Militant Cotton swell 339 



kindliness and gentleness with marvellous strength, 

 activity, and fearlessness." 



From Rugby Oswell went to Haileybury to be specially 

 trained for the Honourable East India Company's 

 service. Then he went out to India, and his old friends 

 and schoolfellows entirely lost sight of him. The curtain 

 had apparently dropped and hidden him from their 

 admiring eyes for ever. What they felt when that 

 curtain was suddenly raised and they once more had a 

 glimpse of their hero I will leave Judge Hughes to 

 describe : 



" You may fancy the shock of joy which I felt, when 

 the lift came at last. I, like every one else, had rushed 

 to get Livingstone's first book on South Africa, and was 

 deep in the second chapter in which he details the 

 drought at his station, the threats of the Boers, and the 

 rumours of a lake and rivers and a rich country to 

 the north that had determined him to attempt the 

 crossing of the Kalahari desert which lay between, when 

 I came on this passage : ' I communicated my intention 

 to an African traveller, Colonel Steele, and he made it 

 known to another gentleman, a Mr. Oswell. He under- 

 took to defray the entire expense of guides, and fully 

 executed his generous intention.' Surely, thought I 

 that must be ' the Muscleman/ or ' Handsome Oswell,' 

 as we used sometimes to call him ; that's just what he 

 would have done. I was not long in doubt ; it was my 

 boyhood's hero sure enough. * Oswell was one of 

 Arnold's Rugby boys,' Livingstone wrote ; ' one could 

 see his training in always doing what was brave, and 

 true, and right.' Now let us see how it was that 



