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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
And thus it was with Mr. Verdant Green, who, before the evening was
over, found that he had not only given in his name ("proposed by
Charles Larkyns, Esq., seconded by Henry Bouncer, Esq."), but that a
desire was burning within his breast to distinguish himself in
aquatic pursuits. Scarcely anything else was talked of during the
whole evening but the prospective chances of Brazenface bumping
Balliol and Brasenose, and thereby getting to the head of the river.
It was also mysteriously whispered that Worcester and Christ Church
were doing well, and might prove formidable; and that Exeter, Lincoln,
[100 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
and Wadham were very shady, and not doing the things that were
expected of them. Great excitement too was caused by the
announcement, that the Balliol stroke had knocked up, or knocked
down, or done something which Mr. Verdant Green concluded he ought
not to have done; and that the Brasenose bow had been seen with a
cigar in his mouth, and also eating pastry in Hall -things shocking
in themselves, and quite contrary to all training principles. Then
there were anticipations of Henley; and criticisms on the new eight
out-rigger that Searle was laying down for the University
crew; and comparisons between somebody's stroke and somebody else's
spurt; and a good deal of reference to Clasper and Coombes, and
Newall and Pococke, who might have been heathen deities for all that
our hero knew, and from the manner in which they were mentioned.
The aquatic desires that were now burning in Mr. Verdant Green's
breast could only be put out by the water; so to the river he next
day went, and, by Charles Larkyns' advice, made his first essay in a
"tub" from Hall's. Being a complete novice with the oars, our hero
had no sooner pulled off his coat, and given a pull, than he
succeeded in catching a tremendous "crab," the effect of which was to
throw him backwards, and almost to upset the boat. Fortunately,
however, "tubs" recover their equilibrium almost as easily as
tombolas, and "the Sylph" did not belie its character; so the
freshman again assumed a proper position, and was shoved off with a
boat-hook. At first he made some hopeless splashes in the stream,
the only effect of which was to make the boat turn with a circular
movement towards Folly Bridge; but Charles Larkyns
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 101]
at once came to the rescue with the simple but energetic compendium
of boating instruction, "Put your oar in deep, and bring it out with
a jerk!"
Bearing this in mind, our hero's efforts met with well-merited
success; and he soon passed that mansion which, instead of cellars,
appears to have an ingenious system of small rivers to thoroughly
irrigate its foundations. One by one, too, he passed those
house-boats which are more like the Noah's arks of
toy-shops than anything else, and sometimes contain quite as original
a mixture of animal specimens. Warming with his exertions, Mr.
Verdant Green passed the University barge in great style, just as the
eight was preparing to start; and though he was not able to "feather
his oars with skill and dexterity," like the jolly young waterman in
the song, yet his sleight-of-hand performances with them proved not
only a source of great satisfaction to the crews on the river, but
also to the promenaders on the shore.
He had left the Christ Church meadows far behind, and was beginning
to feel slightly exhausted by his unwonted exertions, when he reached
that bewildering part of the river termed "the Gut." So confusing
were the intestine commotions of this gut, that, after passing a
chequered existence as an aquatic shuttlecock, and being assailed
with a slang-dictionary-full of opprobrious epithets, Mr. Verdant
Green caught another
[102 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
tremendous crab, and before he could recover himself, the "tub"
received a shock, and, with a loud cry of "Boat ahead!" ringing in
his ears, the University Eight passed over the place where he and
"the Sylph" had so lately disported themselves.
With the wind nearly knocked out of his body by the blade of the
bow-oar striking him on the chest as he rose to the surface, our
unfortunate hero was immediately dragged from the water, in a
condition like that of the child in ~The Stranger~ (the only joke, by
the way, in that most dreary play) "not dead, but very wet!" and
forthwith placed in safety in his deliverer's boat.
"Hallo, Gig-lamps! who the doose had thought of seeing you here,
devouring Isis in this expensive way!" said a voice very coolly. And
our hero found that he had been rescued by little Mr. Bouncer, who
had been tacking up the river in company with Huz and Buz and his
meerschaum. "You ~have~ been and gone and done it now, young man!"
continued the vivacious little gentleman, as he surveyed our hero's
draggled and forlorn condition. "If you'd only a comb and a glass in
your hand, you'd look distressingly like a cross-breed with a
mermaid! You ain't subject to the whatdyecallems - the rheumatics,
are you? Because, if so, I could put you on shore at a tidy little
shop where you can get a glass of brandy-and-water, and have your
clothes dried; and then mamma won't scold."
