Tales from Blackwood Volume Ii Part 24

So, after a few _pros_ and _cons_, it was finally settled that Mr Savile's rooms should become the Theatre Royal, ---- College; and I was honoured with the responsible office of stage-manager. What the play was to be, was a more difficult point to settle. Savile proposed _Romeo and Juliet_, and volunteered for the hero; but it pa.s.sed the united strength of the company to get up a decent _Juliet_. _Richard the Third_ was suggested; we had "six _Richards_ in the field" at once. We soon gave up the heroics, and decided on comedy; for since our audience would be sure to laugh, we should at least have a chance of getting the laugh in the right place. So, after long discussion, we fixed on _She Stoops to Conquer_. There were a good many reasons for this selection. First, it was a piece possessing that grand desideratum in all amateur performances, that there were several parts in it of equal calibre, and none which implied decided superiority of talent in its representative; secondly, there was not much _love_ in it--a material point where, as an Irishman might say, all the ladies were gentlemen; thirdly, the scenery, dresses, properties, and decorations, were of the very simplest description: it was easily "put upon the stage." We found little difficulty in casting the male characters: old Mrs Hardcastle, not requiring any great share of personal attractions, and being considered a part that would tell, soon found a representative; but when we came to the "donnas"--_prima_ and _seconda_--then it was that the manager's troubles began. It was really necessary, to insure the most moderate degree of success to the comedy, that Miss Hardcastle should have at least a lady-like deportment. The public voice, first in whispers, then audibly, at last vociferously, called upon Leicester. Slightly formed, handsome, clever, and accomplished, with naturally graceful manners, and a fair share of vanity and affectation, there was no doubt of his making a respectable heroine if he would consent to be made love to. In vain did he protest against the petticoats, and urge with affecting earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the last six months he had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of entreaty and expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed compliment to the aristocratically small hand and foot, of which Horace was pardonably vain. Shaving was p.r.o.nounced indispensable to the due growth of the whiskers; and the importance of the character, and the point of the situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he became gradually reconciled to his fate, and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of seventeen, who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers, and who was too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a "fast idea"

as the getting up a play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the hall bell rang for dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen acting copies of _She Stoops to Conquer_.

Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the infant drama, has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child, and forbid it, under pain of worse than whipping, to come any nearer than Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the performances in which undergraduates of some three hundred years ago were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more wit in it than the present, had somewhat less decency. The ancient "moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish.

So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting up of a tragedy of Sophocles or aeschylus, or even a comedy of Terence--cla.s.sically managed, as it could be done in Oxford, and well acted--would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or more derogatory to the dignity of our n.o.ble "theatre," than the squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter, is a question which, when I have a seat in the Hebdomadal Council, I shall certainly propose. Thus much I am sure of,--if a cla.s.sical playbill were duly announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as well as any lion of the day: the dresses might be quite as showy, the action could hardly be less graceful, than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus, Oedipus, or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and more amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays or the Creweian oration.

However, until I am vice-chancellor, the legitimate drama, Greek, Roman, or English, seems little likely to revive in Oxford. _Our_ branch of that great family, I confess, bore the bar-sinister. The offspring of our theatrical affections was unrecognised by college authority. The fellows of ---- would have done anything but "smile upon its birth."

The dean especially would have burked it at once had he suspected its existence. Nor was it fostered, like the former Oxford theatricals to which we have alluded, by royal patronage; we could not, consistently with decorum, request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate.

