By Sheer Pluck | Page 3

draws me away."
"It makes no matter, Frank. If you are happy and amused I am content,
and if the tea is cold it is your loss, not ours. Now, my boy, as soon as
you have washed your hands we will have tea."
It was a simple meal, thick slices of bread and butter and tea, for Mrs.
Hargate could only afford to put meat upon the table once a day, and
even for that several times in the week fish was substituted, when the
weather was fine and the fishing boats returned, when well laden. Frank
fortunately cared very little what he ate, and what was good enough for
his mother was good enough for him. In his father's lifetime things had
been different, but Captain Hargate had fallen in battle in New Zealand.
He had nothing besides his pay, and his wife and children had lived
with him in barracks until his regiment was ordered out to New
Zealand, when he had placed his wife in the little cottage she now
occupied. He had fallen in an attack on a Maori pah, a fortnight after
landing in New Zealand. He had always intended Frank to enter the
military profession, and had himself directed his education so long as
he was at home.
The loss of his father had been a terrible blow for the boy, who had
been his constant companion when off duty. Captain Hargate had been

devoted to field sports and was an excellent naturalist. The latter taste
Frank had inherited from him. His father had brought home from
India--where the regiment had been stationed until it returned for its
turn of home service four years before he left New Zealand--a very
large quantity of skins of birds which he had shot there. These he had
stuffed and mounted, and so dexterous was he at the work, so natural
and artistic were the groups of birds, that he was enabled to add
considerably to his income by sending these up to the shop of a London
naturalist. He had instructed Frank in his methods, and had given him
one of the long blowguns used by some of the hill tribes in India. The
boy had attained such dexterity in its use that he was able with his clay
pellets to bring down sitting birds, however small, with almost unerring
accuracy.
These he stuffed and mounted, arranging them with a taste and skill
which delighted the few visitors at his mother's cottage.
Frank was ready to join in a game of football or cricket when wanted,
and could hold his own in either. But he vastly preferred to go out for
long walks with his blowgun, his net, and his collecting boxes. At
home every moment not required for the preparation of his lessons was
spent in mounting and arranging his captures. He was quite ready to
follow the course his father proposed for him, and to enter the army.
Captain Hargate had been a very gallant officer, and the despatches had
spoken most highly of the bravery with which he led his company into
action in the fight in which he lost his life. Therefore Mrs. Hargate
hoped that Frank would have little difficulty in obtaining a commission
without purchase when the time for his entering the army arrived.
Frank's desire for a military life was based chiefly upon the fact that it
would enable him to travel to many parts of the world, and to indulge
his taste for natural history to the fullest. He was but ten years old when
he left India with the regiment, but he had still a vivid recollection of
the lovely butterflies and bright birds of that country.
His father had been at pains to teach him that a student of natural
history must be more than a mere collector, and that like other sciences
it must be methodically studied. He possessed an excellent library of
books upon the subject, and although Frank might be ignorant of the
name of any bird or insect shown to him he could at once name the
family and species.

In the year which Frank had been at school at Dr. Parker's he had made
few intimate friends. His habits of solitary wandering and studious
indoor work had hindered his becoming the chum of any of his
schoolfellows, and this absence of intimacy had been increased by the
fact that the straitness of his mother's means prevented his inviting any
of his schoolfellows to his home. He had, indeed, brought one or two of
the boys, whose tastes lay in the direction of his own, to the house, to
show them his collections of birds and insects. But he declined their
invitations to visit them, as he was unable to return their hospitality,
and