Nat the Naturalist | Page 4

it does do him good, poor dog. He eats too much, and gets too fat for want of exercise. Suppose you only play with him when your aunt goes out for a walk."
"Very well, uncle," I said, and then he shook hands with me, and gave me half a crown.
I couldn't help it, I was obliged to spend that half-crown in something I had been wanting for weeks. It was a large crossbow that hung up in the toy-shop window in Streatham, and that bow had attracted my attention every time I went out.
To some boys a crossbow would be only a crossbow, but to me it meant travels in imagination all over the world. I saw myself shooting apples off boys' heads, transfixing eagles in their flight, slaying wild beasts, and bringing home endless trophies of the chase, so at the first opportunity I was off to the shop, and with my face glowing with excitement and delight I bought and took home the crossbow.
"Hallo, Nat!" said Uncle Joseph. "Why, what's that--a crossbow?"
"Yes, uncle; isn't it a beauty?" I cried excitedly.
"Well, yes, my boy," he said; "but, but--how about your aunt? Suppose you were to break a window with that, eh? What should we do?"
"But I won't shoot in that direction, uncle," I promised.
"Or shoot out Jane's or Cook's eye? It would be very dreadful, my boy."
"Oh, yes, uncle," I cried; "but I will be so careful, and perhaps I may shoot some of the birds that steal the cherries."
"Ah! yes, my boy, so you might," he said rubbing his hands softly. "My best bigarreaus. Those birds are a terrible nuisance, Nat, that they are. You'll be careful, though?"
"Yes, I'll be careful, uncle," I said; and he went away nodding and smiling, while I went off to Clapham Common to try the bow and the short thick arrows supplied therewith.
It was glorious. At every twang away flew the arrow or the piece of tobacco-pipe I used instead; and at last, after losing one shaft in the short turf, I found myself beside the big pond over on the far side, one that had the reputation of being full of great carp and eels.
My idea here was to shoot the fish, but as there were none visible to shoot I had to be content with trying to hit the gliding spiders on the surface with pieces of tobacco-pipe as long as they lasted, for I dared not waste another arrow, and then with my mind full of adventures in foreign countries I walked home.
The next afternoon my aunt went out, and I took the bow down the garden, leaving my uncle enjoying his pipe. I had been very busy all that morning, it being holiday time, in making some fresh arrows for a purpose I had in view, and, so as to be humane, I had made the heads by cutting off the tops of some old kid gloves, ramming their finger-ends full of cotton-wool, and then tying them to the thin deal arrows, so that each bolt had a head like a little soft leather ball.
"Those can't hurt him," I said to myself; and taking a dozen of these bolts in my belt I went down the garden, with Buzzy at my heels, for a good tiger-hunt.
For the next half-hour Streatham was nowhere, and that old-fashioned garden with its fruit-trees had become changed into a wild jungle, through which a gigantic tiger kept charging, whose doom I had fixed. Shot after shot I had at the monster--once after it had bounded into the fork of a tree, another time as it was stealing through the waving reeds, represented by the asparagus bed. Later on, after much creeping and stalking, with the tiger stalking me as well as springing out at me again and again, but never getting quite home, I had a shot as it was lurking beside the great lake, represented by our tank. Here its striped sides were plainly visible, and, going down on hands and knees, I crept along between two rows of terrible thorny trees that bore sweet juicy berries in the season, but which were of the wildest nature now, till I could get a good aim at the monster's shoulder, and see its soft lithe tail twining and writhing like a snake.
I crept on, full of excitement, for a leafy plant that I refused to own as a cabbage no longer intercepted my view. Then lying flat upon my chest I fitted an arrow to my bow, and was cautiously taking aim, telling myself that if I missed I should be seized by the monster, when some slight sound I made caused it to spring up, presenting its striped flank for a target as it gazed here and there.
Play as it was, it