of thing, I know.”

“And may I go—will you take me, Uncle Dick? Say you will.”

“Indeed I will, my boy,” he cried, shaking my hand warmly; “only you will have to run the same risks as I do, and stick to me through thick and thin.”

“But I don’t think it would be possible for him to be ready,” said my aunt, who evidently now began to repent of her ready consent.

“Nonsense, Sophy!” cried Uncle Dick; “I’ll get him ready in time, with a far better outfit than you could contrive. Leave that to me. Well, Nat, it is to be then. Only think first; we may be away for years.”

“I don’t mind, sir; only I should like to be able to write to Uncle Joe,” I said.

“You may write to him once a week, Nat, and tell him all our adventures, my boy; but I don’t promise you that you will always be able to post your letters. There, time is short. You shall go out with me this morning.”

“Where to, uncle?” I said.

“To the gunsmith’s, my boy. I shall have to fit you up with a light rifle and double shot-gun; and what is more, teach you how to use them. Get your cap and let’s go: there is no time to spare.”

Chapter Thirteen.

How I learned to shoot.

I did not know where we were going, or how we got there, in my state of excitement; but I found myself as if in a dream handling guns and rifles that my uncle placed before me, and soon after we were in a long passage place with a white-washed target at the end, and half a dozen guns on a table at my side.

“Look here, Nat,” said Uncle Dick, “time soon steps by, my boy, and you will grow older and stronger every day, so I shall let you have both gun and rifle a little too heavy for you. You must make shift with them at first, and you will improve in their use day by day.”

“Yes, uncle,” I said as I looked at the beautifully finished weapons from which we were to choose.

“Did you ever fire off a gun?” said my uncle.

“No, uncle.”

“You will not be afraid?”

“Will it hurt me, uncle?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not afraid,” I said.

He liked my confidence in his word, and nodded approval.

Just then the man with us took up one of the guns to load it, but my uncle stopped him.

“No,” he said; “let him load for himself. Look, Nat, this is one of the Patent breech-loading rifles. I pull this lever and the breech of the gun opens so that I can put in this little roll, which is a cartridge—do you see?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Now I close it, and the rifle is ready to fire. Next I reopen, take out the cartridge, and close again. Try if you can do the same.”

I took the rifle, and, with the exception of being too hurried and excited, did nearly as my uncle had done.

“Now, my boy,” he said, “the piece is loaded, and a loaded gun or rifle is a very dangerous thing. Never play with your piece; never trifle in any way; never let your barrel be pointed at those who are with you. Remember those bits of advice.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“There, now, put the piece to your shoulder, aim at that white target, and pull the trigger.”

“But there is no cap on,” I said.

“Caps are things of the past, Nat,” he said smiling, “except that they are inclosed in the cartridge. Now, then, hold your piece tightly to your shoulder, take careful aim—but quickly—and fire.”

I tried to obey him exactly, but the rifle seemed very heavy to hold up firmly, and the sight at the end of the barrel seemed to dance about; but I got it pretty steady for the moment, drew the trigger, there was a sharp report, and the stock of the piece seemed to give me a thump on the shoulder as I heard a dull clang.

“Well done, Nat; a good beginning, boy. There, your bullet has hit the target just on the extreme edge.”

“What, that black star? Is that the place, uncle?”

“To be sure it is, my boy. I thought that rifle would be too heavy for you; but if you can do that the first time, it decides me to keep it.”

The man smiled approval, and my uncle took the rifle in his hand.

“Brush!” shouted the man, and a brush started out of a hole in the wall, and touched the target over with white-wash.

“Now for the double gun,” said my uncle. “Try this one, Nat.”

I took the gun and put it to my shoulder, aiming at the target; but it seemed heavier than the rifle, and the sight wavered about.

“Try this one, Nat,” said my uncle; and he handed me another with rather shorter barrels.

“I like this one, uncle,” I said. “It’s ever so much lighter.”

“No, sir,” said the man smiling; “it’s half a pound heavier. It is the make. The weight of the gun is more central, and it goes up to the eye better.”

“Yes,” said my uncle; “it is a handy little gun. Load that the same as you did before.”

I found the construction so similar that I had no difficulty in loading both barrels of the gun, and it seemed such easy work to just slip in a couple of little rolls of brown paper as compared to the way in which I had seen men load guns with a ramrod.

“Now, Nat,” said my uncle in a quick businesslike way; “once more, you must remember that a gun is not a plaything, and though you are a boy in years you must begin to acquire the serious ways of a man. To handle a gun properly is an art, perfection in which means safety to yourself and friends, durability to the gun, and death quick and painless for the object at which you fire. Now then. No hesitation, boy: raise your gun quickly to your shoulder, take a sharp aim, and fire right and left barrels at those two targets.”