Nevertheless--spite of its being thus born under the rose, it grew and prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original. We used to adjourn from dinner to the rooms of one or other of the company; and there, over our wine and dessert, instead of quizzing freshmen and abusing tutors, open each our acting copy, and, with all due emphasis and intonation, go regularly through the scenes of _She Stoops to Conquer_. This was all the study we ever gave to our parts; and even thus it was difficult to get a muster of all the performers, and we had generally to play dummy for some one or more of the characters, or "double" them, as the professionals call it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and Tony were gone to Woodstock with a team, and were not to be waited for; Diggory had a command to dine with the Princ.i.p.al; and once an interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss Neville's being "confined"--in consequence of some indiscretion or other--"to chapel." It was necessary in our management, as much as in Mr Bunn's or Mr Macready's, to humour the caprices of the stars of the company; but the lesser lights, if they became eccentric at all in their orbits, were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in contemplation, there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame, especially among the freshmen; and though we mortally offended one or two aspiring geniuses, by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph, Roger, and Co., in Mr Hardcastle's household, on condition of having their respective blue dress-coats turned up with yellow to represent the family livery, there were others to whom the being admitted behind the scenes, even in these humble characters, was a subject of laudable ambition. Nay, unimportant as were some parts in themselves, they were quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our friends. Till I became a manager myself, I always used to lose patience at the wretched manner in which some of the underlings on the stage went through the little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the "sticks" should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a man who could accost one fluently enough at the stage-door, should make such a bungle as some of them did in a message of some half-dozen words "in character." But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of amateur performances, and saw how entirely dest.i.tute some men were of any notion of natural acting, and how they made a point of repeating two lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner, but without the correctness, of a schoolboy going through a task--then it ceased to be any matter of wonder that those to whom acting was no joke, but an unhappily earnest mode of getting bread, should so often make their performance appear the uneasy effort which it is. There was one man in particular, a good-humoured, gentlemanly fellow, a favourite with us all,--not remarkable for talent, but a pleasant companion enough, with plenty of common-sense. Well, "he would be an actor"--it was his own fancy to have a part, and, as he was "one of us," we could not well refuse him. We give him an easy one, for he was not vain of his own powers, or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be "second fellow"--one of Tony's pot-companions. He had but two lines to speak; but from the very first time I heard him read them, I set him down as a hopeless case. He read them as if he had just learned to spell the words; when he repeated them without the book, it was like a clergyman giving out a text. And so it was with a good many of the rank and file of the company; we had more labour to drill them into something like a natural intonation than to learn our own longest speeches twice over. So we made their attendance at rehearsals a _sine qua non_. We dismissed a promising "Mat Muggins" because he went to the "Union" two nights successively, when he ought to have been at "The Three Pigeons." We superseded a very respectable "landlord" (though he had actually been measured for a corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to business. The only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all necessary to conciliate, was the gentleman who was to sing the comic song instead of Tony (Savile, the representative of the said Tony, not having music in his soul beyond a view-holloa). He was allowed to go and come at our readings _ad libitum_, upon condition of being very careful not to take cold.

When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts, it was deemed expedient to have a "dress rehearsal"--especially for the ladies.

It is not very easy to move safely--let alone gracefully--in petticoats, for those who are accustomed to move their legs somewhat more independently. And it would not have been civil in Messrs Marlow and Hastings to laugh outright at their lady-loves before company, as they were sure to do upon their first appearance. A dress rehearsal, therefore, was a very necessary precaution. But if it was difficult to get the company together at six o'clock under the friendly disguise of a wine-party, doubly difficult was it to expect them to muster at eleven in the morning. The first day that we fixed for it, there came a not very lady-like note, evidently written in bed, from Miss Hardcastle, stating, that having been at a supper-party the night before, and there partaken of brandy-punch to an extent to which she was wholly unaccustomed, it was quite impossible, in the present state of her nervous system, for her to make her appearance in character at any price. There was no alternative but to put off the rehearsal; and that very week occurred a circ.u.mstance which was very near being the cause of its adjournment _sine die_.

"Mr Hawthorne," said the dean to me one morning, when I was leaving his rooms, rejoicing in the termination of lecture, "I wish to speak with you, if you please." The dean's communications were seldom of a very pleasing kind, and on this particular morning his countenance gave token that he had hit upon something more than usually piquant. The rest of the men filed out of the door as slowly as they conveniently could, in the hope, I suppose, of hearing the dean's fire open upon me; but he waited patiently till my particular friend, Bob Thornhill, had picked up carefully, one by one, his miscellaneous collection of note-book, pencil, pen-knife, and other small wares, and had been obliged at length to make an unwilling exit; when, seeing the door finally closed, he commenced with his usual--"Have the goodness to sit down, sir."

