The Further Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Under-Graduate Part 6

"Why, of course I do," replied Mr. Verdant Green; "besides which, I have kept one: he was an Exmoor pony,--a bay one, with a long tail."

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"Oh, Giglamps!' You'll be the death of me some fine day," faintly exclaimed little Mr. Bouncer, as he slowly recovered from an exhausting fit of laughter. "You're as bad as the Mum was. A pony means twenty-five pound, old feller. But the Mum didn't know that; and when I wrote to her and said, 'I'm very short; please to send me two ponies;' meaning, of course, that I wanted fifty pound; what must she do, but write back and say, that, with some difficulty, she had procured for me two Shetland ponies, and that, as I was short, she hoped they would suit my size.

And, before I had time to send her another letter, the two little beggars came. Well, I couldn't ride them both at once, like the fellers do at Astley's; so I left one at Tollitt's, and I rode the other down the High, as cool as a cuc.u.mber. You see, though I ain't a giant, and that, yet I was big for the pony; and as Shelties are rum-looking little beggars, I dare say we look'd rather queer and original. But the Proctor happened to see me; and he cut up so doosed rough about it, that I couldn't show on the Shelties any more; and Tollit was obliged to get rid of them for me."

"Well, Harry," said Charles Larkyns; "it is to Tollitt's that you must now go, as you keep your horse there. We want you to join us in a ride."

"What!" cried out Mr. Bouncer, "old Giglamps going outside an Oxford hack once more! Why, I thought you'd made a vow never to do so again?"

"Why, I certainly did so," replied Mr. Verdant Green; "but Charles Larkyns, during the holidays--the vacation, at least--was kind enough to take me out several rides; so I have had a great deal of practice since last term."

"And you don't require to be strapped on, or to get inside and pull down the blinds?" inquired Mr. Bouncer.

"Oh dear, no!"

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The fact was, that during the long vacation Charles Larkyns had paid considerable attention to our hero's equestrian exercises; not so much, it must be confessed, out of friends.h.i.+p for his friend, as that he might have an opportunity of riding by the side of that friend's fair sister Mary, for whom he entertained something more than a partiality. And herein, probably, Mr. Charles Larkyns showed both taste and judgment.

For there may be many things less pleasant in this world than cantering down a green Warwicks.h.i.+re lane--on some soft summer's day when the green is greenest and the blossoms brightest--side by side with a charming girl whose nature is as light and sunny as the summer air and the summer sky. Pleasant it is to watch the flus.h.i.+ng cheek glow rosier, than the rosiest of all the briar-roses that stoop to kiss it. Pleasant it is to look into the l.u.s.trous light of tender eyes; and to see the loosened ringlets reeling with the motion of the ride. Pleasant it is to canter on from lane to lane over soft moss, and springy turf, between the high honeysuckle hedges, and the broad-branched beeches that meet overhead in a tangled embrace. But pleasanter by far than all is it, to hug to one's heart the darling fancy that she who is cantering on by your side in all the witchery of her maiden beauty, holds you in her dearest thoughts, and dowers you with all her wealth of love. Pleasant rides indeed, pleasant fancies, and pleasant day-dreams, had the long vacation brought to Charles Larkyns!

"Well, come along, Verdant," said Mr. Larkyns, "we'll go to Charley Symonds' and get our hacks. You can meet us, Harry, just over the Maudlin Bridge; and we'll have a canter along the Henley road."

So Mr. Verdant Green and his friend walked into Holywell Street, and pa.s.sed under the archway up to Symonds' stables. But the nervous trepidation which our hero had felt in the same place on a previous occasion returned with full force when his horse was led out in an exuberantly playful and "fresh" condition. The beast he had bestridden during his long vacation rides, with his sister and his (and sister's) friend, was a cob-like steed, whose placidity of temper was fully equalled by its gravity of demeanour; and who would as soon have thought of flying over a five-bar gate as he would of kicking up his respectable heels both behind and before in the low-lived manner recorded of the Ethiopian "Old Joe." But, if "Charley Symonds'" hacks had been of this pacific and easy-going kind, it is highly probable that Mr. C. S. and his stud would not have acquired that popularity which they had deservedly achieved. For it seems to be a _sine-qua-non_ with an Oxford hack, that to general showiness of exterior, it must add the power of enduring any amount of hard riding and rough treatment in the course of the day which its _pro-tem._ proprietor may think fit to inflict upon it; it being an axiom which has obtained, as well in Universities as in other places, that it is of no advantage to hire a hack unless you get out of him as much as you can for your money, you won't want to use him to-morrow, so you don't care about over-riding him to-day.