My heart beat fast as I did as my uncle bade me, feeling two sharp thuds on my shoulder, and then as I stared through the smoke I expected to see the two white targets covered with shot marks.

“Better luck next time, Nat,” said my uncle smiling.

“Haven’t I hit them, uncle?” I said in dismay.

“No, my boy; one charge ploughed up the sawdust below the target on the right, and the other scored the white-washed wall three feet to the left of the second target.”

“But do you think it is a good gun, uncle? I aimed quite straight.”

“We’ll see, Nat,” he replied, taking the gun from my hand, and reloading it with a quick cleverness of hand that fascinated me.

Then raising the gun he fired both barrels in rapid succession, hardly seeming to take aim, and as the smoke rose above our heads we all walked towards the targets, which looked like currant dumplings.

The man with us rubbed his hands with satisfaction, saying that it was a capital close pattern, which my uncle afterwards explained to me meant that the shot marks were very close and regular all over the targets, instead of being scattered irregularly, which he said was a great disadvantage in a gun.

“I don’t think, sir, that you’ll find many guns do better than that, sir; and, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, I don’t think many gentlemen would have made two such clever shots.”

“There is no cleverness in it,” said my uncle quietly. “When a man spends all his days with a gun in his hand it becomes like second nature to him to hit that at which he aims. Yes, I like the gun. Now, Nat, what do you say—which was in fault last time?”

“I was, uncle,” I said rather ruefully. “I thought it would be so easy to shoot.”

“So it is, my boy, when you have had practice. Now come back and we will not lose any more time in selecting pieces. You shall have that gun and that rifle, and we will have a couple of hours’ practice at loading and firing.”

We walked back to the table, and as we did so I saw a man thrust a long-handled brush from a loophole at the side of the wall and whiten the targets once more.

“You decide upon those two pieces, then, sir,” said the gunmaker; and my uncle bowed his head.

I noticed then how quiet he seemed when away from home, speaking very little but always to the purpose; a habit, I suppose, acquired from his long and solitary life abroad.

He then said that we had an abundant supply of cartridges, and took a chair beside me.

“Now, Nat,” he said, as soon as we were alone, save that a man was behind the loophole ready to thrust out his long-handled brush to whiten the target. “Now, Nat, my boy, fire away all that ammunition. It will not be wasted, for it will make you used to your gun. We will leave the rifle practice till we get to sea. Now, then, begin, and mind this, when you have fired keep your eye upon the object at which you aimed. I’ll tell you why. If it is a bird, say a valuable specimen, that we have been seeking for weeks, you may have hit the object, but it flies a short distance before it drops, and if you have lost sight of it for a moment all our trouble is wasted, for it is sometimes labour in vain to seek for small objects in a dense, perhaps impenetrable jungle.”

“I’ll remember that, uncle.”

“Another thing, my boy—a very simple thing, but one which you must learn to do, for your eyes are too valuable when we are collecting for them to do anything but look out for the treasures we seek. Now mind this: you raise your gun, take aim, and fire—not hurriedly, mind, but with quick ease. Then either before or after you have fired your second barrel, according to circumstances, but with your eyes still fixed upon the bird or animal at which you shot, open the breech of your gun, take out the spent cartridge, and reload.”

“Without looking, uncle?”

“Certainly: your fingers will soon manage all that with a little education.”

I could not help a little nervous haste as I began to load and fire at the targets, but after two or three shots I grew more used to what I was doing, and to my great delight found that I had hit the target.

Then after a little more practice I found it so much easier that I generally saw one or two little spots on the white discs; and by the time that the ammunition was all gone—that was after I had fired forty-eight times—I had once or twice made a respectable show upon the target, but I finished off with four misses, and as my head was now aching badly from the concussion and the noise, I turned with a very rueful face to my uncle.

“Time we left off that,” he said smiling. “You are tired, and your hands are getting unsteady.”

“I’m afraid I shall never shoot, Uncle Dick,” I said dolefully.

“Nonsense, my boy!” he cried, clapping me on the shoulder; “you shot very badly indeed, but better than I expected, and you steadily improved until you grew tired. All these matters take time.”

Chapter Fourteen.

How to manage a boat.

The time was short before we were to start on our long journey, but Uncle Dick was determined to make the best of it, and he steadily went on with what he called my education, as well as fitting me out with proper necessaries for my voyage.

These last were very few and simple.

“For you see, Nat,” he said, smiling, “we must not encumber ourselves with anything unnecessary. You must bid good-bye to collars and cuffs, and be content with flannels, one to wear and one for your knapsack; and this you will have to wash and dry whenever you get a chance. We’ll take some socks, but after a time we shall have to be content with nothing but good boots. We must not have an ounce of luggage that we can do without.”

It was a delicious time of adventure to me as I went about with Uncle Dick buying the necessaries for our trip, and very proud I felt of my flannels and stout drill breeches and Norfolk jackets, with belt to hold cartridges, and a strong sheathed knife.

