Part 23 (2/2)
cation from an undergraduate to his maternal relative.”
”Off she goes then;” observed Mr. Bouncer; ”lend me your ears - list, list, O list! as the recruiting-sergeant or some other feller says in the Play. 'Now, my little dears! look straight for'ard - blow your noses, and don't brathe on the gla.s.ses!'” and Mr. Bouncer read the letter, interspersing it with explanatory observations:-
~” 'My dearest mother, - I have been quite well since I left you, and I hope you and f.a.n.n.y have been equally salubrious.~'- That's doing the civil, you see: now we pa.s.s on to statistics. - '~We had rain the day before yesterday, but we shall have a new moon to-night.~' - You see, the Mum always likes to hear about the weather, so I get that out of the Almanack. Now we get on to the interesting part of the letter. - '~I will now tell you a little about Merton College.~' - That's where I had just got to. We go right through the Guide Book, you understand. - '~The history of this establishment is of peculiar importance, as exhibiting the primary model of all the collegiate bodies in Oxford and Cambridge. The statutes of Walter de Merton had been more or less copied by all other founders in succession; and the whole const.i.tution of both Universities, as we now behold them, may be, not without reason, ascribed to the liberality and munificence of this truly great man.~' - Truly great man! that's no end good, ain't it? observed Mr. Bouncer, in the manner of the 'mobled queen is good'
of Polonius. - '~His sagacity and wisdom led him to profit by the spirit of the times; his opulence enabled him to lay the foundation of a n.o.bler system; and the splendour of his example induced others, in subsequent ages, to raise a superstructure at once attractive and solid.~' - That's piling it up mountaynious, ain't it? - '~The students were no longer dispersed through the streets and lanes of the city, dwelling in insulated houses, halls, inns, or hostels, subject to dubious control and precarious discipline.~' - That's stunnin', isn't it? just like those ~Times~ fellers write. - '~But placed under the immediate superintendence of tutors and governors, and lodged in comfortable chambers. This was little less than an academical revolution; and a new order of things may be dated from this memorable era. Love to f.a.n.n.y; and, believe me your affectionate Son, Henry Bouncer.~' - If the Mum don't say that's first-rate, I'm a Dutchman! You see, I don't write very close, so that this respectably fills up three sides of a sheet of note-paper. Oh, here's something over the leaf. '~P.S. I hope Stump and Rowdy have got something for me, because I want some tin very bad.~' That's all! Well, Giglamps! don't you call that quite a model letter for a University man to send to his tender parient?”
”It certainly contains some interesting information,” said our Hero, with a Quaker-like indirectness of reply.
[162 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
”It seems to me, Harry,” said Charles Larkyns, ”that the pith of it, like a lady's letter, lies in the postscript - the demand for money.”
”You see,” observed the little gentleman in explanation, ”Stump and Rowdy are the beggars that have got all my property till I come of age next year; and they only let me have money at certain times, because it's what they facetiously call ~tied-up~: though ~why~ they've tied it up, or ~where~ they've tied it up, I hav'nt the smallest idea. So, though I tick for nearly everything, - for men at College, Giglamps, go upon tick as naturally as the crows do on the sheep's backs, - I sometimes am rather hard up for ready dibs; and then I give the Mum a gentlemanly hint of this, and she tips me.
By-the-way,” continued Mr. Bouncer, as he re-read his postscript, ”I must alter the word 'tin' into 'money'; or else she'll be taking it literally, just as she did with the ponies. Know what a pony is, Giglamps?”
”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.”
”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 <vg162.jpg> 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
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 163]
more; and Tollitt 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?” <vg163.jpg>
”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!”
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,
[164 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
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.”
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