The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Part 25

[172 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

were both unsightly and unpleasant; and that rawness was bad enough when taken in conjunction with beefsteaks, without being extended to one's own hands. He had also a summer pa.s.sion for ices and creams, which were forbidden luxuries to one in training, - although (paradoxical as it may seem to say so) they trained on Isis! He had also acquired a bad habit of getting up in one day, and going to bed in the next, - keeping late hours, and only rising early when absolutely compelled to do so in order to keep morning chapel - a habit which the trainer would have interfered with, considerably to the little gentleman's advantage. He had also an amiable weakness for pastry, port, claret, "et ~hock~ genus omne"; and would have felt it a cruelty to have been deprived of his daily modic.u.m of "smoke"; and in all these points, boat-training would have materially interfered with his comfort.

Mr. Bouncer, therefore, amused himself equally as much to his own satisfaction as if he had been one of the envied eight, by occasionally paddling about with Charles Larkyns in an old pair-oar, built by Davis and King, and bought by Mr. Bouncer of its late Brazenfacian proprietor, when that gentleman, after a humorous series of plucks, rustications, and heavy debts, had finally been compelled to migrate to the King's Bench, for that purification of purse and person commonly designated "whitewashing." When Charles Larkyns and his partner did not use their pair-oar, the former occupied his outrigger skiff; and the latter, taking Huz and Buz on board a sailing boat, tacked up and down the river with great skill, the smoke gracefully curling from his meerschaum or short black pipe, - for Mr. Bouncer disapproved of smoking cigars at those times when the wind would have a.s.sisted him to get through them.

"Hullo, Giglamps! here we are! as the clown says in the pantermime,"

sung out the little gentleman as he came up with our hero, who was performing some extraordinary feats in full sight of the University crew, who were just starting from their barge; "you get no end of exercise out of your tub, I should think, by the style you work those paddles. They go in and out beautiful! Splish, splash; splish, splash! You must be one of the ~wherry~ identical Row-brothers-row, whose voices kept tune and whose ears kept time, you know. You ought to go and splish-splash in the Freshman's River, Giglamps; - but I forgot - you ain't a freshman now, are you, old feller? Those swells in the University boats look as though they were bursting with envy - not to say, with laughter," added Mr. Bouncer, ~sotto voce~. "Who taught you to do the dodge in such a stunning way, Giglamps?"

"Why, last term, Charles Larkyns did," responded Mr. Verdant Green, with the freshness of a Freshman still lingering

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 173]

lovingly upon him. "I've not forgotten what he told me, - to put in my oar deep, and to bring it out with a jerk. But though I make them go as deep as I can, and jerk them out as much as possible, yet the boat ~will~ keep turning round, and I can't keep it straight at all; and the oars are very heavy and unmanageable, and keep slipping out of the rowlocks -"

"Commonly called ~rullocks~," put in Mr. Bouncer, as a parenthetical correction, or marginal note on Mr. Verdant Green's words.

"And when the Trinity boat went by, I could scarcely get out of their way; and they said very unpleasant things to me; and, altogether, I can a.s.sure you that it has made me very hot."

"And a capital thing, too, Giglamps, this cold November day," said Mr. Bouncer; 'I'm obliged to keep my coppers warm with this pea-coat, and my pipe.

Charley came alongside me just now, on purpose to fire off one of his poetical quotations. He said that I reminded him of Beattie's ~Minstrel~:-

'Dainties he needed not, nor gaud, nor toy, Save one short pipe.'

I think that was something like it. But you see, Giglamps, I haven't got a figure-head for these sort of things like Charley has, so I couldn't return his shot; but since then, to me deeply pondering, as those old Greek parties say, a fine sample of our superior old crusted jokes has come to hand; and when Charley next pulls alongside, I shall tell him that I am like that beggar we read about in old Slowcoach's lecture the other day, and that, if I had been in the humour, I could have sung out, Io Bacche!* ~I owe baccy~ - d'ye see, Giglamps? Well, old

--- * - "Si collibuisset, ab ovo "Usque ad mala citaret, Io Bacche!" - Hor. Sat. Lib. I. 3.