"Indeed," chattered our hero, "I shall be very glad indeed; for I
feel - rather cold. But what am I to do with my boat?"
"Oh, the Lively Polly, or whatever her name is, will find her way
back safe enough. There are plenty of boatmen on the river who'll
see to her and take her back to her owner; and if you got her from
Hall's, I daresay she'll dream that she's dreamt in marble halls,
like you did, Gig-lamps, that night at Smalls', when you got wet in
rather a more lively style than you've done to-day. Now I'll tack
you up to that little shop I told you of."
So there our hero was put on shore, and Mr. Bouncer made fast his
boat and accompanied him; and did not leave him until he had seen him
between the blankets, drinking a glass of hot brandy-and-water, the
while his clothes were smoking before the fire.
This little adventure (for a time at least) checked Mr. Verdant
Green's aspirations to distinguish himself on the river; and he
therefore renounced the sweets of the Isis, and contented himself by
practising with a punt on the Cherwell. There, after repeatedly
overbalancing himself in the most suicidal manner, he at length
peacefully settled down into the lounging blissfulness of a "Cherwell
water-lily"; and on the hot days,
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 103]
among those gentlemen who had moored their punts underneath the
overhanging boughs of the willows and limes, and beneath
their cool shade were lying, in ~dolce far niente~ fashion, with
their legs up and a weed in their mouth, reading the last new novel,
or some less immaculate work - among these gentlemen might haply have
been discerned the form and spectacles of Mr. Verdant Green.
CHAPTER XI
MR. VERDANT GREEN'S SPORTS AND PASTIMES
ARCHERY was all the fashion at Brazenface. They had as fine a lawn
for it as the Trinity men had; and all day long there was somebody to
be seen making holes in the targets, and endeavouring to realize the
~pose~ of the Apollo Belvidere; - rather a difficult thing to do,
when you come to wear plaid trousers and shaggy coats. As Mr.
Verdant Green felt desirous not only to uphold all the institutions
of the University, but also to make himself acquainted with the
sports and pastimes of the place, he forthwith joined the Archery and
Cricket Clubs. He at once inspected the manufactures of Muir and
Buchanan; and after selecting from their stores a fancy-wood bow,
with arrows, belt, quiver, guard, tips, tassels, and grease-pot, he
felt himself to be duly prepared to
[104 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
represent the Toxophilite character. But the sustaining it was a
more difficult thing than he had conceived; for although he thought
that it would be next to impossible to miss a shot when
the target was so large, and the arrow went so easily from the bow,
yet our hero soon discovered that even in the first steps of archery
there was something to be learnt, and that the mere stringing of his
bow was a performance attended with considerable difficulty. It was
always slipping from his instep, or twisting the wrong way, or
threatening to snap in sunder, or refusing to allow his fingers to
slip the knot, or doing something that was dreadfully uncomfortable,
and productive of perspiration; and two or three times
he was reduced to the abject necessity of asking his friends to
string his bow for him.
But when he had mastered this slight difficulty, he found that the
arrows (to use Mr. Bouncer's phrase) "wobbled," and had a
predilection for going anywhere but into the target, notwithstanding
its size; and unfortunately one went into the body of the Honourable
Mr. Stormer's favourite Skye terrier, though, thanks to its shaggy
coat and the bluntness of the arrow, it did not do a great amount of
mischief; nevertheless, the vials of Mr. Stormer's
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 105]
wrath were outpoured upon Mr. Verdant Green's head; and
such ~epea pteroenta~ followed the winged arrow, that our hero became
alarmed, and for the time forswore archery practice.
