The Story of Baden-Powell

The Story of Baden-Powell, by
Harold Begbie

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Title: The Story of Baden-Powell 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps'
Author: Harold Begbie
Release Date: December 13, 2005 [EBook #17300]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE STORY OF BADEN-POWELL
'The Wolf that never Sleeps'

BY
HAROLD BEGBIE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
Vestigia nulla retrorsum
LONDON GRANT RICHARDS 1900

"... A name and an example, which are at this hour inspiring hundreds
of the youth of England...."
Southey's Life of Nelson.
First printed May 1900. Reprinted May 1900

To SMITH MAJOR
HONOURED SIR,
If amid the storm and stress of your academic career you find an hour's
relaxation in perusing the pages of this book, all the travail that I have
suffered in the making of it will be repaid a thousandfold. Throughout
the quiet hours of many nights, when Morpheus has mercifully
muzzled my youngest (a fine child, sir, but a female), I have bent over
my littered desk driving a jibbing pen, comforted and encouraged
simply and solely by the vision of my labour's object and attainment. I
have seen at such moments the brink of a river, warm with the sun's
rays, though sheltered in part by the rustling leaves of an alder, and
thereon, sprawling at great ease, chin in the cups of the hand, stomach
to earth, and toes tapping the sweet-smelling sod, your illustrious
self--deep engrossed in my book. For this alone I have written. If, then,
it was the prospect of thus pleasing you that sustained me in my task, to
whom else can I more fittingly inscribe the fruits of my labour? Accept
then, honoured sir, this work of your devoted servant, assured that, if

the book wins your affection and leaves an ideal or two in the mind
when you come regretfully upon "Finis," I shall smoke my pipe o'
nights with greater pleasure and contentment than ever I have done
since I ventured the task of sketching my gallant hero's adventurous
career.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR.
WEYBRIDGE, April 1900.

CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
AN INTRODUCTORY FRAGMENT 1
CHAPTER II
THE FAMILY 6
CHAPTER III
HOME LIFE AND HOLIDAYS 16
CHAPTER IV
CARTHUSIAN 37
CHAPTER V

THE DASHING HUSSAR 55
CHAPTER VI
HUNTER 73
CHAPTER VII
SCOUT 90
CHAPTER VIII
THE FLANNEL-SHIRT LIFE 103
CHAPTER IX
ROAD-MAKER AND BUILDER 119
CHAPTER X
PUTTING OUT FIRE 135
CHAPTER XI
IN RAGS AND TATTERS 158
CHAPTER XII
THE REGIMENTAL OFFICER 172
CHAPTER XIII
GOAL-KEEPER 192

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE Major-General R.S.S. Baden-Powell Frontispiece
Professor Baden Powell 7
Mrs. Baden-Powell 11
B.-P. reflecting on the After-deck of the Pearl 21
Rev. William Haig-Brown, LL.D. 41
The Dashing Hussar (B.-P. at 21) 61
"Beetle" 79
The Family on Board the Pearl 107
"Viret in Æternum" 179
Goal-Keeper 201
CHAPTER I
AN INTRODUCTORY FRAGMENT ON NO ACCOUNT TO BE
SKIPPED
You will be the first to grant me, honoured sir, that after earnestness of
purpose, that is to say "keenness," there is no quality of the mind so
essential to the even-balance as humour. The schoolmaster without this
humanising virtue never yet won your love and admiration, and to miss
your affection and loyalty is to lose one of life's chiefest delights. You
are as quick to detect the humbug who hides his mediocrity behind an
affectation of dignity as was dear old Yorick, of whom you will read
when you have got to know the sweetness of Catullus. This Yorick it
was who declared that the Frenchman's epigram describing gravity as
"a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind,"
deserved "to be wrote in letters of gold"; and I make no doubt that had
there been a greater recognition of the extreme value and importance of
humour in the early ages of the world, our history books would record

fewer blunders on the part of kings, counsellors, and princes, and the
great churches would not have alienated the sympathy of so many
goodly people at the most important moment in their existence--the
beginning of their proselytism.
This erudite reflection is to prepare you for the introduction of my hero,
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell. I introduce him to you as a
hero--and as a humourist. To me he appears the ideal English
schoolboy,