Part 6 (2/2)
”Oh!” said Mr. Fosbrooke, for it was he; ”ah, I remember you now! I suppose the old bird was your governor. ~He~ seemed to think it any thing but a pleasure, being driven by Four-in-hand Fosbrooke.”
”Why, pap - my father - is rather nervous on a coach,” replied Verdant: ”he was bringing me to college for the first time.” ”Then you are the man that has just come into Smalls' old rooms? Oh, I see. Don't you ever drink with your dinner? If you don't holler for your rascal, he'll never half wait upon you. Always bully them well at first, and then they learn manners.”
So, by way of commencing the bullying system without loss of time, our hero called out very fiercely ”Robert!” and then, as Mr. Filcher glided to his side, he timidly dropped his tone into a mild ”Gla.s.s of water, if you please, Robert.”
He felt rather relieved when dinner was over, and retired at once to his own rooms; where, making a rather quiet and sudden entrance, he found them tenanted by an old woman, who wore a huge bonnet tilted on the top of her head, and was busily and dubiously engaged at one of his open boxes. ”Ahem!” he coughed, at which note of warning the old lady jumped round very quickly, and said, - dabbing curtseys where there were stops, like the beats of a conductor's ~baton~, - ”Law bless me, sir. It's beggin' your parding that I am. Not seein' you a comin' in. Bein' 'ard of hearin' from a hinfant. And havin' my back turned. I was just a puttin' your things to rights, sir. If you please, sir, I'm Mrs. Tester. Your bed-maker, sir.”
”Oh, thank you,” said our freshman, with the shadow of a suspicion that Mrs. Tester was doing something more than merely ”putting to rights”
the pots of jam and marmalade, and the packages of tea and coffee, which his doting mother had thoughtfully placed in his box as a provision against immediate distress. ”Thank you.”
”I've done my rooms, sir,” dabbed Mrs. Tester. ”Which if thought agreeable, I'd stay and put these things in their places. Which it certainly is Robert's place. But I never minds putting myself out.
As I always perpetually am minded. So long as I can obleege the gentlemen.”
So, as our hero was of a yielding disposition, and could, under skilful hands, easily be moulded into any form, he allowed Mrs.
Tester to remain, and conclude the unpacking and putting away of his goods, in which operations she displayed great generals.h.i.+p.
”You've a deal of tea and coffee, sir,” she said, keeping time by curtseys. ”Which it's a great blessin' to have a mother. And not to be left dissolute like some gentlemen. And tea
[54 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
and coffee is what I mostly lives on. And mortial dear it is to poor folks. And a package the likes of this, sir, were a blessin' I should never even dream on.”
”Well, then,” said Verdant, in a most benevolent mood, ”you can take one of the packages for your trouble.”
Upon this, Mrs. Tester appeared to be greatly overcome. ”Which I once had a son myself,” she said. ”And as fine a young man as you are, sir. With a strawberry mark in the small of his back. And beautiful red whiskers, sir; with a tendency to drink. Which it were his rewing, and took him to be enlisted for a sojer. When he went across the seas to the West Injies. And was took with the yaller fever, and buried there. Which the remembrance, sir, brings on my spazzums. To which I'm an hafflicted martyr, sir. And can only be heased with three spots of brandy on a lump of sugar. Which your good mother, sir, has put a bottle of brandy. Along with the jam and the clean linen, sir. As though a purpose for my complaint. Ugh!
oh!”
And Mrs. Tester forthwith began pressing and thumping her sides in such a terrific manner, and appeared to be undergoing such internal agony, that Mr. Verdant Green not only gave her brandy there and then, for her immediate relief - ”which it heases the spazzums deerectly, bless you,” observed Mrs. Tester, parenthetically; but also told her where she could find the bottle, in case she should again be attacked when in his rooms; attacks which, it is needless to say, were repeated at every subsequent visit. Mrs. Tester then finished putting away the tea and coffee, and entered into further particulars about her late son; though what connection there was between him and the packages of tea, our hero could not perceive.
Nevertheless he was much interested with her narrative, and thought Mrs. Tester a very affectionate, motherly sort of woman; more especially, when (Robert having placed his tea-things on the table) she showed him how to make the tea; an apparently simple feat that the freshman found himself perfectly unable to accomplish. And then Mrs. Tester made a final dab, and her exit, and our hero sat over his tea as long as he could, because it gave an idea of cheerfulness; and then, after directing Robert to be sure not to forget to call him in time for morning chapel, he retired to bed.
The bed was very hard, and so small, that, had it not been for the wall, our hero's legs would have been visible (literally) at the foot; but despite these novelties, he sank into a sound rest, which at length pa.s.sed into the following dream. He thought that he was back again at dinner at the Manor Green, but that the room was curiously like the hall of Brazenface, and that Mrs. Tester and Dr.
Portman were on either side of
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 55]
him, with Mr. Fosbrooke and Robert talking to his sisters; and that he was reaching his hand to help Mrs. Tester to a packet of tea, which her son had sent them from the West Indies, when he threw over a wax-light, and set every thing on fire; and that the parish engine came up; and that there was a great noise, and a loud hammering; and, ”Eh? yes! oh! the half-hour is it? Oh, yes! thank you!” And Mr.
Verdant Green sprang out of bed much relieved in mind to find <vg055.jpg> that the alarm of fire was nothing more than his scout knocking vigorously at his door, and that it was chapel-time.
”Want any warm water, sir?” asked Mr. Filcher, putting his head in at the door.
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