Nat the Naturalist Part 1

Nat the Naturalist.

by G. Manville Fenn.

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; n.o.body 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--"

"Shus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+ 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."

"Shus.h.!.+ yes, my boy," he whispered; "but don't talk about it. Your aunt is so particular. It's a secret between us."