The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Part 11

He had just sat down to a second edition of tea, and was reading a letter that the post had brought him from his sister Mary, in which she said, "I dare say by this time you have found Mr. Charles Larkyns a very ~delightful~ companion, and I ~am sure~ a very ~valuable~ one; as, from what the rector says, he appears to be so ~steady~, and has such ~nice quiet~ companions:" - our hero had read as far as this, when a great noise just without his door, caused the letter to drop from his trembling hands; and, between loud ~fanfares~ from a post-horn, and heavy thumps upon the oak, a voice was heard, demanding "Entrance in the Proctor's name."

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Mr. Verdant Green had for the first time "sported his oak." Under any circ.u.mstances it would have been a mere form, since his bashful politeness would have induced him to open it to any comer; but, at the dreaded name of the Proctor, he sprang from his chair, and while impositions, rustications, and expulsions rushed tumultuously through his disordered brain, he nervously undid the springlock, and admitted - not the Proctor, but the "steady" Mr. Charles Larkyns and his "nice quiet companion," little Mr. Bouncer, who testified his joy at the success of their ~coup d'etat~, by blowing on his horn loud blasts that might have been borne by Fontarabian echoes, and which rang through poor Verdant's head with indescribable jarrings.

"Well, Verdant," said Charles Larkyns, "how do you find yourself this morning? You look rather shaky."

"He ain't a very lively picter, is he?" remarked little Mr. Bouncer, with the air of a connoisseur; "peakyish you feel, don't you, now, with a touch of the mulligrubs in your collywobbles? Ah, I know what it is, my boy."

It was more than our hero did; and he could only reply that he did not feel very well. "I - I had a gla.s.s of claret after some lobster-salad, and I think it disagreed with me."

"Not a doubt of it, Verdant," said Charles Larkyns very gravely; "it would have precisely the same effect that the salmon always has at a public dinner, - bring on great hilarity, succeeded by a pleasing delirium, and concluding in a horizontal position, and a demand for soda-water."

"I hope," said our hero, rather faintly, "that I did not conduct myself in an unbecoming manner last night; for I am sorry to say that I do not remember all that occurred."

"I should think not, Giglamps, You were as drunk as a besom," said little Mr. Bouncer, with a side wink to Mr. Larkyns, to prepare that gentleman for what was to follow. "Why, you got on pretty well till old Slowcoach came in, and then you certainly did go it, and no mistake!"

"Mr. Slowcoach!" groaned the freshman. "Good gracious! is it possible that ~he~ saw me? I don't remember it."

"And it would be lucky for you if ~he~ didn't," replied Mr, Bouncer.

"Why his rooms, you know, are in the same angle of the quad as Smalls'; so, when you came to shy the empty bottles out of Smalls'

window at ~his~ window -"

"Shy empty bottles! Oh!" gasped the freshman.

"Why, of course, you see, he couldn't stand that sort of game, - it wasn't to be expected; so he puts his head out of the bedroom window, - and then, don't you remember crying out, as you pointed to the ta.s.sel of his night-cap sticking up straight

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 81]

on end, 'Tally-ho! Unearth'd at last! Look at his brus.h.!.+' Don't you remember that, Giglamps?"

"Oh, oh, no!" groaned Mr. Bouncer's victim; "I can't remember, - oh, what ~could~ have induced me!"

"By Jove, you ~must~ have been screwed! Then I daresay you don't remember wanting to have a polka with him, when he came up to Smalls'

rooms?"

"A polka! Oh dear! Oh no! Oh!"

"Or asking him if his mother knew he was out, - and what he'd take for his cap without the ta.s.sel; and telling him that he was the joy of your heart, - and that you should never be happy unless he'd smile as he was won't to smile, and would love you then as now, - and saying all sorts of bosh? What, not remember it! 'Oh, what a n.o.ble mind is here o'erthrown!' as some cove says in Shakespeare. But how screwed you ~must~ have been, Giglamps!"

"And do you think," inquired our hero, after a short but sufficiently painful reflection, - "do you think that Mr. Slowcoach will - oh! - expel me?"

"Why, it's rather a shave for it," replied his tormentor; "but the best thing you can do is to write an apology at once: pitch it pretty strong in the pathetic line, - say it's your first offence, and that you'll never be a naughty boy again, and all that sort of thing. You just do that, Giglamps, and I'll see that the note goes to - the proper place."

"Oh, thank you!" said the freshman; and while, with equal difficulty from agitation both of mind and body, he composed and penned the note, Mr. Bouncer ordered up some b.u.t.tery beer, and Charles Larkyns prepared some soda-water with a dash of brandy, which he gave Verdant to drink, and which considerably refreshed that gentleman. "And I should advise you," he said, "to go out for a const.i.tutional; for walking-time's come, although you have but just done your breakfast. A blow up Headington Hill will do you good, and set you on your legs again."

So Verdant, after delivering up his note to Mr. Bouncer, took his friend's advice, and set out for his const.i.tutional in his cap and gown, feeling afraid to move without them, lest he

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should thereby trespa.s.s some law. This, of course, gained him some attention after he had crossed Magdalen Bridge; and he might have almost been taken for the original of that impossible gownsman who appears in Turner's well-known "View of Oxford, from Ferry Hincksey,"

as wandering-

"Remote, unfriended, solitary, ~slow,~" -

in a corn-field, in the company of an umbrella!

Among the many pedestrians and equestrians that he encountered, our freshman espied a short and very stout gentleman, whose shovel-hat, short ap.r.o.n, and general decanical costume, proclaimed him to be a don of some importance.