Every day I had a long practice with my gun with what uncle said were satisfactory results; and matters had been going on like this for about a fortnight when my uncle said one day:

“Now, Nat, we must have a bit more education, my boy. We shall very often be left to our own resources, and travel from island to island in a boat, which we shall have to manage; so come along and let me see if I cannot make a sailor of you before we start.”

In order to do this he took me down to Gravesend, where, in spite of its being a rough day, he engaged a sailing-boat.

“Bit too rough for that, mister, isn’t it?” said a rough-looking sailor who stood by with his hands in his pockets.

“It is rough, my man,” said my uncle quietly. “Jump in, Nat.”

I felt afraid, but I would not show it, and jumped into the boat, which was pushed off, and my uncle at once proceeded to hoist the lug-sail.

“That’s right, Nat,” he said encouragingly. “I saw that you felt a bit nervous, for your cheeks were white; but that is the way: bravely meet a terror and it shrinks to half its size. I can remember feeling as timid as could be on entering an open boat and pulling off in a choppy sea; but now I know the danger, and how to meet it, I feel as calm and comfortable as you will after a trip or two. Now then, lay hold of that rope and give a pull when I cry ‘haul’, and we’ll soon have a little sail upon her.”

I did as he bade me, and, pulling at the rope, the sail was hoisted part of the way with the effect that it ballooned out in an instant, and the boat went sidewise.

“Mind, uncle,” I shouted; “the boat’s going over;” and I clung to the other side.

“No, it isn’t, Nat,” he said coolly. “We could heel over twice as much as that without danger. I’ll show you. Take another pull here.”

“No, no, uncle,” I cried, “I’m satisfied; I believe you.”

“Take hold of the rope and haul,” he shouted; and I obeyed him, with the boat heeling over so terribly that I felt sure that the water would rush over the side.

He laughed as he made fast the rope, and bade me go to the rudder, for I had taken tight hold of the side of the boat.

There was something so quick and decided about Uncle Dick’s way of ordering anyone that I never thought of disobeying him, and I crept to the rudder, while he took his place beside me as the boat danced up and down upon what I, who had never seen the open sea, thought frightful waves.

“Now, Nat,” he said, “you see this rope I have here.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“This is the sheet, as it is called, of the sail, and it runs through that block to make it easier for me to give or take as I want. Now, my boy, here is your first lesson in managing a sailing-boat whether the wind is rough, or as gentle as a breath. Never fasten your sheet, but hold it loose in your hand.”

“Why, uncle?” I said, as it seemed to me that it would have saved all the trouble of holding it if it had been tied to the side.

“That’s why,” he said, as just then the wind increased, so that I clung once more to the side, for the sail was blown so hard that the boat would have gone over enough for the water to rush in if Uncle Dick had not let the rope run swiftly through his hands, making the sail quite loose, and the boat became upright once more.

“I brought you out on a roughish day, Nat,” he continued, “so as to give you a good lesson. Look here, Nat,—if an unskilful rider mounted a spirited horse he would most likely be thrown; and if a person who does not know how to manage a sailing-boat goes out in one on a windy day, the chances are that the boat is capsized, fills, and goes to the bottom. Now, if I had not had hold of the sheet then, and eased off the sail—let it go, as a sailor would call it,—we should have been capsized, and then—”

“What then, uncle?” I said, feeling very nervous indeed.

“We should have gone to the bottom, my boy, and been drowned, for I don’t think I could have swum ashore from here in my clothes and taken you as well.”

“Then—then, hadn’t we much better go ashore at once, uncle?” I said, looking at him nervously.

“Yes, Nat, I’ll take you ashore at once if you feel afraid; but before doing so I will tell you that I brought you out here to give you a severe lesson in what boat-sailing with me is likely to be; and I tell you besides, Nat, that I know well how to manage a boat. You have had enough of it, I see, and we will go back.”

He made a motion to take the tiller out of my hands, for I was steering as he told me to steer, but I pushed his hand back.

“I thought you were frightened, Nat,” he said; and then there was a pause, for I wanted to speak, but the words would not come. At last, though, they did.

“I am frightened, uncle, very much frightened; and this going up and down makes me feel sick.”

“All right, then, Nat, we’ll go back,” he said kindly; but he was watching me all the while.

“No,” I gasped, “we won’t, and—and,” I cried, setting my teeth fast, “I won’t be sick.”

“But it is dangerous, Nat, my boy,” he said; “and we are going straight away into rougher water. Let us go back.”

“No,” I said, “you brought me out to try me, uncle, and I won’t be a coward, not if I die.”

He turned his head away for a few minutes, and seemed to be looking at the distant shore, and all the while the little boat rushed through the water at a tremendous rate, the sail bellying out and the gunwale down dangerously near the waves as we seemed to cut our way along.

