The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Part 8

"Perhaps you'll be surprised at our simple repast, Verdant," said Mr.

Larkyns; "but it's our misfortune. It all comes of hard reading and late hours: the midnight oil, you know, must be supplied, and ~will~ be paid for; the nervous system gets strained to excess, and you have to call in the doctor. Well, what does he do? Why, he prescribes a regular course of tonics; and I flatter myself that I am a very docile patient, and take my bitter beer regularly, and without complaining." In proof of which Mr. Charles Larkyns took a long pull at the pewter.

"But you know, Larkyns," observed Mr. Smalls, "that was nothing to my case, when I got laid up with elephantiasis on the biceps of the lungs, and had a fur coat in my stomach!"

"Dear me!" said Verdant sympathizingly; "and was that also through too much study?"

"Why, of course!" replied Mr. Smalls; "it couldn't have been anything else - from the symptoms, you know! But then the sweets of learning surpa.s.s the bitters. Talk of the pleasures of the dead languages, indeed! why, how many jolly nights have you and I, Larkyns, pa.s.sed 'down among the dead men!' "

Charles Larkyns had just been looking over the letter which

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Verdant had brought him, and said, "The governor writes that you'd like me to put you up to the ways of the place, because they are fresh to you, and you are fresh (ahem! very!) to them. Now, I am going to wine with Smalls to-night, to meet a few nice, quiet, hard-working men (eh, Smalls?), and I daresay Smalls will do the civil, and ask you also."

"Certainly!" said Mr. Smalls, who saw a prospect of amus.e.m.e.nt, "delighted, I a.s.sure you! I hope to see you - after Hall, you know, - but I hope you don't object to a very quiet party?"

"Oh, dear no!" replied Verdant; "I much prefer a quiet party; indeed, I have always been used to quiet parties; and I shall be very glad to come."

"Well, that's settled then," said Charles Larkyns; "and, in the mean time, Verdant, let us take a prowl about the old place, and I'll put you up to a thing or two, and shew you some of the freshman's sights. But you must go and get your cap and gown, old fellow, and then by that time I'll be ready for you."

Whether there are really any sights in Oxford that are more especially devoted, or adapted, to its freshmen, we will not

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undertake to affirm; but if there are, they could not have had a better expositor than Mr. Charles Larkyns, or a more credible visitor than Mr. Verdant Green.

His credibility was rather strongly put to the test as they turned into the High Street, when his companion directed his attention to an individual on the opposite side of the street, with a voluminous gown, and enormous c.o.c.ked hat profusely adorned with gold lace. "I suppose you know who that is, Verdant?

No! Why, that's the Bishop of Oxford! Ah, I see, he's a very different-looking man to what you had expected; but then these university robes so change the appearance. That is his official dress, as the Visitor of the Ashmolean!"

Mr. Verdant Green having "swallowed" this, his friend was thereby enabled, not only to use up old "sells," but also to draw largely on his invention for new ones. Just then, there came along the street, walking in a sort of young procession, - the Vice-Chancellor, with his Esquire and Yeoman-bedels. The silver maces, carried by these latter gentlemen, made them by far the most showy part of the procession, and accordingly Mr. Larkyns seized the favourable opportunity to point out the foremost bedel, and say, "You see that man with the poker and loose cap? Well, that's the Vice-Chancellor."

"But what does he walk in procession for?" inquired our freshman.

"Ah, poor man!" said Mr. Larkyns, "he's obliged to do it." 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,' you know; and he can never go anywhere, or do anything, without carrying that poker, and having the other minor pokers to follow him. They never leave him, not even at night. Two of the pokers stand on each side his bed, and relieve each other every two hours. So, I need hardly say, that he is obliged to be a bachelor."

"It must be a very wearisome office," remarked our freshman, who fully believed all that was told to him.

"Wearisome, indeed; and that's the reason why they are obliged to change the Vice-Chancellors so often. It would

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kill most people, only they are always selected for their strength, - and height," he added, as a brilliant idea just struck him. They had turned down Magpie Lane, and so by Oriel College, where one of the fire-plug notices had caught Mr. Larkyns' eye. "You see that," he said; "well, that's one of the plates they put up to record the Vice's height. F.P. 7 feet, you see: the initials of his name, - Frederick Plumptre!"

"He scarcely seemed so tall as that," said our hero, "though certainly a tall man. But the gown makes a difference, I suppose."

"His height was a very lucky thing for him, however," continued Mr.

