Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 6

"Quite cla.s.sical," said the elder, a tall, good-looking youth; "you came as did Caesar into Gaul, '_summa diligentia,_' on the top of the Diligence."

They both laughed heartily at a very threadbare college joke, and were about to move away, when the younger, turning round, said, "Have you matriculated?"

"No, sir,--what's that?"

"It's a little ceremony," interposed the elder, "necessary, and indeed indispensable, to every one coming to reside within these walls. You've heard of Napoleon, I dare say?"

"Bony, is it?" asked I, giving the more familiar t.i.tle by which he was better known to my circle of acquaintance.

"Exactly," said he, "Bony. Now Bony used to call a first battle the baptism of Glory; so may we style, in a like way, Matriculation to be the baptism of Knowledge. You understand me, eh?"

"Not all out," said I, "but partly."

"We 'll ill.u.s.trate by a diagram, then."

"I say, Bob," whispered the younger, "let us find out with whom he is;"

then, turning to me, said, "Where do you live here?"

"Yonder," said I, "where that lamp is."

"Mr. Lyndsay's chambers?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right," cried the younger; "we'll show you the secret of matriculation."

"Come along, my young friend," said the elder, in the same pompous tone he had used at first, "let us teach you to drink of that Pierian spring which 'Labitur et labetur in omne volubile oevum.'"

I believe it was the fluent use of the unknown tongue which at once allayed any mistrust I might have felt of my new acquaintances; however that may be, there was something so imposing in the high-sounding syllables that I yielded at once, and followed them into another and more remote quadrangle.

Here they stopped under a window, while one gave a loud whistle with his fingers to his lips; the sash was immediately thrown up, and a handsome, merry-looking face protruded. "Eh!--what!--Taylor and Ward," cried he, "what's going on?"

"Come down, Burton; here's a youth for matriculation," cried the younger.

"All right," cried the other. "There are eight of us here at breakfast;"

and disappearing from the window, he speedily descended to the court, followed by a number of others, who gravely saluted me with a deep bow, and solemnly welcomed me within the cla.s.sic precincts of old Trinity.

"Domine--what's his name?" said the young gentleman called Burton.

"Cregan, sir," replied I, already flattered by the attentions I was receiving,--"Con Cregan, sir."

"Well, Domine Cregan, come along with us, and never put faith in a junior sophister. You know what a junior sophister is, I trust?"

"No, sir."

"Tell him, Ward."

"A junior sophister, Mr. Cregan, is one who, being in 'Locke' all day, is very often locked out all night, and who observes the two rubrics of the statute '_de vigilantibus et lucentibus_,' by extinguishing both lamps and watchmen."

"Confound your pedantry!" broke in Burton; "a junior soph, is a man in his ninth examination."

"The terror of the porters," cried one.

"The Dean's milch cow," added another.

"A credit to his parents, but a debtor to his tailor," broke in a third.

"Seldom at Greek lecture, but no fellow commoner at the Currah," lisped out Taylor; and by this time we had reached a narrow lane, flanked on one side by a tall building of gloomy exterior, and on the other by an angle of the square.

"Here we are, Mr. Cregan; as the poet says, 'this is the place, the centre of the wood.'"

"Gentlemen sponsors, to your functions!" Scarce were the words out, when I was seized by above half a dozen pair of strong hands; my legs were suddenly jerked upwards, and, notwithstanding my attempts to resist, I was borne along for some yards at a brisk pace. I was already about to forbear my struggles, and suffer them to play their--as I deemed it--harmless joke in quiet, when straight in front of me I saw an enormous pump, at which, and by a double handle, Burton and another were working away like sailors on a wreck; throwing forth-, above a yard off, a jet of water almost enough to turn a mill.

The whole plot now revealed itself to me at once, and I commenced a series of kickings and plungings that almost left me free. My enemies, however, were too many and too powerful; on they bore me, and in a perfect storm of blows, lunges, writhings, and boundings, they held me fast under the stream, which played away in a frothy current over my head, face, chest, and legs,--for, with a most laudable impartiality, they moved me from side to side till not a dry spot remained on my whole body.

