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The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green

C >> Cuthbert Bede >> The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green




ONE day when the family at the Manor Green had assembled for
luncheon, the rector was announced. He came in and joined them,
saying,with his usual friendly ~bonhomie~, "A very well-timed visit,
I think! Your bell rang out its summons as I came up the avenue.
Mrs. Green, I've gone through the formality of looking over the
accounts of your clothing-club, and, as usual, I find them
correctness itself; and here is my subscription for the next year.
Miss Green, I hope that you have not forgotten the lesson in logic
that Tommy Jones gave you yesterday afternoon?"

"Oh, what was that?" cried her two sisters; who took it in turns with
her to go for a short time in every day to the village-school which
their father and the rector had established: "Pray tell us, Mr.
Larkyns! Mary has said nothing about it." "Then," replied the
rector, "I am tongue-tied, until I have my fair friend's permission
to reveal how the teacher was taught."

Mary shook her sunny ringlets, and laughingly gave him the required
permission.

"You must know, then," said Mr. Larkyns, "that Miss Mary was giving
one of those delightful object-lessons, wherein she blends so much
instructive-"

"I'll trouble you for the butter, Mr. Larkyns," interrupted Mary,
rather maliciously.

The rector was grey-headed, and a privileged friend. "My dear," he
said, "I was just giving it you. However, the object-lesson was
going on; the subject being ~Quadrupeds~, which Miss Mary very
properly explained to be 'things with four legs.' Presently, she said
to her class, 'Tell me the names of some quadrupeds?' when Tommy
Jones, thrusting out his hand with the full conviction that he was
making an important suggestion, exclaimed, 'Chairs and tables!' That
was turning the tables upon Miss Mary with a vengeance!"

During luncheon the conversation glided into a favourite theme with
Mrs. Green and Miss Virginia - Verdant's studies: when Mr. Larkyns,
after some good-natured praise of his diligence, said, "By the way,
Green, he's now quite old enough, and prepared enough for
matriculation: and I suppose you are thinking of it."

Mr. Green was thinking of no such thing. He had never been at
college himself, and had never heard of his father having been there;
and having the old-fashioned,
what-was-good-enough-for-my-father-is-good-enough-for-me sort of feel-


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 15]

ing, it had never occurred to him that his son should be brought up
otherwise than he himself had been. The setting-out of Charles
Larkyns for college, two years before, had suggested no other thought
to Mr. Green's mind, than that a university was the natural sequence
of a public school; and since Verdant had not been through the career
of the one, he deemed him to be exempt from the other.

The motherly ears of Mrs. Green had been caught by the word
"matriculation," a phrase quite unknown to her; and she said, "If
it's vaccination that you mean, Mr. Larkyns, my dear Verdant was done
only last year, when we thought the small-pox was about; so I think
he's quite safe."

Mr. Larkyns' politeness was sorely tried to restrain himself from
giving vent to his feelings in a loud burst of laughter; but Mary
gallantly came to his relief by saying, "Matriculation means being
entered at a university. Don't you remember, dearest mamma, when Mr.
Charles Larkyns went up to Oxford to be matriculated last January two
years?"

"Ah, yes! I do now. But I wish I had your memory, my dear."

And Mary blushed, and flattered herself that she succeeded in looking
as though Mr. Charles Larkyns and his movements were objects of
perfect indifference to her.

So, after luncheon, Mr. Green and the rector paced up and down the
long-walk, and talked the matter over. The burden of Mr. Green's
discourse was this: "You see, sir, I don't intend my boy to go into
the Church, like yours; but, when anything happens to me, he'll come
into the estate, and have to settle down as the squire of the parish.
So I don't exactly see what would be the use of sending him to a
university, where, I dare say, he'd spend a good deal of money - not
that I should grudge that, though; - and perhaps not be quite such a
good lad as he's always been to me, sir. And, by George! (I beg your
pardon,) I think his mother would break her heart to lose him; and I
don't know what we should do without him, as he's never been away
from us a day, and his sisters would miss him. And he's not a lad,
like your Charley, that could fight his way in the world, and I don't
think he'd be altogether happy. And as he's not got to depend upon
his talents for his bread and cheese, the knowledge he's got at home,
and from you, sir, seems to me quite enough to carry him through
life. So, altogether, I think Verdant will do very well as he is,
and perhaps we'd better say no more about the matriculation."

