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The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green
C >> Cuthbert Bede >> The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28
[218 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
privately, and, when the day (April 1) on which the poems had to be
sent in, had come, he had watched his opportunity, and secretly
dropped through the wired slit in the door of the registrar's office
at the Clarendon, a manuscript poem, distinguished by the motto:-
"Oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still."
We may be quite sure that there was great rejoicing at the Manor
Green and the Rectory, when the news arrived of the success of
Charles Larkyns and Mr. Verdant Green.
CHAPTER XII
MR. VERDANT GREEN AND HIS FRIENDS ENJOY THE COMMEMORATION
THE Commemoration had come; and, among the people who were drawn to
the sight from all parts of the country, the Warwickshire coach
landed in Oxford our friends Mr. Green, his two eldest daughters, and
the Rector - for all of whom Charles Larkyns had secured very
comfortable lodgings in Oriel Street.
The weather was of the finest; and the beautiful city of colleges
looked at its best. While the Rector met with old friends, and heard
his son's praises, and renewed his acquaintance with his old haunts
of study, Mr. Green again lionized Oxford in a much more comfortable
and satisfactory manner than he had previously done at the heels of a
professional guide. As for the young ladies, they were charmed with
everything; for they had never before been in a University town, and
all things had the fascination of novelty. Great were the luncheons
held in Mr. Verdant Green's and Charles Larkyns' rooms; musical was
the laughter that floated merrily through the grave old quads of
Brazenface; happy were the two hearts that held converse with each
other in those cool cloisters and shady gardens. How a few flounces
and bright girlish smiles can change the aspect of the sternest homes
of knowledge! How sunlight can be brought into the gloomiest nooks
of learning by the beams that irradiate happy girlish faces, where
the light of love and truth shines out clear and joyous! How the
appearance of the Commemoration week is influenced in a way thus
described by one of Oxonia's poets:-
"Peace! for in the gay procession brighter forms are borne along-
Fairer scholars, pleasure-beaming, float amid the classic throng.
Blither laughter's ringing music fills the haunts of men awhile,
And the sternest priests of knowledge blush beneath a maiden's
smile.
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 219]
Maidens teach a softer science - laughing Love his pinions dips,
Hush'd to hear fantastic whispers murmur'd from a pedant's lips.
Oh, believe it, throbbing pulses flutter under folds of starch,
And the Dons are human-hearted if the ladies' smiles be arch."
Thanks to the influence of Charles Larkyns and his father, the party
were enabled to see all that was to be seen during the Commemoration
week. On the Saturday night they went to the amateur concert at the
Town Hall, in aid of which, strange to say, Mr. Bouncer's proffer of
his big drum had been declined. On the Sunday they went,
in the morning, to St. Mary's to hear the Bampton lecture; and, in
the afternoon, to the magnificent choral service at New College. In
the evening they attended the customary "Show Sunday" promenade in
Christ Church Broad Walk, where, under the delicious cool of the
luxuriant foliage, they met all the rank, beauty, and fashion that
were assembled in Oxford; and where, until Tom "tolled the hour for
retiring," they threaded their way amid a miscellaneous crowd of Dons
and Doctors, and Tufts and Heads of Houses -
With prudes for Proctors, dowagers for Deans,
And bright girl-graduates with their golden hair.
On the Monday they had a party to Woodstock and Blenheim; and in the
evening went, on the Brazenface barge, to see the procession of
boats, where the Misses Green had the satisfaction to see their
brother pulling in one of the fifteen torpids that followed
immediately in the wake of the other boats. They concluded the
evening's entertainments in a most satisfactory manner, by going to
the ball at the Town Hall.
[220 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
Indeed, the way the two young ladies worked was worthy of all credit,
and proved them to be possessed of the most vigorous constitutions;
for, although they danced till an early hour in the
morning, they not only, on the next day, went to the anniversary
sermon for the Radcliffe, and after that to the horticultural show in
the Botanical Gardens, and after that to the concert in the
Sheldonian Theatre, but - as though they had not had enough to
fatigue them already - they must, forsooth - Brazenface being one of
the ball-giving colleges - wind up the night by accepting the polite
invitation of Mr. Verdant Green and Mr. Charles Larkyns to a ball
given in their college hall. And how many polkas these young ladies
danced, and how many waltzes they waltzed, and how many ices they
consumed, and how many too susceptible partners they drove to the
verge of desperation, it would be improper, if not impossible, to say.