[174 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

feller! you look rather puffed, so clap on your coat; and, if there's a rope's end, or a chain, in your tub, and you'll just pay it out here, I'll make you fast astern, and pull you down the river; and then you'll be in prime condition to work yourself up again. The wind's in our back, and we shall get on jolly." So our hero made fast the tub to his friend's sailing-boat, and was towed as far as the Haystack. During the voyage Mr. Bouncer ascertained that Mr.

Charles Larkyns had improved some of the shining hours of the long vacation considerably to Mr. Verdant Green's benefit, by teaching him the art of swimming - a polite accomplishment of which our hero had been hitherto ignorant. Little Mr. Bouncer, therefore, felt easier in his mind, if any repet.i.tion of his involuntary bath in the Gut should befal our hero; and, after giving him (wonderful to say) some correct advice regarding the management of the oars, he cast off the ~Sylph,~ and left her and our hero to their own devices.

But, profiting by the friendly hints which he had received, Mr.

Verdant Green made considerable progress in the skill and dexterity with which he feathered his oars; and he sat in his tub looking as wise as Diogenes may (perhaps) have done in ~his~. He moreover pulled the boat back to Hall's without meeting with any accident worth mentioning; and when he had got on sh.o.r.e he was highly complimented by Mr. Blades and a group of boating gentlemen "for the admirable display of science which he had afforded them." Mr.

Verdant Green was afterwards taken alternately by Charles Larkyns and Mr. Bouncer in their pair-oar; so that, by the end of the term, he at any rate knew more of boating than to accept as one of its fundamental rules, "put your oar in deep, and bring it out with a jerk."

In the first week in December he had an opportunity of pulling over a fresh piece of water. One of those inundations occurred to which Oxford is so liable, and the meadow-land to the south and west of the city was covered by the flood. Boats

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 175]

plied to and from the railway station in place of omnibuses; the Great Western was not to be seen for water; and, at the Abingdon-road bridge, at Cold-harbour, the rails were washed away, and the trains brought to a stand-still. The Isis was amplified to the width of the Christ Church meadows; the Broad Walk had a peep of itself upside down in the gla.s.sy mirror; the windings of the Cherwell could only be traced by the trees on its banks. There was

"Water, water everywhere,"

and a disagreeable quant.i.ty of it too, as those Christ Church men whose ground-floor rooms were towards the meadows soon discovered. Mr. Bouncer is supposed to have brought out one of his "fine, old, crusted jokes," when he a.s.serted in reference to the inundation, that "Nature had a.s.sumed a lake complexion." Posts and rails, and hay, and a miscellaneous collection of articles, were swept along by the current, together with the bodies of hapless sheep and pigs. But, in spite of these inc.u.mbrances, boats of all descriptions were to be seen sailing, pulling, skiffing, and punting, over the flooded meadows. Numerous were the disasters, and many were the boats that were upset.

Indeed, the adventures of Mr. Verdant Green would probably have here terminated in a misadventure, had he not (thanks to Charles Larkyns) mastered the art of swimming; for he was in Mr. Bouncer's sailing-boat, which was sailing very merrily over the flood, when its merriness was suddenly checked by its grounding on the stump of a lopped pollard

[176 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

willow, and forthwith capsizing. Our hero, who had been sitting in the bows, was at once swept over by the sail, and, for a moment, was in great peril; but, disengaging himself from the cordage, he struck out, and swam to a willow whose friendly boughs and top had just formed an asylum for Mr. Bouncer, who in great anxiety was coaxing Huz and Buz to swim to the same ark of safety.

Mr. Verdant Green and Mr. Bouncer were speedily rescued from their position, and were not a little thankful for their escape.

CHAPTER VII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN PARTAKES OF A DOVE-TART AND A SPREAD-EAGLE.

"HULLO, Giglamps, you lazy beggar!" said the cheery voice of little Mr. Bouncer, as he walked into our hero's bedroom one morning towards the end of term, and found Mr. Verdant Green in bed, though sufficiently awakened by the sounding of Mr. Bouncer's octaves for the purposes of conversation; "this'll never do, you know, Giglamps!

Cutting chapel to do the downy! Why, what do you mean, sir? Didn't you ever learn in the nursery what happened to old Daddy Longlegs when he wouldn't say his prayers?"

"Robert ~did~ call me," said our hero, rubbing his eyes; "but I felt tired, so I told him to put in an ~aeger~."