Experience had taught me, that it was as well to make one's-self as comfortable as might be upon these occasions; so I took the easy-chair, and tried to look as if I thought the dean merely wanted to have a pleasant half-hour's chat. He marched into a little back-room that he called his study, and I began to speculate upon the probable subject of our conference. Strange! that week had been a more than usually quiet one. No late knocking in; no cutting lectures at chapel; positively I began to think that, for once, the dean had gone on a wrong scent, and that I should repel his accusations with all the dignity of injured innocence; or had he sent for me to offer his congratulations on my having commenced in the "steady" line, and to ask me to breakfast? I was not long left to indulge such delusive hopes. Re-enter the dean (O.P., as our stage directions would have had it), with--a pair of stays!

By what confounded ill-luck they had got into his possession I could not imagine; but there they were. The dean touched them as if he felt their very touch an abomination, threw them on the table, and briefly said--"These, sir, were found in your rooms this morning. Can you explain how they came there?"

True enough, Leicester had been trying on the abominable articles in my bedroom, and I had stuffed them into a drawer till wanted. What to say was indeed a puzzle. To tell the whole truth would no doubt have ended the matter at once, and a hearty laugh should I have had at the dean's expense; but it would have put the stopper on _She Stoops to Conquer_.

It was too ridiculous to look grave about; and blacker grew the countenance before me, as, with a vain attempt to conceal a smile, I echoed his words, and stammered out--"In my rooms, sir?"

"Yes, sir, in your bedroom." He rang the bell. "Your servant, Simmons, most properly brought them to me."

The little rascal! I had been afraid to let him know anything about the theatricals; for I knew perfectly well the dean would hear of it in half an hour, for he served him in the double capacity of scout and spy.

Before the bell had stopped, d.i.c.k Simmons made his appearance, having evidently been kept at hand. He did look rather ashamed of himself, when I asked him, what business he had to search my wardrobe?

"Oh dear, sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of your bed, sir, when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your topmost drawer, sir--(I am a married man, sir," to the dean apologetically, "and I know the tag of a stay-lace, sir)--and so I took it out, sir; and knowing my duty to the college, sir, though I should be very sorry to bring you into trouble, Mr Hawthorne, sir"----

"Yes, yes, Simmons, you did quite right," said the dean. "You are bound to give notice to the college authorities of all irregularities, and your situation requires that you should be conscientious."

"I hope I am, sir," said the little rascal; "but indeed I am very sorry, Mr Hawthorne, sir"----

"Oh! never mind," said I; "you did right, no doubt. I can only say those things are not mine, sir; they belong to a friend of mine."

"I don't ask who they belong to, sir," said the dean indignantly; "I ask, sir, how came they in your rooms?"

"I believe, sir, my friend (he was in my rooms yesterday) left them there. Some men wear stays, sir," continued I, boldly; "it's very much the fas.h.i.+on, I'm told."

"Eh! hum!" said the dean, eyeing the brown jean doubtingly. "I have heard of such things. Horrid puppies men are now. Never dreamt of such things in my younger days; but then, sir, we were not allowed to wear white trousers, and waistcoats of I don't know what colours; we were made to attend to the statutes--_'Nigri aut subfusci,'_ sir. Ah! times are changed--times are changed, indeed! And do you mean to say, sir, you have a friend, a member of this university, who wears such things as these?"

I might have got clear off, if it had not been for that rascal Simmons.

I saw him give the dean a look, and an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

"But I don't think, sir," resumed he, "these can be a man's stays--eh, Simmons?" Simmons looked diligently at his toes. "No," said the dean, investigating the unhappy garment more closely--"no; I fear, Simmons, these are female stays!"

The conscientious Simmons made no sign.

"I don't know, sir," said I, as he looked from Simmons to me. "I don't wear stays, and I know nothing about them. If Simmons were to fetch a pair of Mrs Simmons's, sir," resumed I, "you could compare them."

Mrs Simmons's figure resembled a sack of flour, with a string round it; and if she did wear the articles in question, they must have been of a pattern almost unique--made to order.