But the rector ~would~ say more; and he expressed his mind thus: "It
is not so much from what Verdant would learn in Latin and Greek, and
such things as make up a part of the education, that I advise your
sending him to a university;


[16 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

but more from what he would gain by mixing with a large body of young
men of his own age, who represent the best classes of a mixed
society, and who may justly be taken as fair samples of its feelings
and talents. It is formation of character that I regard as one of
the greatest of the many great ends of a university system; and if
for this reason alone, I should advise you to send your future
country squire to college. Where else will he be able to meet with
so great a number of those of his own class, with whom he will have
to mix in the after changes of life, and for whose feelings and tone
a college-course will give him the proper key-note? Where else can he
learn so quickly in three years - what other men will perhaps be
striving for through life, without attaining - that self-reliance
which will enable him to mix at ease in any society, and to feel the
equal of its members? And, besides all this - and each of these
points in the education of a young man is, to my mind, a strong one -
where else could he be more completely 'under tutors and governors,'
and more thoroughly under ~surveillance~, than in a place where
college-laws are no respecters of persons, and seek to keep the wild
blood of youth within its due bounds? There is something in the very
atmosphere of a university that seems to engender refined thoughts
and noble feelings; and lamentable indeed must be the state of any
young man who can pass through the three years of his college
residence, and bring away no higher aims, no worthier purposes, no
better thoughts, from all the holy associations which have been
crowded around him. Such advantages as these are not to be regarded
with indifference; and though they come in secondary ways, and
possess the mind almost imperceptibly, yet they are of primary
importance in the formation of character, and may mould it into the
more perfect man. And as long as I had the power, I would no more
think of depriving a child of mine of such good means towards a good
end, than I would of keeping him from any thing else that was likely
to improve his mind or affect his heart."

Mr. Larkyns put matters in a new light; and Mr. Green began to think
that a university career might be looked at from more than one point
of view. But as old prejudices are not so easily overthrown as the
lath-and-plaster erection of mere newly-formed opinion, Mr. Green was
not yet won over by Mr. Larkyns' arguments. "There was my father,"
he said, "who was one of the worthiest and kindest men living; and I
believe he never went to college, nor did he think it necessary that
I should go; and I trust I'm no worse a man than my father."

"Ah! Green," replied the rector; "the old argument! But you must not
judge the present age by the past; nor measure out to ~your~ son the
same degree of education that


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 17]

your father might think sufficient for ~you~. When you and I were
boys, Green, these things were thought of very differently to what
they are in the present day; and when your father gave you a
respectable education at a classical school, he did all that he
thought was requisite to form you into a country gentleman, and fit
you for that station in life you were destined to fill. But consider
what a progressive age it is that we live in; and you will see that
the standard of education has been considerably raised since the days
when you and I did the 'propria quae maribus' together; and that when
he comes to mix in society, more will be demanded of the son than was
expected from the father. And besides this, think in how many ways
it will benefit Verdant to send him to college. By mixing more in
the world, and being called upon to act and think for himself, he
will gradually gain that experience, without which a man cannot arm
himself to meet the difficulties that beset all of us, more or less,
in the battle of life. He is just of an age when some change from
the narrowed circle of home is necessary. God forbid that I should
ever speak in any but the highest terms of the moral good it must do
every young man to live under his mother's watchful eye, and be ever
in the company of pure-minded sisters. Indeed, I feel this more
perhaps than many other parents would, because my lad, from his
earliest years, has been deprived of such tender training, and cut
off from such sweet society. But yet, with all this high regard for
such home influences, I put it to you, if there will not grow up in
the boy's mind, when he begins to draw near to man's estate, a very
weariness of all this, from its very sameness; a surfeiting, as it
were, of all these delicacies, and a longing for something to break
the monotony of what will gradually become to him a humdrum
horse-in-the-mill kind of country life? And it is just at this
critical time that college life steps in to his aid. With his new
life a new light bursts upon his mind; he finds that he is not the
little household-god he had fancied himself to be; his word is no
longer the law of the Medes and Persians, as it was at home; he meets
with none of those little flatteries from partial relatives, or
fawning servants, that were growing into a part of his existence; but
he has to bear contradiction and reproof, to find himself only an
equal with others, when he can gain that equality by his own deserts;
and, in short, he daily progresses in that knowledge of himself,
which, from the ~gnothiseauton~ days down to our own, has been found
to be about the most useful of all knowledge; for it gives a man
stability of character, and braces up his mental energies to a
healthy enjoyment of the business of life. And so, Green, I would
advise you, above all things, to let Verdant go to college."


