Part 3 (1/2)

I had just said a few words to the troop of my pleasure at seeing them so smart and so efficient, when the alarm was given that the school buildings were on fire. A few brief words of command were given by the Scoutmaster, and each patrol streaked off in a different direction at a great pace. We hurried to the scene of the outbreak, and had just time to see (in our mind's eye only) dense clouds of smoke with tongues of flame and showers of sparks bursting from the doomed building, while the windows were alive with terrified women and screaming children--that is what we were picturing--when out came a knot of Scouts running the fire-hose into position, and joining it up from one part of the building, while from another there came a second patrol trundling along the great giraffe-like fire-escape. Within four minutes of the alarm the leading fireman was up on the ladder directing the nozzle of the hose-pipe with a strong jet of water on the windows of the (supposed) burning chamber.

It was all very smartly, quickly, and quietly carried out, and the patrols thoroughly deserved the Firemen's Badges which they had won.

Denstone College, where I saw all this, is one of the great schools which have taken up scouting as a sport and training for their boys; and the results, according to the masters who act as Scoutmasters, are most satisfactory.

SCOUTS' GOOD TURNS.

Recently, all in the one day, I came across three cases of Scouts doing their duty.

One lady told me that when travelling in a crowded train she and her daughter were put into a carriage which was already crammed full of boys.

She did not like it a bit at first, but she soon found the difference between ”Scouts” and ”boys.” These were ”Scouts,” and they at once helped the ladies and their baggage into the carriage, and then made plenty of room for them by sitting on each other's knees, and kept order and behaved so nicely that she fell in love with all of them, and talked with them and found them ”quite charming and gentlemanly.”

Another lady told me that some Scouts had asked leave to camp in her grounds, and as she has allowed boys to do this for some years past, she did not like to refuse them: at the same time she was not very glad to have them, because she had found it expensive and troublesome every year to have to get the camping-ground cleaned up and set right after they had gone.

The day after the Scouts had finished their camp, she sent as usual some men to work on the camp-ground, when to her astonishment, they came back and said there was no work to be done there, the ground was all clean, rubbish and ashes removed, and turf replaced. And then she remembered that these were ”Scouts,” not ordinary boys, who had been camping there--and she will be glad to see them there again whenever they like to come!

The weather this morning was beautifully hot and fine, but in the afternoon it suddenly changed to cold, windy, and steady rain. Numbers of ladies and children had gone out for a day on the beach or in the country. In one case a woman and her two children had to come back part of the way in an open boat, and then in a steam-launch, in their summer clothes, without umbrellas or waterproofs.

A Scout who was there seemed to have foreseen bad weather, as he had two waterproof coats, and he gave up one and offered it to cover the children.

”Well!” you would say, ”that is easy enough, and he kept himself dry and snug in the other.”

No, he didn't, he put that on the woman, and went and did the best he could for himself on the lee side of the deck; he put a smile on and pretended that a cold trickle down the back is a good thing for the complexion; and that is what any other Scout would have done in the circ.u.mstances.

GALLANTRY OF BOY SCOUTS IN HELPING THE POLICE.

On different occasions I have had the pleasure of issuing Silver Medals to Scouts for gallantry in saving life or a.s.sisting the police.

Scoutmaster Crowther, of the Huddersfield Boy Scouts, went to the a.s.sistance of a police constable who was being violently a.s.saulted by some roughs in a slum. Although he was knocked about himself in doing so, Crowther managed to help the officer, and, by blowing his whistle, to get more police on to the scene. The princ.i.p.al offenders were arrested, and ultimately got six months' imprisonment from the magistrate, who at the same time highly complimented Mr. Crowther on his plucky action.

Scout P. L. G. Brown, of the 7th (All Saints) Southampton Troop, did much the same thing. He saw a police constable struggling with four violent roughs, and, although there was a hostile crowd round them, Brown remembered his duty and dashed in to help the officer. Although he got a kick on the knee, he was able to get hold of the policeman's whistle and to blow it, and in this way brought more police upon the scene, so that the four men were arrested and punished.

Brown himself went away without giving his name or making any fuss about what he had done, but he was discovered and later on received the Silver Medal.

Then, when I was reviewing the Gateshead Scouts, I heard of the case of two Boy Scouts being rewarded by the magistrate for their gallantry in a.s.sisting the police.

The Scouts of Newton Abbot were at hand when a motor-car dashed into a cart, smas.h.i.+ng it up and injuring the two occupants. The Scouts detained the car; and although the motorists endeavoured to drive off, they put their staves between the spokes of the wheels and hung on and prevented the car getting away until the police came up and took charge.

It was splendid how these Scouts showed such pluck and readiness in helping the King's officers. They got knocked about in doing so, but what are a few bruises? They wore off in a few days; but the thing that won't wear off is the satisfaction that each one of those Scouts will feel for the rest of his life--namely, that he did his duty.

THE SCOUT OF LABRADOR.

Dr. Wilfred Grenfell is an ideal type of peace Scout, and during his labours as a missionary in Labrador he has had many adventures.

On one occasion he had to visit a sick man at a place two days'

journey from where he lived, and he started off with his sledge and team of dogs, to cross a frozen arm of the sea, which would save him a long journey round by land. But it was in the month of April, when the sea ice was beginning to get treacherous and to break up.