As he had fully equipped himself for archery, so also Mr. Verdant
Green, (on the authority of Mr. Bouncer) got himself up for cricket
regardless of expense; and he made his first appearance in the field
in a straw hat with blue ribbon, and "flannels," and spiked shoes of
perfect propriety. As Mr. Bouncer had told him that, in cricket,
attitude was everything, Verdant, as soon as he went in
for his innings, took up what he considered to be a very good
position at the wicket. Little Mr. Bouncer, who was bowling,
delivered the ball with a swiftness that seemed rather astonishing in
such a small gentleman. The first ball was "wide"; nevertheless,
Verdant (after it had passed) struck at it, raising his bat high in
the air, and bringing it straight down to the ground as though it
were an executioner's axe. The second ball was nearer to the mark;
but it came in with such swiftness, that, as Mr. Verdant Green was
[106 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
quite new to round bowling, it was rather too quick for him, and hit
him severely on the -, well, never mind, - on the trousers.
"Hallo, Gig-lamps!" shouted the delighted Mr. Bouncer, "nothing like
backing up; but it's no use assuming a stern appearance; you'll get
your hand in soon, old feller!"
But Verdant found that before he could get his hand in, the ball was
got into his wicket; and that while he was preparing for the strike,
the ball shot by; and, as Mr. Stumps, the wicket-keeper, kindly
informed him, "there was a row in his timber-yard." Thus Verdant's
score was always on the ~lucus a non lucendo~ principle of
derivation, for not even to a quarter of a score did it ever reach;
and he felt that he should never rival a Mynn or be a Parr with
anyone of the "All England" players.
Besides these out-of-door sports, our hero also devoted a good deal
of his time to acquiring in-door games, being quickly initiated into
the mysteries of billiards, and plunging headlong into pool. It was
in the billiard-room that Verdant first formed his acquaintance with
Mr. Fluke of Christ Church, well known to be the best player in the
University, and who, if report spoke truly, always made his five
hundred a year by his skill in the game. Mr. Fluke, kindly put our
hero "into the way to become a player"; and Verdant soon found the
apprenticeship was attended with rather heavy fees.
At the wine-parties also that he attended he became rather a greater
adept at cards than he had formerly been. "Van John" was the
favourite game; and he was not long in discovering that staking
shillings and half-crowns, instead of counters and "fish," and going
odds on the colours, and losing five pounds before he was aware of
it, was a very different thing to playing ~vingt-et-un~ at home with
his sisters for "love" -
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 107]
(though perhaps cards afford the only way in which young ladies at
twenty-one will ~play~ for love).
In returning to Brazenface late from these parties, our hero was
sometimes frightfully alarmed by suddenly finding himself face to
face with a dreadful apparition, to which, by constant familiarity,
he gradually became accustomed, and learned to look upon as the
proctor with his marshal and bulldogs. At first, too, he was on such
occasions greatly alarmed at finding the gates of
Brazenface closed, obliging him thereby to "knock-in"; and not only
did he apologize to the porter for troubling him to open the wicket,
but he also volunteered elaborate explanations of the reasons that
had kept him out after time - explanations that were not received in
the spirit with which they were tendered. When our freshman became
aware of the mysteries of a gate-bill, he felt more at his ease. Mr.
Verdant Green learned many things during his freshman's term, and
among others, he discovered that the quiet retirement of
college-rooms, of which he had heard so much, was in many cases an
unsubstantial idea, founded on imagination, and built up by fancy.
One day that he had been writing a letter in Mr. Smalls' rooms, which
were on the ground-floor, Verdant congratulated himself that his own
rooms were on the third floor,
[108 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
and were thus removed from the possibility of his friends, when he
had sported his oak, being able to get through his window to "chaff"
him; but he soon discovered that rooms upstairs had also
objectionable points in their private character, and were not
altogether such eligible apartments as he had at first anticipated.
First there was the getting up and down the dislocated staircase, a
feat which at night was sometimes attended with difficulty. Then,
when he had accomplished this feat, there was no way of
escaping from the noise of his neighbours. Mr. Sloe, the reading-man
in the garret above, was one of those abominable nuisances, a
peripatetic student, who "got up" every subject by pacing up and down
his limited apartment, and, like the sentry, "walked his dreary
round" at unseasonable hours of the night, at which time could be
plainly heard the wretched chuckle, and crackings of knuckles (Mr.