"Sir," said the dean, "your flippancy is unbecoming. I shall not pursue this investigation any further; but I am bound to tell you, sir, this circ.u.mstance is suspicious--very suspicious." I could not resist a smile for the life of me. "And doubly suspicious, sir, in your case. The eyes of the college are upon you, sir." He was evidently losing his temper, so I bowed profoundly, and he grew more irate. "Ever since, sir, that atrocious business of the frogs, though the college authorities failed in discovering the guilty parties, there are some individuals, sir, whose conduct is watched attentively. Good morning, sir."

The "business of the frogs," to which the dean so rancorously alluded, had, indeed, caused some consternation to the fellows of ----. There had been a marvellous story going the round of the papers, of a shower of the inelegant reptiles in question having fallen in some part of the kingdom. Old women were muttering prophecies, and wise men acknowledged themselves puzzled. The Ashmolean Society had sat in conclave upon it, and accounted so satisfactorily for the occurrence, that the only wonder seemed to be that we had not a shower of frogs, or some equally agreeable visitors, every rainy morning. Now, every one who has strolled round Christ-Church meadows on a warm evening, especially after rain, must have been greeted at intervals by a whole gamut of croaks; and if he had the curiosity to peer into the green ditches as he pa.s.sed along, he might catch a glimpse of the heads of the performers. Well, the joint reflections of myself and an ingenious friend, who were studying this branch of zoology while waiting for the coming up of the boats one night, tended to the conclusion, that a very successful imitation of the late "Extraordinary Phenomenon" might be got up for the edification of the scientific in our own college. Animals of all kinds find dealers and purchasers in Oxford. Curs of lowest degree have their prices. Rats, being necessary in the education of terriers, come rather expensive. A polecat--even with three legs only--will command a fancy price.

Sparrows, larks, and other small birds, are retailed by the dozen on Cowley Marsh to gentlemen undergraduates who are aspiring to the pigeon-trap. But as yet there had been no demand for frogs, and there was quite a glut of them in the market. They were cheap accordingly; for a s.h.i.+lling a-hundred we found that we might inflict the second plague of Egypt upon the whole university. The next evening, two hampers, containing, as our purveyor a.s.sured us, "very prime 'uns," arrived at my rooms "from Mr S----, the wine merchant;" and by daylight on the following morning were judiciously distributed throughout all the comeatable premises within the college walls. When I awoke the next morning, I heard voices in earnest conversation under my window, and looked out with no little curiosity. The frogs had evidently produced a sensation. The bursar, disturbed apparently from his early breakfast, stood robed in an ancient dressing-gown, with the _Times_ in his hand, on which he was balancing a frog as yellow as himself. The dean, in cap and surplice, on his way from chapel, was eagerly listening to the account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first discovery of the intruders.

"Me and my missis, sir," quoth John, "was a-coming into college when it was hardly to say daylight, when she, as I reckon, sets foot upon one of 'em, and was like to have been back'ards with a set of breakfast chiney, as she was a-bringing in for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches out, in course, and I looks down, and then I sees two or three a-'oppin about; but I didn't take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare, when there was a whole row on 'em a-trying to climb up the bottom step; and then I calls Solomon the porter, and"----

Here I left my window, and, making a hasty toilet, joined a group of undergraduates, who were now collecting round the dean and bursar. I cast my eyes round the quadrangle, and was delighted with the success of our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and the frogs were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a location as a gravelled court. In every corner was a goodly cl.u.s.ter, who were making ladders of each other's backs, as if determined to scale the college walls. Some, of more retiring disposition, were endeavouring to force themselves into crevices, and hiding their heads behind projections to escape the gaze of academic eyes; while a few active spirits seemed to be hopping a sweepstakes right for the common-room door. Just as I made my appearance, the Princ.i.p.al came out of the door of his lodgings, with another of the fellows, having evidently been summoned to a.s.sist at the consultation. Good old soul! his study of zoology had been chiefly confined to the cla.s.s edibles, and a shower of frogs, authenticated upon the oaths of the whole Convocation, would not have been half so interesting to him as an importation of turtle. However, to do him justice, he put on his spectacles, and looked as scientific as anybody.