The feeling of sickness that had troubled me before now seemed to go off, as if my determination had had something to do with it; and in spite of the sensation of dread I could not help liking my position, and the way in which we mastered the waves, as it were, going head on to one that seemed as if it would leap into the boat, but only for us to rise up its slope and then plunge down to meet another, while the danger I had feared minute after minute floated away astern.

When my uncle turned his head he said quietly:

“Nat, my boy, it was dangerous work to come out here with me; but, my boy, it is far more dangerous work to go out on that long voyage with me amongst savages, perhaps; to sail on unknown seas, and to meet perils that we can not prepare to encounter. Do you not think, my boy, you have chosen badly? Come, Nat, speak out. I will not call you a coward, for it would only be natural for you to refuse to go. Come, speak to me frankly. What do you say?”

“Was it dangerous to come out to-day, uncle, in this little boat?”

“Decidedly, my boy. You heard what that old boatman said.”

“Yes, uncle. Then why did you come?”

He stared at me for a moment or two, and then said quietly to me, leaning forward so that he could look straight into my eyes.

“To give you a lesson, my boy.”

“But you knew you could manage the boat, uncle?”

“Yes, my boy. I have had a good deal of experience in boat-sailing on the great American rivers, and on the sea.”

“And you would not mind coming out at a time like this, uncle?”

“No, my boy, certainly not. I have been out years ago with the Yarmouth boatmen in very rough seas indeed.”

There was a pause for a time, and then he said again, “Well, Nat, will you give up?”

“No, uncle,” I said excitedly, “I don’t feel half so frightened. I couldn’t help it then.”

“You’d have been a strange boy, Nat, if you had helped it,” he said laughing; “and I am very glad we came. Now, let me tell you that we are in a very small boat in water quite rough enough to be very dangerous; but knowing what I do, possessing, as I do, the knowledge which is power, Nat, there is not the least danger whatever, and you may rest perfectly assured that we will get back quite safe.”

“Then I’ve been terribly cowardly, and afraid for nothing, uncle,” I said, as I felt horribly ashamed.

“Yes, my boy, but that is generally the case,” he said smiling. “You were afraid because you were ignorant. Once you know well what you are about, you feel ashamed of your old cowardice.”

“But it’s very shocking to be like that, uncle,” I said.

“Not at all, my boy. It is the result of ignorance. The more ignorant and uncultivated people are, the greater cowards they seem. They are superstitious, and believe in ghosts and goblins and imps and fairies; and as for savages in far-off regions, they are sometimes the greatest cowards under the sun.”

“I feel very much ashamed of myself, uncle,” I said, and the tears stood in my eyes.

He looked at me very kindly as I spoke.

“I wish I was not so ignorant.”

“For my part, Nat,” he said, “I feel very proud of you, my boy; and let me tell you that you have no cause to be ashamed at all. Now take hold of the sheet here, and give and take as I tell you. Don’t be afraid to let it slip through your hands fast if there is a heavy squall. I’ll steer. The sea is heavier out in this long reach. Tell me when you’d like to put back.”

“I don’t want to go back, uncle,” I said; “let’s go on.”

He nodded, and away we dashed, scudding along and riding over the waves, while he showed me how he steered, and why he did this and that; how, by a little pressure on the tiller, he could check our speed, and even turn the little vessel so that we were facing where the wind blew from, and now the sail flapped angrily; but we made no progress at all, only were tossed about on the waves.

I told him that I thought we could only go along with the wind straight behind us, but he showed me how we could sail with the wind on either side, and sometimes with it almost facing us, by what he called tacking, which I found meant that, if the wind came from straight before us, say at a certain point in front, we could get there at last by zigzagging through the water, now half a mile to the left, now half a mile to the right, a common way of progressing which brought us nearer and nearer every time.

“The sea is rougher than I thought,” he said, “for I suppose we may call it sea out here, Nat, this being the estuary of the Thames, so I think I’ll make that do for to-day.”

“Don’t go back for me, uncle,” I said, as a wave broke over the bow of the boat, splashing us from top to toe.

“I am going back for both our sakes, Nat, for we shall soon be wet through. It is a day for india-rubber coats; but this has been a glorious sail, and a splendid lesson for you, Nat.”

“Yes, uncle,” I said, “and I feel hardly frightened a bit now.”

“No, my boy, it has given you far more confidence than you had before. It is live and learn, Nat; you believe more in me and I believe more in you.”

He gave me one of his nods as he said this, and then took the rope from my hand.

“Now, Nat, steer us home, my boy; I’ll tell you what to do. By and by you and I will have a native boat, perhaps, with a matting sail, to manage, sailing about near the equator.”

“But is it rough out there, uncle, amongst the islands?” I said.