Sloe's way of expressing intense delight), with which he welcomed
some miserable joke of Aristophanes, painfully elaborated by the help
of Liddell-and-Scott; or the disgustingly sonorous way in which he
declaimed his Greek choruses. This was bad enough at night, but in
the day-time there was a still greater nuisance. The rooms
immediately beneath Verdant's were possessed by a gentleman whose
musical powers were of an unusually limited description, but who,
unfortunately for
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 109]
his neighbours, possessed the idea that the cornet-a-piston was a
beautiful instrument for pic-nics, races, boating-parties, and
other long-vacation amusements, and sedulously
practised "In my cottage near a wood," "Away with melancholy," and
other airs of a lively character, in a doleful and distracted way,
that would have fully justified his immediate homicide, or, at any
rate, the confiscation of his offending instrument.
Then, on the one side of Verdant's room, was Mr. Bouncer, sounding
his octaves, and "going the complete unicorn"; and his bull-terriers,
Huz and Buz, all and each of whom were of a restless and loud
temperament: while, on the other side, were Mr. Four-in-hand
Fosbrooke's rooms, in which fencing, boxing, single-stick, and other
violent sports were gone through, with a great expenditure of "Sa-ha!
sa-ha!" and stampings. Verdant was sometimes induced to go in, and
never could sufficiently admire the way in which men could be rapped
with single-sticks without crying out or flinching; for
it made him almost sore even to look at them. Mr. Blades, the stroke,
was a frequent visitor there, and developed his muscles in the most
satisfactory manner.
After many refusals, our hero was at length persuaded to put on the
gloves, and have a friendly bout with Mr. Blades. The result was as
might have been anticipated; and Mr. Smalls doubtless gave a very
correct ~resume~ of the proceeding (for, as we have before said, he
was thoroughly conversant with the sporting slang of ~Tintinnabulum's
Life~), when he told Verdant,
[110 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
that his claret had been repeatedly tapped, his bread-basket walked
into, his day-lights darkened, his ivories rattled, his nozzle
barked, his whisker-bed napped heavily, his kissing-trap countered,
his ribs roasted, his nut spanked, and his whole person put in
chancery, stung, bruised, fibbed, propped, fiddled,
slogged, and otherwise ill-treated. So it is hardly to be wondered
at if Mr. Verdant Green from thenceforth gave up boxing, as a
senseless and ungentlemanly amusement.
But while these pleasures(?) of the body were being attended to, the
recreation of the mind was not forgotten. Mr. Larkyns had proposed
Verdant's name at the Union; and, to that gentleman's great
satisfaction, he was not black-balled. He daily, therefore,
frequented the reading-room, and made a point of looking through all
the magazines and newspapers; while he felt quite a pride in sitting
in luxurious state upstairs, writing his letters to the home
department on the very best note-paper, and sealing them extensively
with "the Oxford Union" seal; though he could not at first be
persuaded that trusting his letters to a wire closet was at all a
safe system of postage.
He also attended the Debates, which were then held in the
long room behind Wyatt's; and he was particularly
charmed with the manner in which vital questions, that (as he learned
from the newspapers) had proved stumbling-blocks to the greatest
statesmen of the land, were rapidly solved by the embryo statesmen of
the Oxford Union. It was quite a sight, in that long picture-room,
to see the rows of light iron seats densely crowded with young men -
some of whom would perhaps rise to be Cannings, or Peels, or
Gladstones - and to hear how one beardless gentleman would call
another beardless gentleman his "honourable friend," and appeal "to
the sense of the House," and address himself to "Mr. Speaker"; and
how they would all juggle the same tricks of rhetoric as their
fathers were doing in certain other debates in a certain other House.
And it was curious, too, to mark the points of resemblance between
the two Houses; and how the smaller one had, on its smaller scale,
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 111]
its Hume, and its Lord John, and its "Dizzy"; and how they went
through the same traditional forms, and preserved the same
time-honoured ideas, and debated in the fullest houses, with the
greatest spirit and the greatest length, on such points
as, "What course is it advisable for this country to take in regard
to the government of its Indian possessions, and the imprisonment of
Mr. Jones by the Rajah of Humbugpoo-poonah?" Indeed,
Mr. Verdant Green was so excited by this interesting debate, that on
the third night of its adjournment he rose to address the House; but
being "no orator as Brutus is," his few broken words were received
with laughter, and the honourable gentleman was coughed down.
Our hero had, as an Oxford freshman, to go through that cheerful form
called "sitting in the schools," - a form which consisted in the
following ceremony. Through a door in the right-hand corner of the
Schools Quadrangle - (Oh, that door!