After due examination of the specimen of the genus Rana which the bursar still held in captivity, and p.r.o.nouncing a unanimous opinion, that, come from where he would, he was a _bona fide_ frog, with nothing supernatural about him, the conclave proceeded round the quadrangle, calculating the numbers, and conjecturing the probable origin of these strange visitors. Equally curious, if not equally scientific, were the undergraduates who followed them; for, having strictly kept our own secret, my friend and myself were the only parties who could solve the mystery; and though many suspected that the frogs were unwilling emigrants, none knew to whom they were indebted for their introduction to college. The collected wisdom of the dons soon decided that a shower of full-grown frogs was a novelty even in the extraordinary occurrences of newspapers; and as not even a single individual croaker was to be discovered outside the walls of ----, it became evident that the whole affair was, as the dean described it, "another of those outrages upon academic discipline, which were as senseless as they were disgraceful."

I daresay the dean's anathema was "as sensible as it was sincere;" but it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the success of the "_outrage_" at the time; nor does it, unfortunately, suffice at this present moment to check something like an inward chuckle, when I think of the trouble which it cost the various retainers of the college to clear it effectually of its strange visitors. Hopkins, the old butler, who was of rather an imaginative temperament, and had a marvellous tale to tell any one who would listen, of a departed bursar, who, having caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens,--Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the frogs were something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by reference to a specimen which he had selected--a lank, black, skinny individual, which really looked ugly enough to have come from anywhere.

Scouts, wives, and children (they always make a point of having large families, in order to eat up the spare commons), all were busy, through that eventful day, in a novel occupation, and by dinner-time not a frog was to be seen; but long, long afterwards, on a moist evening, fugitives from the general proscription might be seen making their silent way across the quadrangle, and croakings were heard at night-time, which might (as Homer relates of his frogs) have disturbed Minerva, only that the G.o.ddess of wisdom, in chambers collegiate, sleeps usually pretty sound.

The "business of the stays," however, bid fair to supersede the business of the frogs, in the dean's record of my supposed crimes; and as I fully intended to clear myself, even to his satisfaction, of any suspicion which might attach to me from the possession of such questionable articles so soon as our theatre closed for the season, I resolved that my successful defence from this last imputation would be an admirable ground on which to a.s.sume the dignity of a martyr, to appeal against all uncharitable conclusions from insufficient premises, and come out as the personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college career.

When my interview with the dean was over, I ordered some luncheon up to Leicester's rooms, where, as I expected, I found most of my own "set"

collected, in order to hear the result. A private conference with the official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party so favoured; the dean seldom made his communications so agreeable as he might have done. In college, as in most other societies, La Rochefoucauld's maxim holds good, that "there is always something pleasant in the misfortunes of one's friends;" and whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row, he might pretty confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact, undergraduates considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem against an unholy alliance of deans, tutors, and proctors; and in every encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of superior ingenuity--as having been "done," in short. So, if a lark succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done, and laughed at accordingly; if it failed, why, the other party were done, and there was still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the jest was richer in the first case supposed; but in the second there was the additional gusto, so dear to human philanthropy, of having the victim present, and enjoying his discomfiture, which, in the case of the dons being the sufferers, was denied us. It may seem to argue something of a want of sympathy to find amus.e.m.e.nt in misfortunes which might any day be our own; but any one who ever witnessed the air of ludicrous alarm with which an undergraduate prepares to obey the summons (capable of but one interpretation)--"The dean wishes to see you, sir, at ten o'clock"--which so often, in my time at least, was sent as a whet to some of the a.s.sembled guests at a breakfast-party; whoever has been applied to on such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap (that of the delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to proclaim its owner a "rowing man" at once), or has responded to the pathetic appeal, "Do I look _very_ seedy?"--any one to whom such absurd recollections of early days occur (and if you, good reader, are a university man, as, being a gentleman, I am bound in charity to conclude you are, and yet have no such reminiscences, allow me to suggest that you must have been a very slow coach indeed)--any one, I say once more, who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when "hauled up" before the college Minos or Radamanthus, will easily forgive his friends for being inclined to laugh at him.

However, in the present case, any antic.i.p.ations of fun at my expense, which the party in Leicester's rooms might charitably entertain, were somewhat qualified by the fear that the consequences of any little private difference between the dean and myself might affect the prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard how very nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our project, execrations against Simmons's espionage were mingled with admiration of my escape from so critical a position.

