Part 24 (1/2)

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 easygoing 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.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 165]

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 <vg165.jpg> 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

[166 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

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.

By a powerful exertion, however, he recovers his proper <vg166.jpg> position in the saddle, and proceeds in an agitated and jolted condition, by Charles Larkyns's side, down Holywell Street, past the Music Room,* 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.”

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

--- * Now used for the Museum of the Oxford Architectural Society.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 167]

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 <vg167.jpg> 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 couldn't 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.

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

[168 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

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 chillness of <vg168.jpg> 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

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 169]

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. <vg169.jpg>