“Very, at times, my boy; but with a light, well-built boat like this I should not be afraid to go anywhere. See how like a duck she is in shape, and how easily she rides over the waves. I should like to have one exactly the same build but twice as large, and with the fore part and poop decked over or covered in with canvas; and I don’t know but what it would be wise to take out such a boat.”

Then he went on giving me explanations about the sail, and which was a lug-sail, what was meant by fore-and-aft rig, and a dozen other things, showing me the while too how to steer.

The result was that, drenched with spray, but all in a glow with excitement, we got safely back, and for my part feeling that I had had a lesson indeed, and ready to put out any time with my uncle in far rougher seas.

Chapter Fifteen.

Saying “Good-Bye!”

Days of practice with my gun followed, and then two or three more afternoons in the mouth of the Thames, my uncle always selecting the roughest days for that purpose; but after a time or two I quite got over my dread of the water, and was ready enough to hold the sheet or take the tiller, picking up very rapidly a knowledge of how to steer so as to ease the boat over the waves that would take us on the beam; learning how to tack and go about: and a dozen other little matters highly necessary for one who attempts the management of a boat.

And then the day of parting came, for Uncle Dick had made all his preparations, which were after all very simple, consisting as they did of two or three changes of clothes, plenty of ammunition, tools for skinning birds and animals, an abundant supply of preserving paste, and some medicines.

It was arranged that we were to go by one of the French steamers from Marseilles, to catch which we had of course to cross France, and then we intended to travel by one of the Peninsular and Oriental steamers to Singapore after crossing the Isthmus of Suez, for this was long before Monsieur de Lesseps had thrust spade into the sand.

“Get the good-byes over quickly, Nat,” said Uncle Dick; and this I did as far as my Aunt Sophy was concerned, though she did kiss me and seem more affectionate than usual.

But it was different with poor Uncle Joseph, and had I known how he would take it to heart I’m afraid that I should have thought twice over before making up my mind to go.

“I can hardly believe it, Nat, my boy,” he said in a husky voice. “It don’t seem natural for you to be going away, my boy, and I don’t know how I shall get on without you.”

As he spoke he held my hands in his, and though he was pretending to be very cheerful, I could see that he was greatly troubled, and after all his kindness to me I felt as if I was behaving cruelly and ungratefully in the extreme.

“But I’m not going to grieve about you, Nat, my boy,” he said quite cheerfully, “and here’s your knife.”

As he spoke he drew a splendid great jack-knife out of his pocket, hauling out a quantity of white cord to which it was attached, and proceeding to fasten it round my waist.

“There, Nat, my boy,” he said, “it was the best I could get you; and the man says it is a splendid bit of stuff. Do you like it, Nat—do you like it?”

“Oh, uncle,” I said, “it is too kind of you!”

“Not a bit, my boy, not a bit; and now make good use of it, and grow strong and big, and come back as clever a man as your uncle, and I know you will.”

There is a bit of history to that knife, for it was only the day before that he and I and Uncle Dick were together, and Uncle Joe wanted to make me a present.

“There, Nat,” said Uncle Joe, drawing his heavy gold watch out of the fob by its watered-silk ribbon with the handsomely chased gold key and large topaz seal at the end, “I shall give you that watch, my boy, for a keepsake. Take it, Nat, and put it in your pocket; keep it out of sight, my boy, till you have gone. I shall tell your aunt afterwards, but she mightn’t like it, you know, and it would be a little unpleasant.”

“But I don’t like to take your watch, uncle,” I said, glad as I should have been to have it, for it seemed too bad to take it away.

“Quite right, Nat,” said Uncle Dick; “don’t take it.”

“Not take it!” said Uncle Joe in a disappointed tone.

“No; he does not want a watch, Joe. Where he is going he must make the sun his watch.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Joe quickly, “but how about the night?”

“Then he’ll have to sleep and rest himself for the next day’s work.”

“And how about getting up in good time?”

“Daylight’s the good time for getting up, Joe,” said Uncle Dick; “and the sun will tell him the time.”

“Ah!” cried Uncle Joe triumphantly, “but the sun does not always shine.”

“No, not here,” replied Uncle Dick. “You have too much smoke and fog. We are going where he shines almost too much. Here, put away your watch, Joe. It is of no use to a boy who will be journeying through the primeval forest, plunging through thorny undergrowth or bog, or fording rivers and letting his clothes dry on him afterwards.”

“But I should have liked him to have the watch,” said Uncle Joe, rubbing one side of his nose softly with the case.

“Leave it for him in your will, then, my boy,” said Uncle Dick. “He wants nothing that will encumber him, and your watch would only be a nuisance when the water had soaked in. Leave it to him in your will.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Joseph, “but I should have liked to give him something else to make him always remember me when he’s away.”

“Why, Uncle Joe,” I cried, with a curious choking feeling coming in my throat, “you don’t think I could ever forget you?”