The following is, I apprehend, a unique specimen of an Oxford bill, and the only one, out of a tolerably large bundle which I keep for the sake of the receipts attached (a precaution by no means uncalled for), which I find any amus.e.m.e.nt in referring to:--

---- HAWTHORNE, ESQ.,

To M. MOORE. _s._ _d._

2 pr. brown jean corsets 8 0 Padding for do., made to order 2 6 ------- 10 6 Recd. same day, M. M.

Very much surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my capacity of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I let her into the secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she gave me sundry hints as to the management of the female toilet, and offered to get made up for me any dresses that might be required. So I introduced Leicester and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs Moore, and, by the joint exertions of their own tastes and her experience, they became possessed of some very tolerable costumes. There was a good deal of fun going on, I fancy, in fitting and measuring, in her back parlour; for there was a daughter, or a niece, or something of the sort, who cut out the dresses with the prettiest hands in the world, as Leicester declared; but I was too busy with carpenters, painters, and other a.s.sistants, to pay more than a flying visit to the ladies' department.

At last the rehearsal did come on. As Hastings, I had not much in the way of dress to alter; and, having some engagement in the early part of the morning, I did not arrive at the theatre until the rest of the characters were already dressed and ready to begin. Though I had been consulted upon all manner of points, from the arranging of a curl for Miss Neville to the colour of Diggory's stockings, and knew the costume of every individual as well as my own, yet so ludicrous was the effect of the whole when I entered the room, that I threw myself into the nearest chair, and laughed myself nearly into convulsions. The figure which first met my eyes was a little ruddy freshman, who had the part of the landlord, and who, in his zeal to do honour to our preference, had dressed the character most elaborately. A pillow, which he could scarcely see over, puffed out his red waistcoat; and his hair was cut short, and powdered with such good-will that for weeks afterwards, in spite of diligent brus.h.i.+ng, he looked as grey as the Princ.i.p.al. There he stood, his legs clothed in grey worsted, retreating far beyond his little white ap.r.o.n, as if ashamed of their unusual appearance--

"The mother that him bare, She had not known her son."

Every one, however, had not been so cla.s.sical in their costume. There was Sir Charles Marlow in what had been a judge's wig, and Mr Hardcastle in a barrister's; both sufficiently unlike themselves, at any rate, if not very correct copies of their originals. Then the women! As for Mrs Hardcastle, she was perfection. There never was, I believe, a better representation of the character. It was well dressed, and turned out a first-rate bit of acting--very far superior to any amateur performance I ever saw, and, with practice, would have equalled that of any actress on the stage. Her very curtsy was comedy itself. When I recovered my breath a little, I was able to attend to the dialogue which was going on, which was hardly less ridiculous than the strange disguises round me.

"Now, Miss Hardcastle" (Marlow _loquitur_), "I have no objection to your smoking cigars during rehearsal, of course--because you won't do that on Monday night, I suppose; but I must beg you to get out of the practice of standing or sitting cross-legged, because it's not lady-like, or even bar-maid like--and don't laugh when I make love to you; for if you do, I shall break down to a certainty." "Thornhill, do you think my waist will do?" said the anxious representative of the fair Constance. "I have worn these cursed stays for an hour every evening for the last week, and drawn them an inch tighter every time; but I don't think I'm a very good figure after all--just try if they'll come any closer, will you?" "Oh!

Hawthorne, I'm glad you are come," said Savile, whom I hardly knew, in a red wig; "now, isn't there to be a bowl of real punch in the scene at the Three Pigeons--one can't _pretend_ to drink, you know, with any degree of spirit?"--"Oh! of course," said I; "that's one of the landlord's properties; Miller, you must provide that, you know: send down for some cold tankards now; they will do very well for rehearsal."

At last we got to work, and proceeded, with the prompter's a.s.sistance, pretty smoothly, and mutually applauding each other's performance, going twice over some of the most difficult scenes, and cutting out a good deal of love and sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday night, playbills ordered to be printed, and cards of invitation issued to all the performers' intimate friends. Every scout in the college, I believe, except my rascal Simmons, was in the secret, and probably some of the fellows had a shrewd guess at what was going on; but no one interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly as possible; and the only circ.u.mstance likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of the authorities, was the unusual absence of all disturbances of a minor nature within the walls, in consequence of the one engrossing freak in which most of the more turbulent spirits were engaged.

