Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal FusiliersMillais, John Guille
Philosophy
Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers
Millais, John Guille
Selous, Frederick Courteney, 1851-1917; World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Africa
"One Sunday afternoon Leroux was pursued by a gamekeeper to the
very doors of the chapel, and indeed it was only under the
stimulus of this pursuit that he could possibly have got in in
time for the service, and 'cutting chapel' meant having to write
out the whole of the fourth Georgic of Virgil, which was just
over 500 lines. When the bell ceased tolling, Leroux was still
some distance from the chapel door, and handicapped besides with
the top-hat, which all the boys always had to wear on Sunday,
and a clutch of sparrowhawk's eggs twisted up in his
handkerchief, on which he had to hold his hand in his
coat-pocket, to prevent them from shaking together. But old
Patey, who always checked off the boys at 'call over' and on
their entrance to the chapel, took in the situation at a glance
and held the door ajar till Leroux got inside, and then slammed
it to in the gamekeeper's face. Leroux fully expected that his
pursuer would wait outside till chapel was over and try and
identify him as he came out, but he probably got tired of
waiting or else thought it impossible to pick out the boy he had
chased and of whom he had only had a back view, amongst over
five hundred other boys.
"About three miles from the big school in the midst of a wide
expanse of undulating meadow-land, interspersed with small
woods, stood the fine old manor house of Pilton Range. As there
was no game preservation on this estate, there were no keepers
to shoot down magpies, carrion crows, kestrels and sparrowhawks,
and Leroux consequently found it a very fine hunting ground for
the nests of these birds. One day soon after the Easter
holidays, and during his second year at the big school, Leroux
paid a visit to the Pilton Range grounds, to look at a magpie's
nest which he had found building a fortnight before. He was
walking along a high hedge bordering a field, about a mile away
from the house, when a man dressed as a labourer climbed over a
gate at the other end of the field and came walking towards him.
Now Leroux had often met labouring men on the Pilton Range
estate before, but had never been interfered with in any way by
them, so he paid no attention to the man who was now coming
towards him, but walked quietly to meet him. The heavily built
labourer came slouching along, apparently without taking the
slightest interest in the approaching boy, but just as he was
passing him, and without having previously spoken a word, he
shot out his right hand, and caught Leroux by the waistcoat just
beneath the collar. 'Well, what do you want?' said Leroux.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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