the most important part of our
hero's life. In the last chapter I said we should have to say
something about B.-P.'s big brother, the sailor, Warington, named
after his grandmother, who was a Warington of Waddon Park. The very
name Warington, even though it be spelled with a single 'r,' has an
inspiring sound, and while Thackeray lives will ever be linked with
all that is true and straightforward in the human heart. Imagine the
reverence felt for Warington by the young brothers when he came home
from a sea voyage! Not only were there the broad square shoulders, the
deep chest, and the bronzed face to compel admiration; but a masterful
and commanding manner withal, a stern eye and a rousing voice--and the
overwhelming and crushing fact that he was a British Naval officer!
Warington had been born ten years before Ste, and it is a mighty good
thing for B.-P. (and he would be the first to admit it) that this was
the case. For I believe that the resourcefulness of Baden-Powell is
the result of the early training which he received at the hands of
Warington; without that training he would have grown up a delightful
and an amusing fellow, but, I suspect, as so many delightful and
amusing people are, ineffective. And that is just what B.-P. is not.

You must know that in the spring holidays the boys spent their days in
ranging field and copse "collecting," riding ponies, often with their
faces towards the tail-end, attending to their innumerable pets, and
doing a certain amount of reading of their own free will. Ste's study
was mainly history and geology, and it was his custom to embellish the
pages of the books he was reading with suitable illustrations as he
went along. With these amusements, and always a good many productions
of Ste's original comedies, the spring holidays slipped away
pleasantly enough. But in the summer holidays came Warington fresh
from the sea, with abounding energy and indomitable will, and
recreation then was of a sterner kind.

Warington had designed a yacht, a smart 5-tonner, and in supreme
command of this little craft, with his brothers for the crew, and only
one hired hand for the dirty work, he took the schoolboys away from
the ease and comforts of home life to rough it at sea. They shipped as
seamen, and as seamen they lived. It was a case of "lights out" soon
after dusk, and then up again with the sun. This rule, however, was
not followed with comfortable regularity, for sometimes stress of
wea