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But, all this time, Mr. Verdant Green is drawing on his gloves, in the nervous manner that tongue-tied gentlemen go through the same performance during the conversational spasms of the first-set of Quadrilles; the groom is leading out the exuberantly playful quadruped on whose back Mr. Verdant Green is to disport himself; Charles Larkyns is mounted; the November sun is s.h.i.+ning brightly on the perspective of the yard and stables, and the tower of New College; the dark archway gives one a peep of Holywell Street; while the cold blue sky is flecked with gleaming pigeons.

At last, Mr. Verdant Green has scrambled into his saddle, and is riding cautiously down the yard, while his heart beats in an alarming alarum-like way. As they ride under the archway, there, in the little room underneath it, is Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, selecting his particular tandem-whip from a group of some two score of similar whips kept there in readiness for their respective owners.

"Charley, you're a beast!" says Mr. Fosbrooke, politely addressing himself to Mr. Larkyns; "I wanted Bouncer to come with me in the cart to Abingdon, and I find that the little man is engaged to you." Upon which, Mr. Fosbrooke playfully raising his tandem-whip, Mr. Verdant Green's horse plunges, and brings his rider's head into concussion with the lamp which hangs within the gateway; whereupon, the hat falls off, and our hero is within an ace of following his hat's example.

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By a powerful exertion, however, he recovers his proper position in the saddle, and proceeds in an agitated and jolted condition, by Charles Larkyns's side, down Holywell Street, past the Music Room,[10] and round by the Long Wall, and over Magdalen Bridge. Here they are soon joined by Mr. Bouncer, mounted, according to the custom of small men, on one of Tollitt's tallest horses, of ever-so-many hands high. As by this time our hero has got more accustomed to his steed, his courage gradually returns, and he rides on with his companions very pleasantly, enjoying the magnificent distant view of his University. When they have pa.s.sed Cowley, some very tempting fences are met with; and Mr. Bouncer and Mr.

Larkyns, being unable to resist their fascinations, put their horses at them, and leap in and out of the road in an insane Vandycking kind of way; while an excited agriculturist, whose smock-frock heaves with indignation, pours down denunciations on their heads.

"Blow that bucolical party!" says Mr. Bouncer; "he's no right to interfere with the enjoyments of the animals. If they break the fences, it ain't their faults; it's the fault of the farmers for not making the fences strong enough to bear them. Come along, Giglamps! put your beast at that hedge! he'll take you over as easy as if you were sitting in an arm-chair."

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But Mr. Verdant Green has doubts about the performance of this piece of equestrian upholstery; and, thinking that the arm-chair would soon become a reclining one, he is firm in his refusal to put the leaping powers of his steed to the test. But having, afterwards, obtained some "jumping powder" at a certain small road-side hostelry to which Mr.

Bouncer has piloted the party, our hero, on his way back to Oxford, screws up his courage sufficiently to gallop his steed desperately at a ditch which yawns, a foot wide, before him. But to his immense astonishment--not to say, disgust--the obtuse-minded quadruped gives a leap which would have taken him clear over a ca.n.a.l; and our hero, not being prepared for this very needless display of agility, flies off the saddle at a tangent, and finds that his "vaulting ambition," had o'erleap'd itself, and fallen on the other side--of the ditch.

"It ain't your fault, Giglamps!" says Mr. Bouncer, when he has galloped after Verdant's steed, and has led it up to him, and when he has ascertained that his friend is not in the least hurt; but has only broken--his gla.s.ses; "it ain't your fault, Giglamps, old feller! it's the clumsiness of the hack. He tossed you up, and could'nt catch you again!"