“No, my boy, no,” he said, shaking my hand very heartily, and then laying the watch down, as if he didn’t care to take to it again.

“It’s very kind of you, Joe,” said Uncle Dick, for he saw how his brother-in-law seemed hurt; “but don’t you see, my dear boy, we are going to lead the roughest of rough lives, and what we carry at a time when every extra ounce will be a trouble, must be the barest necessities. I’ve often had to leave behind valuable things, solely because I could not carry them. Here, I tell you what: you go into the city to-morrow, and buy him one of the best, and biggest, and strongest jack-knives you can find; one of those with a steel loop so that it can hang handily from a lanyard, ready for any purpose from cutting his breakfast to hacking a way through the canes, or skinning a wild beast. You could not give him a better present than that.”

“To be sure,” cried Uncle Joe, brightening up, “I will. What kind of a handle would you like, Nat?”

“Never mind the handle, Joe; look to the blade. Let it be a thoroughly good bit of stuff, the best you can buy.”

“To be sure. Yes; to be sure,” cried Uncle Joe; and taking up his watch he lowered it so carelessly into its place that it missed the fob, and ran down the right leg of his trousers into his Wellington boot.

I had to turn boot-jack and drag the boot off before the watch could be recovered, Uncle Dick laughing heartily the while.

And now this was the knife the good, amiable old fellow had got for me, and certainly it was one that would stand me in good stead for any length of time.

“Good-bye, Joe, old fellow,” said Uncle Dick, gripping his hand fast. “I’ll take care of Nat.”

“Yes, yes, you will, won’t you?” he cried.

“Indeed I will, Joe, indeed I will; and now once more good-bye, old fellow, I’m off. Till we meet again. Come after me soon, Nat.”

Uncle Dick went away so as to leave us together, and no sooner were we alone than Uncle Joe hesitated for a moment, and then hugged me to his breast.

“Good-bye; God bless you, my boy!” he cried. “It’s all for the best, and I won’t worry about your going; only come back to me as soon as you can, and mind you write.”

I can remember that there was a curious dim look about everything just then, and that Uncle Dick was very quiet in the cab; and so he was in the train, speaking to me hardly at all, and afterwards he read to himself nearly all the way to Paris, after which he suddenly seemed to turn merry and bright, and chatted to me in the heartiest way.

Chapter Sixteen.

Out on the Blue Water.

Everything was so new to me that, on embarking at Marseilles, I was never tired of inspecting the large steamer, and trying, with only moderate success, to talk to the French sailors, who, on learning our destination, were very civil; but, after the first day or two, began to joke me about never coming back any more.

It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began to talk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all, about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feet high, and would look upon me, they assured me, as a bonne bouche.

The third day out on the beautiful blue water, as some of the passengers had guns out, and were shooting at the sea-birds for amusement merely, a practice that I should have thought very cruel but for the fact that they never once hit anything, Uncle Dick came up to me on the poop deck and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Now, Nat,” he said, “there’s plenty of room out here for a rifle ball to go humming away as far as it likes without danger to anyone; so get out your rifle and you shall have a practice.”

“At the sea-gulls, uncle?” I said.

“No, no; nonsense!” he said; “we don’t shoot sea-gulls with a rifle. I shall start you with a target.”

“A target, uncle?” I said; “but if you do, we shall leave it all behind in a very short time.”

“To be sure we shall,” he replied, laughing; “and then we’ll have another.”

I ran down and got my rifle out of the cabin, feeling half ashamed to go on deck again when I had fastened on my belt full of cartridges; but I got over my modesty, and joined my uncle, whom I found waiting for me with half a dozen black wine bottles, and as many bladders blown out tightly, while the bottles were empty and firmly corked.

“Now, Nat,” he said, “here are your targets, and I reckon upon your having half a dozen shots at each before the steamer takes us too far away, unless you manage to sink it sooner.”

I looked at my uncle to see if he was laughing at me, but he was quite serious, and, in obedience to his order, I loaded and stood ready.

“Now, look here, my boy,” he said; “this will be rather a difficult task, for both your target and you are in motion. So you must aim as well as you can. I should draw trigger just as the bladder is rising.”

“But how shall we know if I hit it?”

“You are not very likely to hit it, Nat,” he said smiling; “but if you do, the bladder will collapse—the bottle be shivered to fragments, and sink. Now let us see.”

It made me feel nervous to see so many people collect about me, one and all eager to witness my skill, and I knew enough French to understand a good many of their remarks. Some said I must be a very skilful shot, others that I could not shoot at all; and one way and another they disconcerted me so that, when my uncle threw the first bladder over the side, and I saw it floating away, I felt so confused that I let it get some distance before I fired.

“Reload,” said my uncle; and I did so, and fired again.

“Reload,” he said; and, having obeyed him, I waited till the bladder was on the top of a wave, and again fired without result.