[18 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

Much more did the rector say, not only on this occasion, but on
others; and the more frequently he returned to the charge, the less
resistance were his arguments met with; and the result was, that Mr.
Green was fully persuaded that a university was the proper sphere for
his son to move in. But it was not without many a pang and much
secret misgiving that Mrs. Green would consent to suffer her beloved
Verdant to run the risk of those dreadful contaminations which she
imagined would inevitably accompany every college career. Indeed,
she thought it an act of the greatest heroism (or, if you object to
the word, heroineism) to be won over to say "yes" to the proposal;
and it was not until Miss Virginia had recited to her the deeds of
all the mothers of Greece and Rome who had suffered for their
children's sake, that Mrs. Green would consent to sacrifice her
maternal feelings at the sacred altar of duty.

When the point had been duly settled, that Mr. Verdant Green was to
receive a university education, the next question to be decided was,
to which of the three Universities should he go? To Oxford,
Cambridge, or Durham? But this was a matter which was soon determined
upon. Mr. Green at once put Durham aside, on account of its infancy,
and its wanting the ~prestige~ that attaches to the names of the two
great Universities. Cambridge was treated quite as summarily,
because Mr. Green had conceived the notion that nothing but
mathematics were ever thought or talked of there; and as he himself
had always had an abhorrence of them from his youth up, when he was
hebdomadally flogged for not getting-up his weekly propositions, he
thought that his son should be spared some of the personal
disagreeables that he himself had encountered; for Mr. Green
remembered to have heard that the great Newton was horsed during the
time that he was a Cambridge undergraduate, and he had a hazy idea
that the same indignities were still practised there.

But the circumstance that chiefly decided Mr. Green to choose Oxford
as the arena for Verdant's performances was, that he would have a
companion, and, as he hoped, a mentor, in the rector's son, Mr.
Charles Larkyns, who would not only be able to cheer him on his first
entrance, but also would introduce him to select and quiet friends,
put him in the way of lectures, and initiate him into all the
mysteries of the place; all which the rector professed his son would
be glad to do, and would be delighted to see his old friend and
playfellow within the classic walls of Alma Mater.

Oxford having been selected for the university, the next point to be
decided was the college.

"You cannot," said the rector, "find a much better college


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 19]

than Brazenface, where my lad is. It always stands well in the
class-list, and keeps a good name with its tutors. There are a nice
gentlemanly set of men there; and I am proud to say that my lad would
be able to introduce Verdant to some of the best. This will of
course be much to his advantage. And besides this, I am on very
intimate terms with Dr. Portman, the master of the college; and, if
they should not happen to be very full, no doubt I could get Verdant
admitted at once. This too will be of advantage to him; for I can
tell you that there are secrets in all these matters, and that at
many colleges that I could name, unless you knew the principal, or
had some introduction or other potent spell to work with, your son's
name would have to remain on the books two or three years before he
could be entered; and this, at Verdant's age, would be a serious
objection. At one or two of the colleges, indeed, this is almost
necessary, under any circumstances, on account of the great number of
applicants; but at Brazenface there is not this over-crowding; and I
have no doubt, if I write to Dr. Portman, but what I can get rooms
for Verdant without much loss of time."

"Brazenface be it then!" said Mr. Green, "and I am sure that Verdant
will enter there with very many advantages; and the sooner the
better, so that he may be the longer with Mr. Charles. But when must
his - his what-d'ye-call-it, come off?"

