Part 36 (2/2)

”I think I see a white sail in that direction,” said Miss Patty, as she shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked out earnestly in the required quarter.

”My dear Patty,” laughed her cousin, ”if you knew anything of nautical matters, you would see that it was not a cutter yacht, for she has more than one mast; though, certainly, as you saw her, she seemed to have but one, for she was just coming about, and was in stays.”

[256 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

”In stays!” exclaimed Miss Patty; ”why what singular expressions you sailors have!”

”Oh yes!” said Frederick Delaval, ”and some vessels have waists - like young ladies. But now I think I see the ~Fleur-de-lys~! that gaff tops'l yard was never carried by a coasting vessel. To be sure it is! the skipper knows how to handle her; and, if the breeze holds, she will soon reach her port. Come and have a look at her, Patty, while I rest the gla.s.s for you.” So he balanced it on his shoulder, while Miss Patty looked through it with her one eye, and placed her fingers upon the other - after the manner of young ladies when they look through a telescope; and then burst into such animated, but not thoughtful observations, as ”Oh! I can see it quite plainly. Oh! it is rolling about so! Oh! there are two little men in it! Oh! one of them's pulling a rope! Oh! it all seems to be brought so near!” as if there had been some doubt on the matter, and she had expected the telescope to make things invisible. Miss Patty was quite in childish delight at watching the ~Fleur-de-lys~' movements, and seemed to forget all about the proposed sketch, although Mr. Verdant Green had found her a comfortable rock seat, and had placed her drawing materials ready for use.

”How happy and confiding they are!” he thought, as he gazed upon them thus standing together; ”they seem to be made for each other. He is far more fitted for her than I am. I wonder if I shall ever see them after they are - married. ~I~ shall never be married.” And, after this morbid fas.h.i.+on, the young gentleman took a melancholy pleasure in arranging his future.

It was about this time that the divine afflatus - which had lain almost dormant since his boyish ”Address to the Moon” - was again manifested in him by the production of numberless poetical effusions, in which his own poignant anguish and Miss Patty's incomparable attractions were brought forward in verses of various degrees of mediocrity. They were also equally varied in their style and treatment; one being written in a fierce and gloomy Byronic strain, while another followed the lighter childish style of Wordsworth. To this latter cla.s.s, perhaps, belonged the following lines, which, having accidentally fallen into the hands of Mr. Bouncer, were p.r.o.nounced by him to be ”no end good! first-rate fun!” for the little gentleman put a highly erroneous construction upon them, and, to the great laceration of the author's feelings, imagined them to be altogether of a comic tendency. But, when Mr. Verdant Green wrote them, he probably thought that ”deep meaning lieth oft in childish play”:-

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 257]

”Pretty Patty Honeywood, Fresh, and fair, and plump, Into your affections I should like to jump!

Into your good graces I should like to steal; That you lov'd me truly I should like to feel.

”Pretty Patty Honeywood, You can little know How my sea of pa.s.sion Unto you doth flow; How it ever hastens, With a swelling tide, To its strand of happiness At thy darling side.

”Pretty Patty Honeywood, Would that you and I Could ask the surpliced parson Our wedding knot to tie!

Oh! my life of suns.h.i.+ne Then would be begun, Pretty Patty Honeywood, When you and I were one.”

But by far his greatest poetical achievement was his ”Legend of the Fair Margaret,” written in Spenserian metre, and commenced at this period of his career, though never completed. The plot was of the most dismal and intricate kind. The Fair Margaret was beloved by two young men, one of whom (Sir Frederico) was dark, and (necessarily, therefore) as badly disposed a young man as you would desire to keep out of your family circle, and the other (Sir Verdour) was light, and (consequently) as mild and amiable as any given number of maiden aunts could wish. As a matter of course, therefore, the Fair Margaret perversely preferred the dark Sir Frederico, who had poisoned her ears, and told her the most abominable falsehoods about the good and innocent Sir Verdour; when just as Sir Frederico was about to forcibly carry away the Fair Margaret-

Why, just then, circ.u.mstances over which Mr. Verdant Green had no control, prevented the ~denouement~, and the completion of ”the Legend.”

[258 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

CHAPTER VI.

MR. VERDANT GREEN JOINS A NORTHUMBERLAND PIC-NIC.

<vg258.jpg> SOME weeks had pa.s.sed away very pleasantly to all - pleasantly even to Mr. Verdant Green; for, although he had not renewed his apple-tree conversation with Miss Patty, and was making progress with his ”Legend of the Fair Margaret,” yet - it may possibly have been that the exertion to make ”dove” rhyme with ”love,” and ”gloom” with ”doom,” occupied his mind to the exclusion of needless sorrow - he contrived to make himself mournfully amiable, even if not tolerably happy, in the society of the fair enchantress.

The Honeywood party were indeed a model household; and rode, and drove, and walked, and fished, and sketched, as a large family of brothers and sisters might do - perhaps with a little more piquancy than is generally found in the home-made dish.

They had had more than one little friendly pic-nic and excursion, and had seen Warkworth, and grown excessively sentimental in its hermitage; they had lionised Alnwick, and gone over its n.o.ble castle, and sat in Hotspur's chair, and fallen into raptures at the d.u.c.h.ess's bijou of a dairy, and viewed the pillared ~pa.s.sant~ lion, with his tail blowing straight out (owing, probably, to the breezy nature of his position), and seen the Duke's herd of buffaloes tearing along their park with streaming manes; and they had gone back to Honeywood Hall, and received Honeywood guests, and been entertained by them in return.

But the squire was now about to give a pic-nic on a large scale; and as it was important, not only in its dimensions and preparations, but also in bringing about an occurrence that in no small degree affected Mr. Verdant Green's future life, it becomes his historian's duty to chronicle the event with the fulness that it merits. The pic-nic, moreover, deserves mention because it possessed an individuality of character, and was unlike the ordinary solemnities attending the pic-nics of every-day life.

In the first place, the party had to reach the appointed spot - which was Chillingham - in an unusual manner. At least half

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