And so our hero rides back to Oxford. But, before the Term has ended, he has become more accustomed to Oxford hacks, and has made himself acquainted with the respective merits of the stables of Messrs. Symonds, Tollitt, and Pigg; and has, moreover, ridden with the drag, and, in this way, hunted the fabled foxes of Bagley Wood, and Whichwood Forest.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. VERDANT GREEN FEATHERS HIS OARS WITH SKILL AND DEXTERITY.

November is not always the month of fog and mist and dulness. Oftentimes there are brilliant exceptions to that generally-received rule of depressing weather, which, in this month (according to our lively neighbours), induces the natives of our English metropolis to leap in crowds from the Bridge of Waterloo. There are in November, days of calm beauty, which are peculiar to that month--that kind of calm beauty which is so often seen as the herald of decay.

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But, whatever weather the month may bring to Oxford, it never brings gloom or despondency to Oxford men. They are a happily const.i.tuted set of beings, and can always create their own amus.e.m.e.nts; they crown Minerva with flowers without heeding her influenza, and never seem to think that the rosy-bosomed Hours may be laid up with bronchitis. Winter and summer appear to be pretty much the same to them: reading and recreation go hand-in-hand all the year round; and, among other pleasures, that of boating finds as many votaries in cold November, as it did in sunny June--indeed, the chilness of the air, in the former month, gives zest to an amus.e.m.e.nt which degenerates to hard labour in the dog-days. The cla.s.sic Isis in the month of November, therefore, whenever the weather is anything like favourable, presents an animated scene. Eight-oars pa.s.s along, the measured pull of the oars in the rowlocks marking the time in musical cadence with their plas.h.i.+ng dip in the water; perilous skiffs flit like fire-flies over the gla.s.sy surface of the river; men lounge about in the house-boats and barges, or gather together at King's, or Hall's, and industriously promulgate small talk and tobacco-smoke. All is gay and bustling. Although the feet of the strollers in the Christ-Church meadows rustle through the sere and yellow leaf, yet rich ma.s.ses of brown and russet foliage still hang upon the trees, and light up into gold in the sun. The sky is of a cold but bright blue; the distant hills and woods are mellowed into sober purplish-gray tints, but over them the sun looks down with that peculiar red glow which is only seen in November.

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It was one of these bright days of "the month of gloom," that Mr.

Verdant Green and Mr. Charles Larkyns being in the room of their friend, Mr. Bouncer, the little gentleman inquired, "Now then! what are you two fellers up to? I'm game for anything, I am! from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter."

"I'm afraid," said Charles Larkyns, "that we can't accommodate you in either amus.e.m.e.nt, although we are going down to the river, with which Verdant wishes to renew his acquaintance. Last term, you remember, you picked him up in the Gut, when he had been played with at pitch-and-toss in a way that very nearly resembled manslaughter."

"I remember, I remember, how old Giglamps floated by!" said Mr. Bouncer; "you looked like a half-bred mermaid Giglamps."

"But the gallant youth," continued Mr. Larkyns, "undismayed by the perils from which he was then happily preserved, has boldly come forward and declared himself a wors.h.i.+pper of Isis, in a way worthy of the ancient Egyptians, or of Tom Moore's Epicurean."

"Well! stop a minute you fellers," said Mr. Bouncer; "I must have my beer first: I can't do without my Ba.s.s relief. I'm like the party in the old song, and I likes a drop of good beer." And as he uncorked a bottle of Ba.s.s, little Mr. Bouncer sang, in notes as musical as those produced from his own tin horn--

"'Twixt wet and dry I always try Between the extremes to steer; Though I always shrunk from getting----intoxicated, I was always fond of my beer!

For I likes a drop of good beer!

I'm particularly partial to beer!

Porter and swipes Always give me the----stomach-ache!

But that's never the case with beer!"