"His matriculation?" replied the rector. "Why, although it is not
usual for men to commence residence at the time of their
matriculation, still it is sometimes done. And as my lad will, if
all goes on well, be leaving Oxford next year, perhaps it would be
better, on that account, that Verdant should enter upon his residence
as soon as he has matriculated." Mr. Green thought so too; and
Verdant, upon being appealed to, had no objection to this course, or,
indeed, to any other that was decided to be necessary for him;
though, it must be confessed, that he secretly shared somewhat of his
mother's feelings as he looked forward into the blank and uncertain
prospect of his college life. Like a good and dutiful son, however,
his father's wishes were law; and he no more thought of opposing
them, than he did of discovering the north pole, or paying off the
national debt.

So all this being duly settled, and Mrs. Green being entirely won
over to the proceeding, the rector at once wrote to Dr. Portman, and
in due time received a reply to the effect, that they were very full
at Brazenface, but that luckily there was one set of rooms which
would be vacant at the commencement of the Easter term; at which time
he should be very glad to see the gentleman his friend spoke of.


[20 ]

Portraits of
MR. VERDANT GREEN AND HIS FAMILY.


1. Mr. Green, senior.

2. Miss Virginia Verdant.

3. Mrs. Green.

4. Mr. Verdant Green.

5. Miss Helen Green.

6. Miss Fanny Green.

7. Miss Mary Green.



[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 21]

CHAPTER III

MR. VERDANT GREEN LEAVES THE HOME OF HIS ANCESTORS

THE time till Easter passed very quickly, for much had to be done in
it. Verdant read up most desperately for his matriculation,
associating that initiatory examination with the most dismal visions
of plucking, and other college tortures.

His mother was laying in for him a new stock of linen, sufficient in
quantity to provide him for years of emigration; while his father was
busying himself about the plate that it was requisite to take, buying
it bran-new, and of the most solid silver, and having it splendidly
engraved with the family crest, and the motto "Semper virens."

Infatuated Mr. Green! If you could have foreseen that those spoons
and forks would have soon passed - by a mysterious system of loss
which undergraduate powers can never fathom - into the property of
Mr. Robert Filcher, the excellent, though occasionally erratic, scout
of your beloved son, and from thence have melted, not "into thin
air," but into a residuum whose mass might be expressed by the
equivalent of coins of a thin and golden description, - if you could
but have foreseen this, then, infatuated but affectionate parent, you
would have been content to have let your son and heir represent the
ancestral wealth by mere electro-plate, albata, or any sham that
would equally well have served his purpose!

As for Miss Virginia Verdant, and the other woman portion of the
Green community, they fully occupied their time until the day of
separation came, by elaborating articles of feminine workmanship, as
~souvenirs~, by which dear Verdant might, in the land of the strangers,
recall visions of home. These were presented to him with all due
state on the morning of the day previous to that on which he was to
leave the home of his ancestors.

All the articles were useful as well as ornamental. There was a
purse from Helen, which, besides being a triumph of art in the way of
bead decoration, was also, it must be allowed, a very useful present,
unless one happened to carry one's riches in a ~porte-monnaie~.
There was a pair of braces from Mary, worked with an ecclesiastical
pattern of a severe character - very appropriate for academical wear,
and extremely effective for all occasions when the coat had to be
taken off in public. And there was a watch-pocket from Fanny, to
hang over Verdant's night-capped head, and serve as a depository for
the golden mechanical turnip that had been handed down in the family,
as a watch, for the last three generations. And


[22 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

there was a pair of woollen comforters knit by Miss Virginia's own
fair hands; and there were other woollen articles of domestic use,
which were contributed by Mrs. Green for her son's personal comfort.
To these, Miss Virginia thoughtfully added an infallible recipe for
the toothache, an infliction to which she was a martyr, and for the
general relief of which in others she constituted herself a species
of toothache missionary; for, as she said, "You might, my dear
Verdant, be seized with that painful disease, and not have me by your
side to cure it": which it was very probable he would
not, if college rules were strictly carried out at Brazenface.

All these articles were presented to Mr. Verdant Green with many
speeches and great ceremony; while Mr. Green stood by, and smiled
benignantly upon the scene, and his son beamed through his glasses
(which his defective sight obliged him constantly to wear) with the
most serene aspect.