But, however much they might have been fagged by their exertions of
feet and features, it is certain that, by ten of the clock the next
morning, they appeared, quite fresh and charming to the view, in the
ladies' gallery in the theatre. There - after the proceedings had
been opened by the undergraduates in ~their~ peculiar way, and by the
vice-chancellor in ~his~ peculiar way - and, after the degrees had
been conferred, and the public orator had delivered an oration in a
tongue not understanded of the people, our friends from Warwickshire
had the delight of beholding Mr. Charles Larkyns ascend the rostrums
to deliver, in their proper order, the Latin Essay and the English
Verse. He had chosen his friend Verdant to be his prompter; so that
the well-known "gig-lamps" of our hero formed, as it were, a very
focus of attraction: but it was well for Mr. Charles Larkyns that he
was possessed of self-control and a good memory, for Mr. Verdant
Green was far too nervous to have prompted him in any efficient
manner. We may be sure, that in all that bevy of fair women, at
least one pair of bright eyes kindled with rapture, and one heart
beat with exulting joy, when the deafening cheers that followed the
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 221]
poet's description of the moon, the sea, and woman's love (the three
ingredients which are apparently necessary for the sweetening of all
prize poems), rang through the theatre and made its walls re-echo to
the shouting. And we may be sure that, when it was all over, and
when the Commemoration had come to an end, Charles Larkyns felt
rewarded for all his hours of labour by the deep love
garnered up in his heart by the trustful affection of one who had
become as dear to him as life itself!
* * * * * * * *
It was one morning after they had all returned to the Manor Green
that our hero said to his friend, "How I ~do~ wish that this day week
were come!"
"I dare say you do," replied the friend: "and I dare say that the
pretty Patty is wishing the same wish." Upon which Mr. Verdant Green
not only laughed but blushed!
For it seemed that he, together with his sisters, Mr. Charles
Larkyns, and Mr. Bouncer, were about to pay a long-vacation visit to
Honeywood Hall, in the county of Northumberland; and the young man
was naturally looking forward to it with all the ardour of a first
and consuming passion.
[222 ]
PART III
CHAPTER I
MR. VERDANT GREEN TRAVELS NORTH
JULY: fierce and burning! A day to tinge the green corn
with a golden hue. A day to scorch grass into hay between sunrise
and sunset. A day in which to rejoice in the cool thick masses of
trees, and to lie on one's back under their canopy, and look dreamily
up, through its rents, at the peep of hot, cloudless, blue sky. A
day to sit on shady banks upon yielding cushions of moss and heather,
from whence you gaze on bright flowers blazing in the blazing sun,
and rest your eyes again upon your book to find the lines swimming in
a radiance of mingled green and red. A day that fills you with
amphibious feelings, and makes you desire to be even a dog, that you
might bathe and paddle and swim in every roadside brook and pond,
without the exertion of dressing and undressing, and yet with
propriety. A day that sends you out by willow-hung streams, to fish,
as an excuse for idleness. A day that drives you dinnerless from
smoking joints, and plunges you thirstfully into barrels of beer. A
day that induces apathetic listlessness and total prostration of
energy, even under the aggravating warfare of gnats and wasps. A day
that engenders pity for the ranks of ruddy haymakers, hotly marching
on under the merciless glare of the noonday sun. A day when the very
air, steaming up from the earth, seems to palpitate with the heat. A
day when Society has left its cool and pleasant country-house, and
finds itself baked and burnt up in town, condemned to ovens of
operas, and fiery furnaces of levees and drawing-rooms. A day when
even ice is warm, and perspiring visitors to the Zoological Gardens
envy the hippopotamus living in his bath. A day when a hot,
frizzling, sweltering smell ascends from the
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 223]
ground, as though it was the earth's great ironing day. And - above
all - a day that converts a railway traveller into a martyr and a
first-class carriage into a moving representation of the Black Hole
of Calcutta.
So thought Mr. Verdant Green, as he was whirled onward to the far
north, in company with his three sisters, Miss Bouncer, and Mr.
Charles Larkyns. Being six in number, they formed a snug (and hot)
family party, and filled the carriage, to the exclusion of little Mr.
Bouncer who, nevertheless, bore this temporary and unavoidable
separation with a tranquil mind, inasmuch as it enabled him to ride
in a second-class carriage, where he could the more conveniently
indulge in the furtive pleasures of the Virginian weed. But, to keep
up his connection with the party, and to prove that his interest in
them could not be diminished by a brief and enforced absence, Mr.