"Upon my word, young un," observed Mr. Bouncer, "you're a coming it, you are! and only in your second term, too. What makes you wear a nightcap, Giglamps? Is it to make your hair curl, or to keep your venerable head warm? Nightcaps ain't healthy; they are only fit for long-tailed babbies, and old birds that are as bald as coots; or else for gents that grease their wool with 'thine incomparable oil, Maca.s.sar,' as the n.o.ble poet justly remarks."

"It ain't always pleasant," continued the little gentleman, who was perched up on the side of the bed, and seemed in a communicative disposition, "it ain't always pleasant to turn out for morning chapel, is it, Giglamps? But it's just like the eels with their skinning: it goes against the grain at first, but you soon get used to it. When I first came up, I was a frightful lazy beggar, and I got such a heap of impositions for not keeping my morning chapels, that I was obliged to have three fellers constantly at work writing 'em out for me. This was rather expensive, you see; and then the dons threatened to take away my term altogether, and bring me to grief, if I didn't be more regular. So I was obliged to make a virtuous resolu-

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 177]

tion, and I told Robert that he was to insist on my getting up in a morning, and I should tip him at the end of term if he succeeded. So at first he used to come and hammer at the door; but that was no go. So then he used to come in and shake me, and try to pull the clothes off; but, you see, I always used to prepare for him, by taking a good supply of boots and things to bed with me; so I was able to take shies at the beggar till he vanished, and left me to snooze peaceably. You see, it ain't every feller as likes to have a Wellington boot at his head; but that rascal of a Robert is used to those trifles, and I was obliged to try another dodge. This you know was only of a morning when I was in bed.

When I had had my breakfast, and got my imposition, and become virtuous again, I used to slang him awful for having let me cut chapel; and then I told him that he must always stand at the door until he heard me out of bed. But, when the morning came, it seemed running such a risk,

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you see, to one's lungs and all those sort of things to turn out of the warm bed into the cold chapel, that I would answer Robert when he hammered at the door; but, instead of getting up, I would knock my boots against the floor, as though I was out of bed, don't you see, and was padding about. But that wretch of a Robert was too old a bird to be caught with this dodge; so he used to sing out, 'You must show a leg, sir!' and, as he kept on hammering at the door till I ~did~ - for, you see, Giglamps, he was looking out for the tip at the end of term, so it made him persevere - and as his beastly hammering used, of course, to put a stopper on my going to sleep again, I used to rush out in a frightful state of wax, and show a leg. And then, being well up, you see, it was no use doing the downy again, so it was just as well to make one's ~twilight~ and go to chapel. Don't gape, Giglamps; it's beastly rude, and I havn't done yet. I'm going to tell you another dodge - one of old Smalls'. He invested money in an alarum, with a string from it tied on to the bed-clothes, so as to pull them off at whatever time you chose to set it. But I never saw the fun of being left high and dry on your bed: it would be a shock to the system which I couldn't stand. But even this dreadful expedient would be better than posting an ~aeger~; which, you know, you didn't ought to was, Giglamps. Well, turn out, old feller! I've told Robert to take your commons* into my room.

Smalls and Charley are coming, and I've got a dove-tart and a spread-eagle."

"Whatever are they?" asked Mr. Verdant Green.

"Not know what they are!" cried Mr. Bouncer; "why a dove-tart is what mortals call a pigeon-pie. I ain't much in Tennyson's line, but it strikes me that dove-tarts are more poetical than the other thing; spread-eagle is a barn-door fowl smashed out flat, and made jolly with mushroom sauce, and no end of good things. I don't know how they squash it, but I should say that they sit upon it; I daresay, if we were to inquire, we should find that they kept a fat feller on purpose. But you just come, and try how it eats." And, as Mr.

Verdant Green's bedroom barely afforded standing room, even for one, Mr. Bouncer walked into the sitting-room, while his friend arose from his couch like a youthful Adonis, and proceeded to bathe his ambrosial person, by taking certain sanatory measures in splashing about in a species of tub - a per-

--- * The rations of bread, b.u.t.ter, and milk, supplied from the b.u.t.tery.

The breakfast-giver tells his scout the names of those ~in~-college men who are coming to breakfast with him. The scout then collects their commons, which thus forms the substratum of the entertainment.

The other things are of course supplied by the giver of the breakfast, and are sent in by the confectioner. As to the knives and forks and crockery, the scout produces them from his common stock.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 179]