It was altogether a great day of preparation, and one which it was
well for the constitution of the household did not happen very often;
for the house was reduced to that summerset condition usually known
in domestic parlance as "upside down." Mr. Verdant Green personally
superintended the packing of his goods; a performance which was only
effected by the united strength of the establishment. Butler,
Footman, Coachman, Lady's-maid, Housemaid, and Buttons were all
pressed into the service; and the coachman, being a man of


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 23]

some weight, was found to be of great use in effecting a junction of
the locks and hasps of over-filled book-boxes. It was astonishing to
see all the amount of literature that Mr. Verdant Green was about to
convey to the seat of learning: there was enough to stock a small
Bodleian. As the owner stood with his hands behind him, placidly
surveying the scene of preparation, a meditative spectator might have
possibly compared him to the hero of the engraving "Moses going to
the fair," that was then hanging just over his head; for no one could
have set out for the great Oxford booth of this Vanity Fair with more
simplicity and trusting confidence than Mr. Verdant Green.

When the trunks had at last been packed, they were then, by the
thoughtful suggestion of Miss Virginia, provided each with a canvas
covering, after the manner of the luggage of females, and
labelled with large direction-cards filled with the most ample
particulars concerning their owner and his destination.

It had been decided that Mr. Verdant Green, instead of reaching
Oxford by rail, should make his ~entree~ behind the four horses that
drew the Birmingham and Oxford coach; - one of the few four-horse
coaches that still ran for any distance*; and which, as the more
pleasant means of conveyance, was generally patronized by Mr. Charles
Larkyns in preference to the rail; for the coach passed within three
miles of the Manor Green, whereas the nearest railway was at a much
greater distance, and could not be so conveniently reached. Mr.
Green had determined upon accompanying Verdant to Oxford, that he
might have the satisfaction of seeing him safely landed there, and
might also himself form an acquaintance with a city of which he had
heard so much, and which would be doubly interesting to him now that
his son was enrolled a member of its University. Their seats had
been secured a fortnight previous; for the rector had told Mr. Green
that so many men went up by the coach, that unless he made an early
application,

---
* This well-known coach ceased to run between Birmingham and Oxford
in the last week of August, 1852, on the opening of the Birmingham
and Oxford Railway.


[24 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

he would altogether fail in obtaining places; so a letter had been
dispatched to "the Swan" coach-office at Birmingham, from which place
the coach started, and two outside seats had been put at Mr. Green's
disposal.

The day at length arrived, when Mr. Verdant Green for the first time
in his life (on any important occasion) was to leave the paternal
roof; and it must be confessed that it was a proceeding which caused
him some anxiety, and that he was not sorry when the
carriage was at the door to bear him away, before (shall it be
confessed?) his tears had got the mastery over him. As it was, by
the judicious help of his sisters, he passed the Rubicon in
courageous style, and went through the form of breakfast with the
greatest hilarity, although with several narrow escapes of
suffocation from choking. The thought that he was going to be an
Oxford MAN fortunately assisted him in the preservation of that
tranquil dignity and careless ease which he considered to be the
necessary adjuncts of the manly character, more especially as
developed in that peculiar biped he was about to be transformed into;
and Mr. Verdant Green was enabled to say "Good-by" with a firm voice
and undimmed spectacles.

All crowded to the door to have a last shake of the hand;


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 25]

the maid-servants peeped from the upper windows; and Miss Virginia
sobbed out a blessing, which was rendered of a striking and original
character by being mixed up with instructions never to forget what
she had taught him in his Latin grammar, and always to be careful to
guard against the toothache. And amid the good-byes and write-oftens
that usually accompany a departure, the carriage rolled down the
avenue to the lodge, where was Mr. Mole the gardener, and also Mrs.
Mole, and, moreover, the Mole olive-branches, all gathered at the
open gate to say farewell to the young master. And just as they were
about to mount the hill leading out of the village, who should be
there but the rector lying in wait for them and ready to walk up the
hill by their side, and say a few kindly words at parting. Well
might Mr. Verdant Green begin to regard himself as the topic of the
village, and think that going to Oxford was really an affair of some
importance.

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