Larkyns; "I dare say when you have heard that it was only those who stood high in the University that were elected to rule it, you little thought of the true meaning of the term?"

"I certainly never did," said the freshman, innocently; "but I knew that the customs of Oxford must of course be very different from those of other places."

"Yes, you'll soon find that out," replied Mr. Larkyns, meaningly.

"But here we are at Merton, whose Merton ale is as celebrated as Burton ale. You see the man giving in the letters to the porter? Well, he's one of their princ.i.p.al men. Each college does its own postal department; and at Merton there are fourteen postmasters,* for they get no end of letters there."

"Oh, yes!" said our hero, "I remember Mr. Larkyns, - your father, the rector, I mean, - telling us that the son of one of his old friends had been a postmaster of Merton; but I fancied that he had said it had something to do with a scholarship."

--- * Exhibitioners of Merton College are called "postmasters."

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"Ah, you see, it's a long while since the governor was here, and his memory fails him," remarked Mr. Charles Larkyns, very unfilially.

"Let us turn down the Merton fields, and round into St. Aldate's. We may perhaps be in time to see the Vice come down to Christ Church."

"What does he go there for?" asked Mr. Verdant Green.

"To wind up the great clock, and put big Tom in order. Tom is the bell that you hear at nine each night; the Vice has to see that he is in proper condition, and, as you have seen, goes out with his pokers for that purpose."

On their way, Charles Larkyns pointed out, close to Folly Bridge, a house profusely decorated with figures and indescribable ornaments, which he informed our freshman was Blackfriars' Hall, where all the men who had been once plucked were obliged to migrate to; and that Folly Bridge received its name from its propinquity to the Hall. They were too late to see the Vice-Chancellor wind up the clock of Christ Church; but as they pa.s.sed by the college, they met two gownsmen who recognized Mr. Larkyns by a slight nod. "Those are two Christ Church men," he said, "and n.o.blemen. The one with the Skye-terrier's coat and eye-gla.s.s is the Earl of Whitechapel, the Duke of Minories' son. I dare say you know the other man. No! Why, he is Lord Thomas Peeper, eldest son of the Lord G.o.diva who hunts our county. I knew him in the field."

"But why do they wear ~gold~ ta.s.sels to their caps?" inquired the freshman.

"Ah," said the ingenious Mr. Larkyns, shaking his head; "I had rather you'd not have asked me that question, because that's the disgraceful part of the business. But these lords, you see, they ~will~ live at a faster pace than us commoners, who can't stand a champagne breakfast above once a term or so. Why, those gold ta.s.sels are the badges of drunkenness!"*

"Of drunkenness! dear me!"

"Yes, it's very sad, isn't it?" pursued Mr. Larkyns; "and I wonder that Peeper in particular should give way to such

--- * As "Tufts" and "Tuft-hunters" have become "household words," it is perhaps needless to tell any one that the gold ta.s.sel is the distinguishing mark of a n.o.bleman.

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things. But you see how they brazen it out, and walk about as coolly as though nothing had happened. It's just the same sort of punishment," continued Mr. Larkyns, whose inventive powers increased with the demand that the freshman's gullibility imposed upon them, - "it is just the same sort of thing that they do with the Greenwich pensioners. When ~they~ have been trangressing the laws of sobriety, you know, they are made marked men by having to wear a yellow coat as a punishment; and our dons borrowed the idea, and made yellow ta.s.sels the badges of intoxication. But for the credit of the University, I'm glad to say that you'll not find many men so disgraced."

They now turned down the New Road, and came to a strongly castellated building, which Mr. Larkyns pointed out (and truly) as Oxford Castle or the Gaol; and he added (untruly), "if you hear Botany-Bay College*

spoken of, this is the place that's meant. It's a delicate way of referring to the temporary sojourn that any undergrad has been forced to make there, to say that he belongs to Botany-Bay College."

They now turned back, up Queen Street and High Street, when, as they were pa.s.sing All Saints, Mr. Larkyns pointed out a pale, intellectual looking man who pa.s.sed them, and said, "That man is Cram, the patent safety. He's the first coach in Oxford."

"A coach!" said our freshman, in some wonder.

"Oh, I forgot you didn't know college-slang. I suppose a royal mail is the only gentleman coach that ~you~ know of. Why, in Oxford, a coach means a private tutor, you must know; and those who can't afford a coach, get a cab, - ~alias~ a crib, - ~alias~ a translation.

You see, Verdant, you are gradually being initiated into Oxford mysteries."