“Again,” said my uncle; “don’t hesitate, and fire sharply.”

The bladder was now getting a long way astern and looking very small, so small that I knew I should not hit it, and consequently I felt no surprise that it should go floating away.

“Don’t lose time, Nat,” my uncle continued, just as if it was quite a matter of course that I should go on missing shot after shot.

So once more I prepared to fire, and as I did so I saw that two of the French passengers had their telescopes fixed upon the object at which, after taking very careful aim, speck as it seemed, I fired.

To my utter astonishment, as the smoke rose I saw no bladder was floating on the waves, a fact of which the lookers-on had already informed me by a round of applause.

“He would not hit them when they were close,” cried one passenger. “I said, he would not try. It was un grand shot, messieurs, un coup merveilleux.”

I felt scarlet in the face, and grew the more and more ashamed as first one and then another insisted upon shaking hands with me.

“Now, Nat,” said my uncle in a low voice, “after that you will lose your character if you do not hit some more.”

“Pray, don’t send out another, uncle,” I whispered.

“Why not, boy? What does it matter if you do miss? Keep on practising, and never mind what people say. Are you ready?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Fire, then, as soon as you get a good view of the bladder.”

I waited until it was about forty yards away, and rising slowly to the top of a wave, when, calculating the distance as well as I could, I fired, and the bladder disappeared.

I could not believe it, and expected each moment to see it come back to the surface; but no, there was no bladder visible; and, having reloaded, my uncle sent another afloat, bidding me wait till it was farther away before I fired.

I obeyed him and missed. Fired again and missed, but the third time the bladder collapsed and sank, and my reputation as a marksman was made.

The French passengers would have petted and spoiled me had not my uncle interfered; and when we were once more alone he began to talk of my success.

“You quite exceeded anything I expected, Nat,” he said smiling. “How you managed it, my boy, I cannot tell. The first time I set it down to pure accident; but when you repeated it again and again, all I can say, my boy, is that your eyes must be wonderfully good, and your aim and judgment even better. I doubt with all my practice whether I could have been more successful.”

“I think it must have been chance, uncle,” I said, “for I seemed to have no time to aim, and the vessel heaved up so just then.”

“No, my boy,” he replied, “it was not chance, but the result in a great measure of your practice with your gun; but you will not always shoot so well as that. When you come to be out with me in the wilds of one of the islands we visit, and have perhaps been tramping miles through rough forest, you will find it hard work to hit the object at which you aim.”

“But it will be easier to shoot from the ground than from on shipboard, uncle, will it not?”

“For some things yes, my boy, for others no. But wait a bit, Nat, and we shall see.”

The practice was kept up all through our voyage, and I became quite an adept at breaking floating bottles and other objects that were sent over the side, for the bladders soon came to an end; but our voyage was very uneventful. It was always enjoyable, for there was so much that was fresh to see. I never complained about the heat, which was very great, although people were lying about under awnings, while I used to get into the chains, or the rigging below the bowsprit, so as to gaze down into the wonderfully clear water and watch the dolphins and bonita as they darted through the sunlit depths with such ease and grace.

Sometimes I have wished that I could be a fish, able with a sweep or two of my powerful tail to dart myself through the water just as I pleased, or float at any depth, keeping up with the huge steamer as it was driven on.

Then a change would come over me, and I would think to myself: Well, I’m very glad I’m not a fish; for just as I would be watching some lovely mackerel-like fellow with a flashing back of mottled blue and purple, some monster ten times his size would make a dart at him and engulf him in his capacious throat. And as I watched the larger fish seize their food, it seemed to me that once they could get within easy range they seemed to suck their prey into their jaws, drawing it in with the great rush of water they sent through their gills.

It was not tempting at such times and above all when one used to see a thin grey fellow, six or eight feet long, seeming to sneak by the side of the ship, or just astern, where there was an eddy. Every now and then it would turn half over and show the pale under parts as it made a snatch at something that looked good to eat; and after a good many tries the sailors managed to catch one by means of a hook baited with a piece of ham that had been condemned as high.

It was only about six feet long, and when it lay on the wet deck thrashing about with its tail I thought that after all a shark was not such a dangerous-looking creature as I expected, and I said so to my uncle.

“Think not, Nat?” he said.

“Why, no, uncle, I don’t think I should be afraid of a shark; I think I could catch such a fellow as that with a rod and line.”

“Ah! Nat, some of them run up to fifteen or twenty feet in length,” he said; “and they are awfully savage brutes. Such a one as this would be enough to kill a man.”

“He don’t look like it, uncle,” I said. “Why, look here!”

I ran to where the shark lay, and stooping down, seized it with both hands by the thin part just before where the tail forked, meaning to give it a shake and drag the brute along the deck; but just as I got tight hold the creature seemed to send a wave down its spine, and with one flip I was sent staggering across the deck to fall heavily at full length, the crew and passengers around roaring with laughter at my discomfiture.