Bouncer paid them flying visits at every station, keeping his pipe
alight by a puff into the carriage, accompanied with an expression of
his full conviction that Miss Fanny Green had been smoking, in
defiance of the company's by-laws. These rapid interviews were
enlivened by Mr. Bouncer informing his friends that Huz and Buz (who
were panting in a locker) were as well as could be expected, and
giving any other interesting particulars regarding himself, his
fellow-travellers, or the country in general, that could be
compressed into the space of sixty seconds or thereabouts; and the
visits were regularly and ruthlessly brought to an abrupt termination
by the angry "Now, then, sir!" of the guard, and the reckless
thrusting of the little gentleman into his second-class carriage, to
the endangerment of his life and limbs, and the exaggerated display
of authority on the part of the railway official. Mr. Bouncer's
mercurial temperament had enabled him to get over the little
misfortune that had followed upon his examination for his degree; but
he still preserved a memento of that hapless period in the shape of a
wig of curly black hair. For he found, during the summer months,
such coolness from his shaven poll, that, in spite of "the mum's"
entreaties, he would not suffer his own luxuriant locks to grow, but
declared that, till the winter at any rate, he would wear his gent's
real head of hair; and in order that our railway party should not
forget the reason for its existence, Mr. Bouncer occasionally
favoured them with a sight of his bald head, and also narrated to
them, with great glee, how, when a very starchy lady of a certain age
had left their carriage, he had called after her upon the platform -
holding out his wig as he did so - that she had left some of her
property behind her; and how the passengers and porters had grinned,
and the starchy lady had lost all her stiffening through the hotness
of her wrath. York at last! A half-hour's escape from the hot
carriage,
[224 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
and a hasty dinner on cold lamb and cool salad in the pleasant
refreshment-room hung round with engravings. Mr. Bouncer's dinner is
got over with incredible rapidity, in order that the little gentleman
may carry out his humane intention of releasing Huz and Buz from
their locker, and giving them their dinner and a run on the remote
end of the platform, at a distance from timid spectators; which
design is satisfactorily performed, and crowned with a douche bath
from the engine-pump. Then, away again to the
rabbit-hole of a locker, the smoky second-class carriage, and the
stuffy first-class; incarcerated in which black-hole, the plump Miss
Bouncer, notwithstanding that she has removed her bonnet and all
superfluous coverings, gets hotter than ever in the afternoon sun,
and is seen, ever and anon, to pass over her glowing face a
handkerchief cooled with the waters of Cologne. And, when the man
with the grease-pot comes round to look at the tires of the wheels,
the sight of it increases her warmth by suggesting a desire (which
cannot be gratified) for lemon ice. Nevertheless, they have with
them a variety of cooling refreshments, and their hot-house fruit and
strawberries are most acceptable. The Misses Green have wisely
followed their friend's example, in the removal of bonnets and
mantles; and, as they amuse themselves with books and embroidery, the
black-hole bears, as far as possible, a resemblance to a boudoir.
Charles Larkyns favours the company with extracts from ~The Times~;
reads to them the last number of Dickens's new tale, or directs their
attention to the most noteworthy points on their route. Mr. Verdant
Green is seated ~vis-a-vis~ to the plump Miss Bouncer, and
benignantly beams upon her through his glasses, or musingly consults
his ~Bradshaw~ to count how much nearer they have crept to their
destination, the while his thoughts have travelled on in the very
quickest of express trains, and have already reached the far north.
Thus they journey: crawling under the stately old walls of York,
when, with a rush and a roar, sliding rapidly over the
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 225]
level landscape, from whence they can look back upon the glorious
Minster towers standing out grey and cold from the sunlit plain.
Then, to Darlington; and on by porters proclaiming the names of
stations in uncouth Dunelmian tongue, informing passengers that they
have reached "Faweyill" and "Fensoosen," instead of "Ferry Hill" and
"Fence Houses," and terrifying nervous people by the command to
"Change here for Doom!" when only the propinquity of the palatinate
city is signified. And so, on by the triple towers of Durham that
gleam in the sun with a ruddy orange hue; on, leaving to the left
that last resting-place of Bede and St. Cuthbert, on the rock
"Where his cathedral, huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear."