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I shouted, I yelled, I swore, and screamed for aid, but all in vain; and my diabolical tormentors seemed to feel no touch of weariness in their inhuman pastime; while I, exhausted by my struggles and the continual rush of the falling water, almost ceased to resist; when suddenly a cry of "The Dean! the Dean!" was heard; my bearers let go their hold,--down I tumbled upon the flags, with barely consciousness enough to see the scampering crew flying in all directions, while a host of porters followed them in hot pursuit.

"Who are you, sir? What brought you here?" said a tall old gentleman I at once surmised to be the Dean.

"The devil himself, I believe!" replied I, rising with difficulty under the weight of my soaked garments.

"Turn him outside the gates, Hawkins!" said the Dean to a porter behind him. "Take care, too, he never reenters them."

"I 'll take good care of it, sir," said the fellow, as with one strong hand on my collar, and the closed fingers of the other administering gentle admonitions to the back of my head, he proceeded to march me before him through the square; revolving as I went thoughts which, certes, evinced not one sentiment of grat.i.tude to the learned university.

My college career was, therefore, more brief than brilliant, for I was "expelled" on the very same day that I "entered."

With the "world before me where to choose," I stepped out into the cla.s.sic precincts of College Green, fully a.s.sured of one fact, that "Town" could scarcely treat me more harshly than "Gown." I felt, too, that I had pa.s.sed through a kind of ordeal; that my ducking, like the ceremonies on crossing the line, was a kind of masonic ordinance, indispensable to my opening career; and that thus I had got successfully through one at least of my "trials."

A species of filial instinct suggested to me the propriety of seeing Newgate, where my father lay, awaiting the arrival of the convict ship that was to convey him to Van Diemen's Land; and thither I accordingly repaired, not to enter, but simply to gaze, with a very awestruck imagination, upon that double-barred cage of human ferocity and crime.

In itself the circ.u.mstance has nothing worthy of record nor should I mention it, save that to the deep impression of that morning do I owe a certain shrinking horror of all great crime; that impression has been of incalculable benefit to me through life.

I strained my eyes to mark if, amid the faces closely pressed against the strong bars, I could recognize that of my parent, but in vain; there was a terrible sameness in their features, as if the individual had sunk in the criminal, that left all discrimination difficult; and so I turned away satisfied that I had done a son's part most completely.

CHAPTER V. A PEEP AT "HIGH AND LOW COMPANY"

I have often heard it observed that one has as little to do with the choice of his mode of life as with the name he receives at baptism. I rather incline to the opinion that this is true. My own very varied and somewhat dissimilar occupations were certainly far less the result of any preconceived plan or scheme than the mere "turn-up" of the rolling die of Fortune.

It was while revolving a species of fatalism in this wise, and calmly a.s.suring myself that I was not born to be starved, that I strolled along Merrion Square on the same afternoon of my expulsion from Trinity and visit to Newgate.

There were brilliant equipages, cavaliers, and ladies on horseback; handsome bouses, with balconies often thronged by attractive-looking occupants; and vast crowds of gayly dressed persons promenaded within the square itself, where a military band performed; in fact, there was more than enough to interest and amuse one of higher pretensions in the scale of pleasure than myself.

While I was thus gazing on this brilliant panorama of the outdoor life of a great city, and wondering and guessing what precise object thus brought people together,--for no feature of a market, or a fair, or any festive occupation solved the difficulty,--I was struck by a cla.s.s of characters who seemed to play the subordinate parts of the drama,--a set of ragged, ill-fed, half-starved boys, who followed in crowds each new arrival on horseback, and eagerly sought permission to hold his horse when he dismounted; the contrast of these mangy looking attendants to the glossy coated and handsomely caparisoned steeds they led about being too remarkable to escape notice. Although a very fierce rivalry prevailed amongst them, they seemed a species of organized guild, who const.i.tuted a distinct walk in life, and indignantly resented the attempt of some two or three "voluntaries" who showed a wish to join the fraternity.