Part 44 (2/2)

”I don't mind paying for it,” said Verdant to Mr. Bouncer, ”if I can but win the cup, and show it to Patty, when she comes to us at Christmas.”

”Keep your p.e.c.k.e.r up, old feller! and put your trust in old beans,”

was Mr.Bouncer's reply.

CHAPTER XII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN TAKES HIS DEGREE.

DURING the fortnight that intervened between Mr. Bouncer's breakfast party and the Grind, Mr. Verdant Green got himself into training for his first appearance as a steeple-chase rider, by practising a variety of equestrian feats over leaping-bars and gorse stuck hurdles; in which he acquitted himself with tolerable success, and came off with fewer bruises than might have been expected. At this period of his career, too, he strengthened his bodily powers by practising himself in those varieties of the ”manly exercises” that found most favour in Oxford.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 303]

The adoption of some portion of these was partly attributable to his having been made a Mason; for, whenever he attended the meetings of his Lodge, he had to pa.s.s the two rooms where Mr. MacLaren conducted his fencing-school and gymnasium. The fencing-room - which was the larger of the two, and was of the same dimensions as the Lodge-room above it - was usually tenanted by the proprietor and his a.s.sistant (who, as Mr. <vg303.jpg> Bouncer phrased it, ”put the pupils through their paces,”) and re-echoed to the sounds of stampings, and the cries of ”On guard! quick! parry! lunge!” with the various other terms of Defence and Attack, uttered in French and English. At the upper end of the room, over the fire-place, was a stand of curious arms, flanked on either side by files of single-sticks. The centre of the room was left clear for the fencing; while the lower end was occupied by the parallel bars, a regiment of Indian clubs, and a mattress apparatus for the delectation of the sect of jumpers.

Here Mr. Verdant Green, properly equipped for the purpose, was accustomed to swing his clubs after the presumed Indian manner, to lift himself off his feet and hang suspended between the parallel bars, to leap the string on to the mattress, to be rapped and thumped with single-sticks and boxing-gloves by any one else than Mr. Blades (who had developed his muscles in a most formidable manner), and to go through his parades of ~quarte~ and ~tierce~ with the flannel-

[304 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

clothed a.s.sistant. Occasionally he had a fencing bout with <vg304.jpg> the good-humoured Mr. MacLaren, who - professionally protected by his padded leathern ~plastron~ - politely and obligingly did his best to a.s.sure him, both by precept and example, of the truth of the wise old saw, ”mens sana in corpore sano.”

The lower room at MacLaren's presented a very different appearance to the fencing-room. The wall to the right hand, as well as a part of the wall at the upper end, was hung around - not

”With pikes, and guns, and bows,”

like the fine old English gentleman's, - but nevertheless,

”With swords, and good old cutla.s.ses,”

and foils, and fencing masks, and fencing gloves, and boxing gloves, and pads, and belts, and light white shoes. Opposite to the door, was the vaulting-horse, on whose wooden back the gymnasiast sprang at a bound, and over which the tyro (with the aid of the spring-board) usually pitched himself headlong. Then, commencing at the further end, was a series of poles and ropes - the turning pole, the hanging poles, the rings, and the ~trapeze~, - on either or all of which the pupil could exercise himself; and, if he had the skill so to do, could jerk himself from one to the other, and finally hang himself upon the sloping ladder, before the momentum of his spring had pa.s.sed away.

Mr. Bouncer, who could do most things with his hands and feet, was a very distinguished pupil of Mr. MacLaren's; for the little gentleman was as active as a monkey, and - to quote his own remarkably figurative expression - was ”a great deal livelier than ~the Bug and b.u.t.terfly~.”*

Mr. Bouncer, then, would go through the full series of gymnastic performances, and finally pull himself up the rounds of the ladder, with the greatest apparent ease, much to the envy of Mr. Verdant Green, who, bathed in perspiration, and nearly dislocating every bone in his body, would vainly struggle (in

--- * A name given to Mr. Hope's Entomological Museum.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 305]

att.i.tudes like to those of ”the perspiring frog” of Count Smorltork) to imitate his mercurial friend, and would finally drop exhausted on the padded floor.

And, Mr. Verdant Green did not confine himself to these indoor amus.e.m.e.nts; but studied the Oxford Book of Sports in various out-of-door ways. Besides his Grinds, and cricketing, and boating, and hunting, he would paddle down to Wyatt's <vg305.jpg> for a little pistol practice, or to indulge in the exciting amus.e.m.e.nt of rifle-shooting at empty bottles, or to practise, on the leaping and swinging poles, the lessons he was learning at MacLaren's, or to play at skittles with Mr. Bouncer (who was very expert in knocking down three out of the four); or to kick football until he became (to use Mr. Bouncer's expression) ”as stiff as a biscuit.”

Or, he would attend the shooting parties given by William Brown, Esquire, of University House; where blue-rocks and brown rabbits were turned out of traps for the sport of the a.s.sembled bipeds and quadrupeds. The luckless pigeons and rabbits had but a poor chance for their lives; for, if the gentleman who paid for the privilege of the shot missed his rabbit (which was within the bounds of probability) the other guns were at once discharged, and the dogs of

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