[112 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
does it not bring a pang into your heart only to think of it? to
remember the day when you went in there as pale as the little pair of
bands in which you were dressed for your sacrifice; and came out all
in a glow and a chill when your examination was over; and posted your
bosom-friend there to receive from Purdue the little slip of paper,
and bring you the thrilling intelligence that you had passed; or to
come empty-handed, and say that you had been plucked! Oh that door!
well might be inscribed there the line which, on Dante's
authority, is assigned to the door of another place -
"ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE")
- entering through this door in company with several other
unfortunates, our hero passed between two galleries through a
passage, by which, if the place had been a circus, the horses would
have entered, and found himself in a tolerably large room lighted on
either side by windows, and panelled half-way up the walls. Down the
centre of this room ran a large green-baize-covered table, on the one
side of which were some eight or ten miserable beings who were then
undergoing examination, and were supplied with pens, ink,
blotting-pad, and large sheets of thin "scribble-paper," on which
they were struggling to impress their ideas; or else had a book set
before them,
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 113]
out of which they were construing, or being racked with questions
that touched now on one subject and now on another, like a bee among
flowers. The large table was liberally supplied with all the
apparatus and instruments of torture; and on the other side of it sat
the three examiners, as dreadful and formidable as the
terrible three of Venice. At the upper end of the room was a chair
of state for the Vice-Chancellor, whenever he deigned to personally
superintend the torture; to the right and left of which accommodation
was provided for other victims. On the right hand of the room was a
small open gallery of two seats (like those seen in
infant schools); and here, from 10 in the morning till 4 in the
afternoon, with only the interval of a quarter of an hour for
luncheon, Mr. Verdant Green was compelled to sit and watch the
proceedings, his perseverance being attested to by a certificate
which he received as a reward for his meritorious conduct. If this
"sitting in the schools"* was established as an ~in terrorem~ form
for the spectators, it undoubtedly generally had the desired effect;
and what with the misery of sitting through a whole day on a hard
bench with nothing to do, and the agony of seeing your
fellow-creatures plucked, and having visions of the same prospective
fate for yourself, the day on which the sitting took place, was
---
* This form has been abolished (1853) under the new regulations.
[114 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
usually regarded as one of those which, "if 'twere done, 'twere well
it should be done quickly."
As an appropriate sequel to this proceeding, Mr. Verdant Green
attended the interesting ceremony of conferring degrees; where he
discovered that the apparently insane promenade of the proctor gave
rise to the name bestowed on (what Mr. Larkyns called) the equally
insane custom of "plucking."* There too our hero saw the
Vice-Chancellor in all his glory; and so agreeable were the
proceedings, that altogether he had a great deal of Bliss.+
CHAPTER XII
MR. VERDANT GREEN TERMINATES HIS EXISTENCE AS AN OXFORD
FRESHMAN
"BEFORE I go home," said Mr. Verdant Green, as he expelled a volume
of smoke from his lips - for he had overcome his first weakness, and
now "took his weed" regularly - "before I go home, I must see what I
owe in the place; for my father said he did not like for
me to run in debt, but wished me to settle my bills terminally."
"What, you're afraid of having what we call bill-ious fever, I
suppose, eh?" laughed Charles Larkyns. "All exploded
---
* When the degrees are conferred, the name of each person is read out
before he is presented to the Vice-Chancellor. The proctor then
walks once up and down the room, so that any person who objects to
the degree being granted may signify the same by pulling or
"plucking" the proctor's robes. This has been occasionally done by
tradesmen, in order to obtain payment of their "little bills"; but
such a proceeding is very rare, and the proctor's promenade is
usually undisturbed.
+ The Rev. Philip Bliss, D.C.L., after holding the onerous post of
Registrar of the University for many years, and discharging its
duties in a way that called forth the unanimous thanks of the
University, resigned office in 1853.
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 115]
ideas, my dear fellow. They do very well in their way, but they
don't answer; don't pay, in fact; and the shopkeepers don't like it
either. By the way, I can show you a great curiosity; - the
autograph of an Oxford tradesman, ~very rare~! I think of presenting
it to the Ashmolean." And Mr. Larkyns opened his writing-desk, and
took therefrom an Oxford pastrycook's bill, on which appeared the
magic word, "Received."
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