He was riding a pad-nag, who ambled placidly along, without so much as hinting at an outbreak into a canter; a performance that, as it seemed, might have been attended with disastrous consequences to his rider. Our hero noticed, that the trio of undergraduates who were walking before him, while they pa.s.sed others, who were evidently dons, without the slightest notice (being in mufti), yet not only raised their hats to the stout gentleman, but also separated for that purpose, and performed the salute at intervals of about ten yards.

And he further remarked, that while the stout gentleman appeared to be exceedingly gratified at the notice he received, yet that he had also very great difficulty in returning the rapid salutations; and only accomplished them and retained his seat by catching at the pommel of his saddle, or the mane of his steed, - a proceeding which the pad-nag seemed perfectly used to.

Mr. Verdant Green returned home from his walk, feeling all the better for the fresh air and change of scene; but he still

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 83]

looked, as his neighbour, Mr. Bouncer, kindly informed him, "uncommon seedy, and doosid fishy about the eyes;" and it was some days even before he had quite recovered from the novel excitement of Mr.

Smalls' "quiet party."

CHAPTER IX.

MR. VERDANT GREEN ATTENDS LECTURES AND, IN DESPITE OF SERMONS, HAS DEALINGS WITH FILTHY LUCRE.

OUR freshman, like all other freshmen, now began to think seriously of work, and plunged desperately into all the lectures that it was possible for him to attend, beginning every course with a zealousness that shewed him to be filled with the idea that such a plan was eminently necessary for the attainment of his degree; in all this in every respect deserving the Humane Society's medal for his brave plunge into the depths of the Pierian spring, to fish up the beauties that had been immersed therein by the poets of old. When we say that our freshman, like other freshmen, "began" this course, we use the verb advisedly; for, like many other freshmen who start with a burst in learning's race, he soon got winded, and fell back among the ruck.

But the course of lectures, like the course of true love, will not always run smooth, even to those who undertake it with the same courage as Mr. Verdant Green.

The dryness of the daily routine of lectures, which varied about as much as the steak-and-chop, chop-and-steak dinners of ancient taverns, was occasionally relieved by episodes, which, though not witty in themselves, were yet the cause of wit in others; for it takes but little to cause amus.e.m.e.nt in a lecture-room, where a bad construe; or the imaginative excuses of late-comers; or the confusion of some young gentleman who has to turn over the leaf of his Greek play and finds it uncut; or the pounding of the same gentleman in the middle of the first chorus; or his offensive extrication therefrom through the medium of some c.u.mberland barbarian; or the officiousness of the same barbarian to pursue the lecture when every one else has, with singular unanimity, "read no further;" - all these circ.u.mstances, although perhaps dull enough in themselves, are nevertheless productive of some mirth in a lecture-room.

But if there were often late-comers to the lectures, there were occasionally early-goers from them. Had Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke an engagement to ride his horse ~Tearaway~ in the amateur steeple-chase, and was he constrained, by circ.u.mstances over which (as he protested) he had no control, to put

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in a regular appearance at Mr. Slowcoach's lectures, what was it necessary for him to do more than to come to lecture in a long greatcoat, put his handkerchief to his face as though his nose were bleeding, look appealingly at Mr. Slowcoach, and, as he made his exit, pull aside the long greatcoat, and display to his admiring colleagues the snowy cords and tops that would soon be pressing against ~Tearaway's~ sides, that gallant animal being then in waiting, with its trusty groom, in the alley at the back of Brazenface? And if little Mr. Bouncer, for astute reasons of his own, wished Mr. Slowcoach to believe that he (Mr. B.) was particularly struck with his (Mr. S.'s) remarks on the force of {kata} in composition, what was to prevent Mr. Bouncer from feigning to make a note of these remarks by the aid of a cigar instead of an ordinary pencil?

But besides the regular lectures of Mr. Slowcoach, our hero had also the privilege of attending those of the Rev. Richard Harmony. Much learning, though it had not made Mr. Harmony mad, had, at least in conjunction with his natural tendencies, contributed to make him extremely eccentric; while to much perusal of Greek and Hebrew MSS., he probably owed his defective vision. These infirmities, instead of being regarded with sympathy, as wounds received by Mr. Harmony in the cla.s.sical engagements in the various fields of literature, were, to Mr. Verdant Green's surprise, much imposed upon;

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 85]

for it was a favourite pastime with the gentlemen who attended Mr.

Harmony's lectures, to gradually raise up the lecture-table by a concerted action, and when Mr. Harmony's book had nearly reached to the level of his nose, to then suddenly drop the table to its original level; upon which Mr. Harmony, to the immense gratification of all concerned, would rub his eyes, wipe his gla.s.ses, and murmur, "Dear me! dear me! how my head swims this morning!" And then he would perhaps ring for his servant, and order his usual remedy, an orange, at which he would suck abstractedly, nor discover any difference in the flavour even when a lemon was surrept.i.tiously subst.i.tuted. And thus he would go on through the lecture, sucking his orange (or lemon), explaining and expounding in the most skilful and lucid manner, and yet, as far as the "table-movement" was concerned, as unsuspecting and as witless as a little child.

Mr. Verdant Green not only (at first) attended lectures with exemplary diligence and regularity, but he also duly went to morning and evening chapel; nor, when Sundays came, did he neglect to turn his feet towards St. Mary's to hear the University sermons. Their effect was as striking to him as it probably is to most persons who have only been accustomed to the usual services of country churches.

First, there was the peculiar character of the congregation: down below, the vice-chancellor in his throne, overlooking the other dons in