On, past the wonderfully out-of-place "Durham monument," a Grecian
temple on a naked hill among the coal-pits; on, with a double curve,
over the Wear, laden with its Rhine-like rafts; on, to grimy
Gateshead and smoky Newcastle, and, with a scream and a rattle, over
the wonderful High Level (then barely completed), looking down with a
sort of self-satisfied shudder upon the bridge, and the Tyne, and the
fleet of colliers, and the busy quays, and the quaint timber-built
houses with their overlapping storys, and picturesque black and white
gables. Then, on again, after a cool delay and brief release from
the black-hole; on, into Northumbrian ground, over the Wansbeck; past
Morpeth; by Warkworth, and its castle, and hermitage; over the Coquet
stream, beloved by the friends of gentle Izaak Walton; on, by the
sea-side - almost along the very sands - with the refreshing
sea-breeze, and the murmuring plash of the breakers - the Misses
Green giving way to childish delight at this their first glimpse of
the sea; on, over the Aln, and past Alnwick; and so on, still further
north, to a certain little station, which is the terminus of their
railway journey, and the signal of their deliverance from the
black-hole.
There, on the platform is Mr. Honeywood, looking hale and happy, and
delighted to receive his posse of visitors; and there, outside the
little station, is the carriage and dog-cart, and a spring-cart for
the luggage. Charles Larkyns takes possession of the dog-cart, in
company with Mary and Fanny Green, and little Mr. Bouncer; while Huz
and Buz, released from their weary imprisonment, caracole gracefully
around the vehicle. Mr. Honeywood takes the reins of his own
carriage; Mr. Verdant Green mounts the box beside him; Miss Bouncer
and Miss Helen Green take possession of the open interior of the
carriage; the spring-cart, with the servants and luggage, follows in
the rear; and off they go.
But, though the two blood-horses are by no means slow of
[226 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
action, and do, in truth, gallop apace like fiery-footed steeds, yet
to Mr. Verdant Green's anxious mind they seem to make but slow
progress; and the magnificent country through which they pass offers
but slight charms for his abstracted thoughts; until (at last) they
come in sight of a broken mountain-range, and Mr. Honeywood, pointing
with his whip, exclaims, "Yon's the Cheevyuts, as they say in these
parts; there are the Cheviot Hills; and there, just where you see
that gleam of light on a white house among some trees - there is
Honeywood Hall."
Did Mr. Verdant Green remove his eyes from that object of attraction,
save when intervening hills, for a time, hid it from his view? did
he, when they neared it, and he saw its landscape beauties bathed in
the golden splendours of a July sunset, did he think it a very
paradise that held within its bowers the Peri of his heart's worship?
did he - as they passed the lodge, and drove up an avenue of firs -
did he scan the windows of the house, and immediately determine in
his own mind which was HER window, oblivious to the fact that SHE
might sleep on the other side of the building? did he, as they pulled
up at the door, scrutinize the female figures who were there to
receive them, and experience a feeling made up of doubt and
certainty, that there was one who, though not present, was waiting
near with a heart beating as anxiously as his own? did he make wild
remarks, and return incoherent answers, until the long-expected
moment had come that brought him face to face with the adorable
Patty? did he envy Charles Larkyns for possessing and practising the
cousinly privilege of bestowing a kiss upon her rosy cheeks? and did
he, as he pressed her hand, and marked the heightened glow of her
happy face, did he feel within his heart an exultant thrill of joy as
the fervid thought fired his brain - one day she may be mine?
Perhaps!
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 227]
CHAPTER II
MR. VERDANT GREEN DELIVERS MISS PATTY HONEYWOOD FROM
THE
HORNS OF A DILEMMA
EVEN if Mr. Verdant Green had not been filled with the
peculiarly pleasurable sensations to which allusion has just been
made, it is yet exceedingly probable that he would have found his
visit to Honeywood Hall one of those agreeable and notable events
which the memory of after-years invests with the ~couleur du rose~.
In the first place - even if Miss Patty was left out of the question
- every one was so particularly attentive to him, that all his wants,
as regarded amusement and occupation, were promptly supplied, and not
a minute was allowed to hang heavily upon his hands. And, in the
second place, the country, and its people and customs, had so much
freshness and peculiarity, that he could not stir abroad without
meeting with novelty. New ideas were constantly received; and other
sensations of a still more delightful nature were daily deepened.
Thus the time passed pleasantly away at Honeywood Hall, and the hours
chased each other with flying feet.
