Part 25 (1/2)
I think we were liked in college--Milligan much better than I. Though we never had the same sort of popularity as boating-men and cricketers often acquire, we afforded plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt. When the college gates were closed at night, I often used to rush down into Quad and act ”Hare”
all over the queer pa.s.sages and dark corners of the college, pursued by a pack of hounds who were more in unison with the general idea of Harrow than of Oxford. One night I had been keeping ahead of my pursuers so long, that, as one was apt to be rather roughly handled when caught after a very long chase, I thought it was as well to make good my escape to my own rooms in the New Buildings, and to ”sport my oak.” Yet, after some time, beginning to feel my solitude rather flat after so much excitement, I longed to regain the quadrangle, but knew that the staircase was well guarded by a troop of my pursuers. By a vigorous _coup d'?tat_, however, I threw open my ”oak,” and seizing the handrail of the bannisters, slipped _on_ it through the midst of them, and reached the foot of the staircase in safety. Between me and the quadrangle a long cloistered pa.s.sage still remained to be traversed, and here I saw the way blocked up by a figure approaching in the moonlight.
Of course it must be an enemy! There was nothing for it but desperation.
I rushed at him like a bolt from a catapult, and by taking him unawares, b.u.t.ting him in the stomach, and then flinging myself on his neck, overturned him into the coal-hole, and escaped into Quad. My pursuers, seeing _some one_ struggling in the coal-hole, thought it was I, and flung all their sharp-edged college caps at him, under which he was speedily buried, but emerged in time to exhibit himself as--John Conington, Professor of Latin!
Meantime, I had discovered the depth of my iniquity, and fled to the rooms of Duckworth, a scholar, to whom I recounted my adventure, and with whom I stayed. Late in the evening a note was brought in for Duckworth, who said, ”It is a note from John Conington,” and read--”Dear Duckworth, having been the victim of a cruel outrage on the part of some undergraduates of the college, I trust to your friends.h.i.+p for me to a.s.sist me in finding out the perpetrators,” &c. Duckworth urged that I should give myself up--that John Conington was very good-natured--in fact, that I had better confess the whole truth, &c. So I immediately sat down and wrote the whole story to Professor Conington, and not till I had _sent_ it, and it was safe in his hands, did Duckworth confess that the note he had received was a forgery, that he had contrived to slip out of the room and write it to himself--and that I had made my confession unnecessarily. However, he went off with the story and its latest additions to the Professor, and no more was said.
If Milligan was my constant companion in college, George Sheffield and I were inseparable out of doors, though I often wondered at his caring so much to be with me, as he was a capital rider, shot, oarsman--in fact, everything which I was not. I believe we exactly at this time, and for some years after, supplied each other's vacancies. It was the most wholesome, best kind of devotion, and, if we needed any enn.o.bling influence, we always had it at hand in Mrs. Eliot Warburton, who sympathised in all we did, and who, except his mother, was the only woman whom I ever knew George Sheffield have any regard for. It was about this time that the Bill was before Parliament for destroying the privileges of Founder's kin. While it was in progress, we discovered that George was distinctly ”Founder's kin” to Thomas Teesdale, the founder of Pembroke, and half because our ideas were conservative, half because we delighted in an adventure of any kind, we determined to take advantage of the privilege. Dr. Jeune, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, was Master of Pembroke then, and was perfectly furious at our audacity, which was generally laughed at at the time, and treated as the mere whim of two foolish schoolboys; but we would not be daunted, and went on our own way. Day after day I studied with George the subjects of his examination, goading him on. Day after day I walked down with him to the place of examination, doing my best to screw up his courage to meet the inquisitors. We went against the Heads of Houses with the enthusiasm of martyrs in a much greater cause, and we were victorious. George Sheffield was forcibly elected to a Founder's-kin Scholars.h.i.+p at Pembroke, and was the last so elected. Dr. Jeune was grievously annoyed, but, with the generosity which was always characteristic of him, he at once accorded us his friends.h.i.+p, and remained my most warm and honoured friend till his death about ten years afterwards. He was remarkable at Oxford for dogmatically repealing the law which obliged undergraduates to receive the Sacrament on certain days in the year. ”In future,” he announced in chapel, ”no member of this college will be compelled to eat and drink his own d.a.m.nation.”
