“Father, I want to go with Sam and hunt a porcupine to-night. He says we are sure to find two or three, and—”
“Does he? Well, we’ll think about it. Isn’t this chap a true Briton, George? Bent on killing something, even from his very cradle.” Payne laughed.
But the boy is not to enjoy a monopoly of his father’s attentions, for, lo! a small toddler comes pattering up to put in her claim to the same, and, finding that her brother has forestalled her, stands with one tiny fist crammed into her eye, looking inclined to cry, while with the other she makes a feeble attempt to dislodge the more fortunate one from his vantage-ground.
“Hallo, Dots! And have you given the authorities the slip, too? Come along, then. There, there, don’t turn on the hose! Arcturus secundus, get down, sir! Always give way to the ladies, because, if you don’t, they’ll move heaven and earth till they find a way of making you. That’s right. Come along, Dottums.” And he picks up the child, who clings about his neck, and laughs and prattles away in her delight. She is a lovely little thing, with Lilian’s eyes and hair, and promises to be an exact reproduction of Lilian herself.
“You chatterbox! Now you must be off to by-by. Cut along!”
But the little one is not at all inclined to fall in with this suggestion, for she clings to his neck harder than ever.
“N-no. Fader, take Dots for ride—far as de ‘big points,’” she pleads.
“Off we go then,” and mounting the little thing on his shoulder, where she sits half timorously, half exulting in the unwonted altitude, Claverton makes his way to the entrance hall. The said hall is a perfect museum, being hung all over with trophies of war and of the chase collected by its master during his wanderings. Here, the huge frontlet of a buffalo scowls down upon the grinning jaws of a leopard, whose crafty eyes in their turn glare thirstily towards the heads of various antelopes, tastefully arranged opposite. Then there is a brave show of armoury. Great savage-looking ox-hide shields, flanked by circles of grim assegais, formidable knobkerries, and grotesque war costumes of flowing hair and swinging cow-tails, combine to render this trophy barbarous and picturesque in aspect. To the children, the adornments of this hall are an unfailing subject of interest, not unmixed with awe.
And now Claverton halts in front of the war-trophy for Dots to look at “the big points,” as she calls the assegais, and even gingerly to touch them, for it is one of her little pleasures in life to be hoisted up on her father’s shoulder, as in the present instance, to inspect them closely, when they look even more awful than from the far distance of the floor. So, with a thrill of awe, little Dots’ hand is put tentatively forth, and the baby fingers play upon the cruel blades of the grisly weapons and pass wonderingly down their dark, spidery hafts. But nothing on earth will induce her to touch the ox-hide shields, which she is convinced must be alive.
“There. Now then, Dots. By-by’s the next thing.”