Mr. Honeywood was a squire, or laird; and though the prospect from
the hall was far too extensive to allow of his being monarch of ~all~
that he surveyed, yet he was the proprietor of no inconsiderable
portion. The small village of Honeybourn - which brought its one
wide street of long, low, lime-washed houses hard by the hall - owned
no other master than Mr. Honeywood; and all its inhabitants were, in
one way or other, his labourers. They had their own blacksmith,
shoemaker, tailor, and carpenter; they maintained a general shop of
the tea-coffee-tobacco-and-snuff genus; and they lived as one family,
entirely independent of any other village. In fact, the villages in
that district were as sparingly distributed as are "livings" among
poor curates, and, when met with, were equally as small; and so it
happened, that as the landowners usually resided, like Mr. Honeywood,
among their own people, a gentleman would occasionally be as badly
off for a neighbour, as though he had been a resident in the
backwoods of Canada. This evil, however, was productive of good, in
that it set aside
[228 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
the possibility of a deliberate interchange of formal morning-calls,
and obliged neighbours to be hospitable to each other, ~sans
ceremonie~, and with all good fellowship. To drive fifteen, twenty,
or even five-and-twenty miles, to a dinner party was so common an
occurrence, that it excited surprise only in a stranger, whose
wonderment at this voluntary fatigue would be quickly dispelled on
witnessing the hearty hospitality and friendly freedom that made a
north country visit so enjoyable, and robbed the dinner party of its
ordinary character of an English solemnity.
Close to Honeybourn village was the Squire's model farm, with its
wide-spreading yards and buildings, and its comfortable bailiff's
house. In a morning at sunrise, when our Warwickshire friends were
yet in bed, such of them as were light sleepers would hear a not very
melodious fanfare from a cow's horn - the signal to the village that
the day's work was begun, which signal was repeated at sunset. This
old custom possessed uncommon charms for Mr. Bouncer, whose only
regret was that he had left behind him his celebrated tin horn. But
he took to the cow-horn with the readiness of a child to a new
plaything; and, having placed himself under the instruction of
the Northumbrian Koenig, was speedily enabled to sound
his octaves and go the complete unicorn (as he was wont to express
it, in his peculiarly figurative eastern language) with a still more
astounding effect than he had done on his former instrument. The
little gentleman always made a point of thus signalling the times of
the arrival and departure of the post - greatly to the delight of
small Jock Muir, who, girded with his letter-bag, and mounted on a
highly-trained donkey, rode to and fro to the neighbouring post-town.
Although Mr. Verdant Green was not (according to Mr. Bouncer) "a
bucolical party," and had not any very amazing taste for agriculture,
he nevertheless could not but feel interested in what he saw around
him. To one who was so accustomed to the small enclosures and
timbered hedge-rows of the midland counties, the country of the
Cheviots appeared in a grand, though naked aspect, like some stalwart
gladiator of the stern old times. The fields were of large extent;
and it was no uncommon sight to see, within one boundary fence, a
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 229]
hundred acres of wheat, rippling into mimic waves, like some inland
sea. The flocks and herds, too, were on a grand scale; men counted
their sheep, not by tens, but by hundreds. Everything seemed to be
influenced, as it were, by the large character of the scenery. The
green hills, with their short sweet grass, gave good pasture for the
fleecy tribe, who were dotted over the sward in almost countless
numbers; and Mr. Verdant Green was as much gratified with "the silly
sheep," as with anything else that he witnessed in that land of
novelty. To see the shepherd with his bonnet and grey plaid, and
long slinging step, walking first, and the flock following him - to
hear him call the sheep by name, and to perceive how he knew them
individually, and how they each and all would answer to his voice,
was a realization of Scripture reading, and a northern picture of
Eastern life.
The head shepherd, old Andrew Graham - an active youth whose long
snowy locks had been bleached by the snows of eighty winters - was an
especial favourite of Mr. Verdant Green's, who would never tire of
his company, or of his anecdotes of his marvellous dogs. His cottage
was at a distance from the village, up in a snug hollow of one of the
hills. There he lived, and there had been brought up his six sons,
and as many daughters. Of the latter, two were out at service in
noble families of the county; one was maid to the Misses Honeywood,
and the three others were at home. How they and the other inmates of
the cottage were housed, was a mystery; for, although old Andrew was
of a superior condition in life to the other cottagers of Honeybourn,
yet his domicile was like all the rest in its arrangements and
accommodation. It was one moderately large room, fitted up with
cupboards, in which, one above another, were berths, like to those on
board a steamer. In what way the morning and evening toilettes were
performed was a still greater mystery to our Warwickshire friends;
nevertheless, the good-looking trio of damsels were always to be
found neat, clean, and presentable; and, as their mother one day
proudly remarked, they were "douce, sonsy bairns, wi' weel-faur'd
nebs; and, for puir folks, would be weel tochered." Upon which our
hero said "Indeed!" which, as he had not the slightest idea what the
good woman meant, was, perhaps, the wisest remark that he could have
made.
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