At length the grand night arrived. By nine o'clock the theatre in Savile's rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any degree of comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and bedroom, which, being on opposite sides, served admirably for dressing-rooms behind the scenes, the usual bustle of preparation was going on. As is common in such cases, some essential properties had been forgotten until the last moment. No bonnet had been provided for Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks abroad in; and when the little hair-dresser, who had been retained to give a finis.h.i.+ng touch to some of the coiffures, returned with one belonging to his "missis," which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the rising of the curtain--thinking, very excusably, that it was quite unjustifiable to keep all the fun to ourselves.

After some little trial of our "public's" patience, the play began in good earnest, and was most favourably received. Indeed, as the only price of admission exacted was a promise of civil behaviour, and there were two servants busily employed in handing about punch and "bishop,"

it would have been rather hard if we did not succeed in propitiating their good-humour. With the exception of two gentlemen who had been dining out, and were rather noisy in consequence, and evinced a strong inclination occasionally to take a part in the dialogue, all behaved wonderfully well, greeting each performer, as he made his first entrance, with a due amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the best scenes; laughing (whether at the raciness of the acting, or the grotesque metamorphoses of the actors, made no great difference), and filling up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage, in spite of the prompter, with vociferous encouragement to the "sticket"

actor. With an audience so disposed, each successive scene went off better and better. One deserves to be particularised. It was the second in the first act of the comedy; the stage directions for it are as follows: "Scene--An alehouse room--Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco; Tony at the head of the table, &c., discovered." Never, perhaps, in any previous representation, was the _mise en scene_ so perfect; it drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal compliment to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking "shabby fellows" as sat round the table at which our Tony presided, were never furnished by the supernumeraries of Drury or Covent Garden. They were as cla.s.sical, in their way, as Macready's Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe puffing of empty pipes, and fict.i.tious drinking of small-beer for punch; every nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song, with its stentorian chorus, was honoured with, gave all the parties engaged time to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It was quite a pity, as was unanimously agreed, when the entrance of Marlow and Hastings, as in duty bound, interrupted so jovial a society. But "all that's bright must fade"--and so the Three Pigeons' scene, and the play too, came to an end in due course. The curtain fell amidst universal applause, modified only by the urgent request, which, as manager, I had more than once to repeat, that gentlemen would be kind enough to restrain their feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house resolved itself into its component elements--all went their ways,--the reading men probably to a Greek play, by way of afterpiece; sleepy ones to bed, and idle ones to their various inventions; and the actors, after the fatigues of the night, to a supper, which was to be the "finish." It was to take place in one of the men's rooms which happened to be on the same staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties, who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right merry party we were, all sitting down in character--Mrs Hardcastle at the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom, with the "young ladies" on each side. It was the best tableau of the evening; pity there was neither artist to sketch, nor spectators to admire it! But, like many other merry meetings, there are faithful portraits of it--proof impressions--in the memories of many who were present, not yet obliterated, hardly even dimmed, by time; laid by, like other valuables, which, in the turmoil of life, we find no time to look at, but not thrown aside or forgotten, and brought out sometimes, in holidays and quiet hours, for us to look at once more, and enjoy their beauty, and feel, after all, how much what we have changed is "_coelum non animum_." I am now--no matter what. Of my companions at that well-remembered supper, one is a staid and orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a third a respectable country gentleman, justice of the peace, "and quorum;" a fourth, they tell me, a semi-Papist: but set us all down together in that same room, draw the champagne corks, and let some Lethe (the said champagne, if you please) wash out all that has pa.s.sed over us in the last few years, and my word on it, three out of four of us are but boys still; and though much shaving, pearl powder, and carmine, might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more delicate cla.s.s than Meg Merrilies, I have no doubt we could all of us once more smoke a pipe in character at "The Three Pigeons."

Merrily the evening pa.s.sed off, and merrily the little hours came on, and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in the way of the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy enc.u.mbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double-rap at the outer door.