"Bravo, Harry!" cried Charles Larkyns; "you roar us an' twere any nightingale. It would do old Bishop Still's heart good to hear you; and 'sure _I_ think, that _you_ can drink with any that wears a hood,' or that _will_ wear a hood when you take your Bachelor's, and put on your gown." And Charles Larkyns sang, rather more musically than Mr. Bouncer had done, from that song which, three centuries ago, the Bishop had written in praise of good ale,--

Let back and side go bare, go bare, Both hand and foot go cold: But, belly, G.o.d send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old.

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They were soon down at the river side, where Verdant was carefully put into a tub (alas! the dear, awkward, safe, old things are fast pa.s.sing away; they are giving place to suicidal skiffs, and will soon be numbered among the boats of other days!)--and was started off with almost as much difficulty as on his first essay. The tub--which was, indeed, his old friend the _Sylph_,--betrayed an awkward propensity for veering round towards Folly Bridge, which our hero at first failed to overcome; and it was not until he had performed a considerable amount of crab-catching, that he was enabled to steer himself in the proper direction. Charles Larkyns had taken his seat in an outrigger skiff (so frail and shaky that it made Verdant nervous to look at it), and, with one or two powerful strokes, had shot ahead, backed water, turned, and pulled back round the tub long before Verdant had succeeded in pa.s.sing that eccentric mansion, to which allusion has before been made, as possessing in the place of cellars, an ingenious system of small rivers to thoroughly irrigate its foundation--a hydropathic treatment which may (or may not) be agreeable in Venice, but strikes one as being decidedly cold and comfortless when applied to Oxford,--at any rate, in the month of November. Walking on the lawn which stretched from this house towards the river, our hero espied two extremely pretty young ladies, whose hearts he endeavoured at once to take captive by displaying all his powers in that elegant exercise in which they saw him engaged. It may reasonably be presumed that Mr. Verdant Green's hopes were doomed to be blighted.

Let us leave him, and take a look at Mr. Bouncer.

Mr. Bouncer had been content to represent the prowess of his college in the cricket-field, and had never aspired to any fame as an oar. The exertions, as well as the fame, of aquatic honours, he had left to Mr.

Blades, and those others like him, who considered it a trifle to pull down to Iffley and back again, two or three times a day, at racing pace with a fresh spurt put on every five minutes. Mr. Bouncer, too, had an antipathy to eat beefsteaks otherwise than in the state in which they are usually brought to table; and, as it seemed a _sine qua non_ with the gentleman who superintended the training for the boat-races, that his pupils should daily devour beefsteaks which had merely looked at the fire, Mr. Bouncer, not having been brought up to cannibal habits, was unable to conform himself to this, and those other vital principles which seemed to regulate the science of aquatic training. The little gentleman moreover, did not join with the "Torpids" (as the second boats of a college are called), either, because he had a soul above them,--he would be _aut Caesar, aut nullus_; either in the eight, or nowhere,--or else, because even the Torpids would cause him more trouble and pleasurable pain than would be agreeable to him. When Mr. Bouncer sat down on any hard substance, he liked to be able to do so without betraying any emotion that the action caused him personal discomfort; and he had noticed that many of the Torpids--not to mention one or two of the eight--were more particular than young men usually are about having a very easy, soft, and yielding chair to sit on.

Mr. Bouncer, too, was of opinion that continued blisters were both unsightly and unpleasant; and that rawness was bad enough when taken in conjunction with beefsteaks, without being extended to one's own hands.

He had also a summer pa.s.sion for ices and creams, which were forbidden luxuries to one in training,--although (paradoxical as it may seem to say so) they trained, on Isis! He had also acquired a bad habit of getting up in one day, and going to bed in the next,--keeping late hours, and only rising early when absolutely compelled to do so in order to keep morning chapel--a habit which the trainer would have interfered with, considerably to the little gentleman's advantage. He had also an amiable weakness for pastry, port, claret, "et _hock_ genus omne;" and would have felt it a cruelty to have been deprived of his daily modic.u.m of "smoke;" and in all these points, boat-training would have materially interfered with his comfort.