In urging George Sheffield to become a scholar of Pembroke, I was certainly disinterested; without him University lost half its charms, and Oxford was never the same to me without ”Giorgione”--the George of Georges. But our last summer together was uncloudedly happy. We used to engage a little pony-carriage at the Maidenhead, with a pony called Tommy, which was certainly the most wonderful beast for bearing fatigue, and as soon as ever the college gates were opened, we were ”over the hills and far away.” Sometimes we would arrive in time for breakfast at Thame, a quaint old town quite on the Oxfords.h.i.+re boundary, where John Hampden was at school. Then we would mount the Chiltern Hills with our pony, and when we reached the top, look down upon the great Buckinghams.h.i.+re plains, with their rich woods; and when we saw the different gentlemen's places scattered about in the distance, we used to say, ”There we will go to luncheon”--”There we will go to dinner,” and the little programmes we made we always carried out; for having each a good many relations and friends, we seldom found we had _no_ link with any of the places we came to. Sometimes Albert Rutson would ride by the side of our carriage, but I do not think that either then or afterwards we quite liked having anybody with us, we were so perfectly contented with each other, and had always so much to say to each other. Our most delightful day of all was that on which we had luncheon at Great Hampden with Mr. and Lady Vere Cameron and their daughters, who were slightly known to my mother; and dined at the wonderful old house of Chequers, filled with relics of the Cromwells, the owner, Lady Frankland Russell, being a cousin of Lady Sheffield's. Most enchanting was the late return from these long excursions through the lanes hung with honeysuckle and clematis, satiated as we were, but not wearied with happiness, and full of interest and enthusiasm in each other and in our mutual lives, both past and present. One of the results of our frequent visits to the scenes of John Hampden's life was a lecture which I was induced to deliver in the town-hall at Oxford, during the last year of my Oxford life, upon John Hampden--a lecture which was sadly too short, because at that time I had no experience to guide me as to how long such things would take.
It was during this spring that my mother was greatly distressed by the long-deferred declaration of Mary Stanley that she had become a Roman Catholic.[109] A burst of family indignation followed, during which I const.i.tuted myself Mary's defender, utterly refused to make any difference with her, as well as preventing my mother from doing so; and many were the battles I fought for her.
A little episode in my life at this time was the publication of my first book--a very small one, ”Epitaphs for Country Churchyards.” It was published by John Henry Parker, who was exceedingly good-natured in undertaking it, for it is needless to say it was not remunerative to either of us. The ever-kind Landor praised the preface very much, and delighted my mother by his grandiloquent announcement that it was ”quite worthy of Addison!”
At this time also my distant cousin Henry Liddell was appointed to the Deanery of Christ Church. He had previously been Headmaster of Westminster, and during his residence there had become celebrated by his Lexicon. One day he told the boys in his cla.s.s that they must write an English epigram. Some of them said it was impossible. He said it was not impossible at all; they might each choose their own subject, but an epigram they must write. One boy wrote--
”Two men wrote a Lexicon, Liddell and Scott; One half was clever, And one half was not.
Give me the answer, boys, Quick to this riddle, Which was by Scott And which was by Liddell?”
Dr. Liddell, when it was shown up, only said, ”I think you are rather severe.”
As to education, I did not receive much more at Oxford this year than I had done before. The college lectures were the merest rubbish; and of what was learnt to pa.s.s the University examinations, nothing has since been of use to me, except the History for the final Schools. About fourteen years of life and above ?4000 I consider to have been wasted on my education of nothingness. At Oxford, however, I was not idle, and the History, French, and Italian, which I taught myself, have always been useful.
_To_ MY MOTHER.
”_Oxford, Feb. 19, 1856._--Your news about dear Mary (Stanley) is very sad. She will find out too late the mistake she has made: that, because she cannot agree with everything in the Church of England, she should think it necessary to join another, where, if she receives anything, she will be obliged to receive everything. I am sorry that the person chosen to argue with her was not one whose views were more consistent with her own than Dr. Vaughan's. It is seldom acknowledged, but I believe that, by their tolerance, Mr.
Liddell and Mr. Bennett[110] keep as many people from Rome as other people drive there. I am very sorry for Aunt Kitty, and hope that no one who loves her will add to her sorrow by estranging themselves from Mary--above all, that _you_ will not consider her religion a barrier. When people see how n.o.bly all her life is given to good, and how she has even made this great step, at sacrifice to herself, because she believes that good may better be carried out in another Church, they may pity her delusion, but no person of right feeling can possibly be angry with her. And, after all, she has not changed her religion. It is, as your own beloved John Wesley said, on hearing that his nephew had become a Papist--'He has changed his opinions and mode of wors.h.i.+p, but has not changed his religion: that is quite another thing.'”