I was so angry and mortified that I jumped up, opened my great jack-knife, and was rushing at the shark, when my uncle laid his hand upon my arm.

“Don’t be foolish, Nat, but take your lesson like a man. You will not despise the strength of a shark for the future.”

“Why, it was like touching a great steel spring, uncle,” I said.

“If anything I should say that the backbone of a shark has more power in it when set in motion than a steel spring, Nat,” he said. “There, now, our friend is helpless, and we can examine him in peace.”

For, after thrashing the deck with a series of tremendous blows with his tail, the shark had his quietus given to him with a few blows of a hatchet, and as he lay upon the deck my uncle pointed out to me the peculiarity of the monster’s structure, and after we had examined his nasty sharp triangular teeth in the apparently awkwardly placed mouth, I was shown how it was that a shark had such wonderful power of propelling itself through the water, for in place of having an ordinary fin-like tail, made up of so many bones with a membrane between, the shark’s spine is continued right along to the extremity of the upper curve of its propeller, the other curve being comparatively small.

The flying-fish in the Red Sea have been described too often for it to be necessary for me to say anything about the beauty of these fishy swallows, but we saw hundreds of them dart out of the sea, skim along for a distance, and then drop in again. Then there were glimpses had in the deep clear blue—for that was the colour I found the Red Sea—of fishes with scales of orange, vermilion, and gold, bright as the gorgeous sunsets that dyed sea and sky of such wondrous hues evening after evening before darkness fell all at once, and the great stars, brighter, bigger, and clearer than I had ever seen them before, turned the heavens into a vast ocean of gems.

Day and night seemed to me to follow one another with wonderful rapidity, till one morning, as the steamer was panting and throbbing on its way, my uncle pointed to what looked like a low distant haze far away on our right.

“Do you see those mountains, Nat?” he said.

“Mountains, uncle! Are these mountains?”

“Yes, my boy, in a land that I could find it in my heart to visit, only that is not quite wild enough for our purpose.”

“What place is it, then?” I said, gazing eagerly at the faint distant line.

“Sumatra, Nat;” and as he spoke the long-shaped island, so familiar on the maps at school, rose before my eyes, and with it came Java, Celebes, Borneo, and New Guinea, places that were before long to be the objects of our quest.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Malay Kris in strange Lands.

Three days later we were lying in Singapore harbour, and I had one or two runs ashore to have a good look at the town, with its busy port full of all kinds of vessels, from the huge black-sided steamer and trim East Indiaman, to the clumsy high-sterned, mat-sailed, Chinese junk, and long narrow Malay prahu.

I could have stayed there a month staring about me at the varied scenes in the bright sunshine, where hundreds of Chinamen in their blue cotton loose clothes and thick-soled shoes were mingled with dark-looking Hindoostanees, Cingalese, and thick-lipped, flat-nosed, fierce-looking Malays, every man in a gay silk or cotton sarong or kilt, made in plaids of many colours and with the awkward-looking, dangerous kris stuck at the waist.

I say I could have stopped here for a month, enjoying the change, and wondering why the Malays should be so constantly chewing betel-nut and pepper leaves. I learned, too, that there was much to be seen in the island, and that there were tigers in the jungle near the plantations; but my uncle said there was no time to waste, and we must get on.

“We don’t want civilisation, Nat, or the works of man; we want to go far away into the wilds.”

“But don’t you mean to go to Malacca, uncle?” I said. “That is where so many birds come from.”

“I did think of going there, Nat; but I want to get to less-frequented spots, and I have found to-day a great prahu that is going right away to the Ké Islands, which will be well on our route to Aru and New Guinea. The Malay captain says he will take us, and tow our boat behind.”

“Our boat, uncle?”

“Yes, Nat; while you have been staring about at the heathen I have been busy looking out for a boat, and I have found one that I think will do. Come and see.”

I went with him to a creek outside the busiest part of the town, where the principal part of the people seemed to be fishermen, and here, after threading our way amongst dozens of clumsy-looking boats, my uncle showed me one that I should have thought would be the last to suit us.

“Why, you don’t admire my choice, Nat!” he said smiling.

“It is such a common-looking thing, and it isn’t painted,” I replied.

“No, my boy, but it is well varnished with native resin. It is Malay built, very strong, and the mast and sails are well-made, though rough; better still, it will carry us, and a man or two for crew if we like, and give plenty of room for our treasures as well.”

“But it is differently rigged to the boats on the Thames, uncle,” I said disparagingly.

“Naturally, my boy,” he said laughing; “but the sails will require the same management.”

“And what an anchor, uncle!” I said. “Why, it is made of bamboo and a stone.”

“We can easily buy a small grapnel and some cord, Nat,” he said smiling; “and when you have found out how our boat will sail, you will think better of it, I am sure.”