SELOUS AND THE SWANS 105 



them being killed. Inspection all along the lines followed, 

 and it disclosed that no fewer than fifteen ramrods were 

 missing, and some rifles which had missed fire were loaded 

 almost up to the muzzle by continuous recharging. 



Later than that was the ever-memorable review in 

 Windsor Park, when the pontoon bridge across the Thames 

 went wrong and we did not get home until the small hours 

 next morning. It was in this interval that Selous went 

 shooting at swans with blank cartridge, and the Rugby 

 Rifle Corps was nearly disbanded in consequence. How- 

 ever, that trouble was adjusted and we held together, 

 being individually attested at the age of seventeen. 



The uniform was of the old grotesque pattern, and I 

 remember one of the maids at home asking my sister : 

 " Please, shall I pack Master William's ammunition 

 clothes ? " 



So the days went happily enough, and the blossom of 

 the flying terms was very sweet. I was actually installed 

 in the Vlth after my sixteenth birthday, and on 26th May 

 1867 wrote : 



This is a day long to be remembered. What do you think 

 happened ? I read the 2nd lesson this afternoon to between 

 600 and 700 people. You can imagine my feelings as the singing 

 of the Magnificat began to draw to a close, and I had to leave my 

 seat and go to the reading desk, with an uncomfortable feeling 

 that I should not be able to find the place. Then came the 

 awful silence : then the hearing one's own voice ; afterwards 

 a feeling that I should not mind reading to anybody. 



I felt quite in a dream at the time, but two things were fixed 

 in my memory. They were " to read slow "- and ' to read loud " 

 with due regard to stops ; and so I got through it beautifully. 



On returning I was within an ace of tumbling down the steps ; 

 but luckily saw them just in time. I burst into a cold perspiration 

 on regaining my seat at the thoughts of such a terrible catastrophe. 



It will be gathered from the above that I had taken 

 my place in the Vlth when the disaster of the Vth form 

 verse and prose occurred. I had then got a study to 

 myself of which : 