JOURNAL.
”_Lime, March 30, 1856._--My mother and I have had a very happy Easter together--more than blessed when I look back at the anxiety of last Easter. Once when her bell rang in the night, I started up and rushed out into the pa.s.sage in an agony of alarm, for every unusual sound at home has terrified me since her illness; but it was nothing. I have been full of my work, chiefly Aristotle's Politics, for 'Greats'--too full, I fear, to enter as I ought into all her little thoughts and plans as usual: but she is ever loving and gentle, and had interest and sympathy even when I was preoccupied. She thinks that knowledge may teach humility even in a spiritual sense. She says, 'In knowledge the feeling is the same which one has in ascending mountains--that, the higher one gets, the _farther_ one is from heaven.' To-day, as we were walking amongst the flowers, she said, 'I suppose every one's impressions of heaven are according to the feeling they have for earthly things: I always feel that a garden is my impression--the _garden_ of Paradise.' 'People generally love themselves first, their friends next, and G.o.d last,' she said one day. 'Well, I do not think that is the case with me,' I replied; 'I really believe I do put you first and self next.' 'Yes, I really think you do,' she said.”
When I returned to Oxford after Easter, 1856, my pleasant time in college rooms was over, and I moved to lodgings over Wheeler's bookshop and facing Dr. Cradock's house, so that I was able to see more than ever of Mrs. Eliot Warburton. I was almost immediately in the ”Schools,” for the cla.s.sical and divinity part of my final examination, which I got through very comfortably. While in the Schools at this time, I remember a man being asked what John the Baptist was beheaded for--and the answer, ”Dancing with Herodias's daughter!” Once through these Schools, I was free for some time, and charades were our chief amus.e.m.e.nt, Mrs.
Warburton, the Misses Elliot,[111] Sheffield, and I being the princ.i.p.al actors. The proclamation of peace after the Crimean War was celebrated--Oxford fas.h.i.+on--by tremendous riots in the town, and smas.h.i.+ng of windows in all directions.
At Whitsuntide, I had a little tour in Warwicks.h.i.+re with Albert Rutson as my companion. We enjoyed a stay at Edgehill, at the charming little inn called ”The Sun Rising,” which overlooks the battlefield, having the great sycamore by its side under which Charles I. breakfasted before the battle, and a number of Cavalier arms inside, with the hangings of the bed in which Lord Lindsey died. From Edgehill I saw the wonderful old house of the Comptons at Compton-Whinyates, with its endless secret staircases and trap-doors, and its rooms of unplaned oak, evidently arranged with no other purpose than defence or escape. We went on to Stratford-on-Avon, with Shakspeare's tomb, his house in Henley Street, and the pretty old thatched cottage where he wooed his wife--Anne Hathaway. Also we went to visit Mrs. Lucy (sister of Mrs. William Stanley) at Charlecote, a most entertaining person, with the family characteristic of fun and goodhumour; and to Combe Abbey, full of relics of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her daughters, who lived there with Lord Craven. Many of the portraits were painted by her daughter Louisa. A few weeks later I went up to the Stanleys in London for the Peace illuminations--”very neat, but all alike,” as I heard a voice in the crowd say. I saw them from the house of Lady Mildred Hope, who had a party for them like the one in Scripture, not the rich and great, but the ”poor, maimed, halt, and blind;” as, except Aldersons and Stanleys, she arranged that there should not be a single person ”in society”
there.
JOURNAL.
”_Lime, June 8, 1856._--I had found the dear mother in a sadly fragile state, so infirm and tottering that it is not safe to leave her alone for a minute, and she is so well aware of it, that she does not wish to be left. She cannot now even cross the room alone, and never thinks of moving anywhere without a stick. Every breath, even of the summer wind, she feels most intensely. '”The Lord establish, _strengthen_ you,” that must be my verse,' she says.”
”_June 15._--I am afraid I cannot help being tired of the mental solitude at home, as the dear mother, without being ill enough to create any anxiety, has not been well enough to take any interest, or have any share in my doings. Sometimes I am almost sick with the silence, and, as I can never go far enough from her to allow of my leaving the garden, I know not only every cabbage, but every leaf upon every cabbage.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAWING-ROOM, LIME.]