Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844
MY COLLEGE FRIENDS
No. II
John Brown
A heavy snow-storm, which confined Chesterton and myself pretty much to the walls of the college for the next few days, prevented us from paying our friend Brown a visit in his new quarters so soon after his installation as we intended. When we did succeed in wading there upon the commencement of a thaw, we found him rather sulky. The sweets of retirement had become somewhat doubtful; the Grange was certainly not the place one would have deliberately chosen to be snowed up in; and so far John was unfortunate in his first week of commencing hermit.
We found him in full possession of his easy chair, with Bruin extended on the only piece of carpeting in the room, which did duty as a hearth-rug. There was a volume of Sophocles open upon the table, with a watch on one side of it; the Quarterly Review had not at that time taken upon itself to enlighten undergraduates as to their real state of mind, and the secrets of successful reading, or there would doubtless have been the miniature of some fair girl on the other. (What the effect of such "companions to the classics" may be in general, I perhaps am no judge. I detest "fair girls," in the first place; but I have not yet forgotten, if the reader has, that a pair of dark eyes were the ruin of three months' reading in my own case.) However, there was no pictured face, except the watch-face, to cheer the studies of John Brown; and, perhaps, for that reason, our friend had evidently been asleep. How very glad he was to see us, was betrayed immediately by the copious abuse which he showered on us for not having come before.
"Why, what an unreasonable fellow you are!" said Chesterton; "If you wanted to see us, why on earth could'nt you come up to college? We can manage to keep the cold out there, quite as well as in your old castle here, I fancy; and as neither of us are web-footed any more than yourself, I don't really see why we are to do all the dabbling about this precious weather."
"Oh! I forgot; you have not seen the little note of remembrance which our darling dons were kind enough to send me before they broke up for the vacation?"
"No – what do you mean?"
"Oh! I'll find it for you in a moment." And he produced a letter sealed with the college arms, which ran as follows: —
" – Coll. Common Room,
Dec. – , 18 – .
"The principal and fellows regret to be under the unpleasant necessity of intimating to Mr Brown, that, although they do not feel called upon to notice his having fixed his residence in the immediate neighbourhood of Oxford – a step, which, under the circumstances, they cannot look upon as otherwise than ill-judged – he must consider himself strictly prohibited from appearing within the college walls at any time during the ensuing vacation."
"Now there's a civil card by way of P.P.C. Don't you call that a spiteful concoction? Silver and Hodgett's last – and worthy of them. So now, unless you want me to be rusticated for a term or two, you need not be over-civil in your invitations. But I'll tell you what you shall do: Hawthorne shall send over that box of Silvas he had just opened, (if they are good, you shall order some more,) and I'll keep that Westphalia you talked about here, if you like, Chesterton; and then you may come here to breakfast, lunch, or supper, if you please – but mind, I won't give you dinners; I'm not going to have Mrs Nutt put upon – or myself either."
We agreed to the terms with some modifications, and proceeded with some interest to inspect John's domestic arrangements. They were comfortable, though in some points peculiar. A sort of stand in one corner, covered with red baise, which supported a plaster bust of our most gracious majesty, and gave an air of mock grandeur to the apartment, proved, upon nearer inspection, to be nothing more or less than a barrel of Hall and Tawney's ale, an old-fashioned cabinet, once gay with lacquered gold and colours, which the industrious rubbings of Mrs Nutt and her hand-maid were fast effacing – the depository perhaps of carefully penned love-missives, and broidered gloves, jewels, and perfumes, and suchlike shreds and patches of feminine taste or trickery, in other times – now served as a resting-place for the heterogeneous treasures of a bachelor's private cupboard. Cigars and captain's biscuits, open letters and unpaid bills, packs of cards and lecture note-books; odd gloves, odd pence, and odd things of all kinds – these filled the drawers: while, from the lower recesses, our friend, in course of time, produced a decanter of port and a Stilton. There was an old-fashioned sofa, one of that stiff-backed, hard-hearted generation, which no man thinks of sitting down upon twice, and three or four of those comfortable high-backed arm-chairs, in which, when once fairly seated, in pleasant company, one never wishes to get up again; a round oak table occupied the space opposite the fire, and another in one corner held the few books which formed John Brown's studies at the present. One window looked into the wet meadows by which the house was nearly surrounded, and the other commanded a view of the square inclosure before mentioned as now forming the farm-yard – in former days the inner court of the mansion.
"Why, Brown, old fellow, you're quite a lively look-out here," said Chesterton, who had for some minutes been contemplating, apparently with much interest, the goings on below. "I wish they kept pigs and chickens in the college quadrangle. I declare, for the last three days, in this horrid snow, I've watched for hours out of my window, (that fellow Hawthorne has taken to reading, and sports oak against me till luncheon time,) and I hav'n't seen a moving creature. I began to fancy myself up in the Great St Bernard among the monks; and when that brute of yours came up and howled at my door the other day, I almost expected to find him carrying a frozen child on his back, and got out the cherry brandy to be ready for the worst – didn't I, Hawthorne?"
"I found you one day with Bruin shivering before the fire, and the cherry brandy on the table, certainly."
"Well, that's the explanation of it, I assure you. But you must have found it precious dull shut up here by yourself, Brown?"
"Why, yes – rather – sometimes – in spite of the pigs and poultry. Their proceedings are rather monotonous. I feed that brood of chickens, which have taken upon themselves to come into the world this unnatural weather, with bread-crumbs out of my window twice a-day. Ah! I see the old hen has only four to-day; one is gone since yesterday, and one the day before; there's consumption in the family, that's plain; and they have always wet feet; I want Mrs Nutt to make them worsted socks, and to let me put Burgundy pitch-plasters on their throats, but she won't."
"But come," said Chesterton, "suppose you give us some lunch, Brown; 'prome reconditum Cæcubum' – (I'm getting desperately classical;) that is, being freely translated – lift up that red baise drapery of yours, and let's taste the tap."
The tap was tasted, and approved of; so was the Stilton: and then we sat over the fire for an hour, and smoked some of the Silvas: then we paid a visit to Mrs Nutt in her penetralia, and astonished her with our acquaintance with dairy matters; hazarded a criticism or two upon the pigs, which were well received, and were not so fortunate in our attempts to cultivate an intimacy with the incorruptible Boxer; and then set off on our return to Oxford, persuading Brown to start with us, as the afternoon was fine, in order to freshen his faculties by a stroll in the High Street.
Shorn, indeed, of all the glories of a full term, in which it had so lately shone, and looking doubly cold, cheerless, and deserted, in all the sloppy dirtiness of half-melted snow, was that never-equalled, and never-to-be-forgotten street! which the stranger gazes on with somewhat of an envious admiration, the freshman with an awful kind of delight – which the departing bachelor of arts quits with a half-concealed regret, and which the occasionally-returning master re-enters with feelings which are perhaps a mixture of all these; a stranger's admiration, an emancipated school-boy's delight, and a regret, either mellowed by passing years into a tender recollection, or blunted into indifference by altered habits, or embittered by severed ties and disappointed hopes. We strolled once up and down its long sweep, but there was nothing to invite a longer promenade. Cigar-dealers stood at their shop-doors, or leaned over their counters, with their hands in their breeches-pockets, smoking their own genuine Havannahs in desperate independence: here a livery-stable keeper, with a couple of questionable friends, rattled a tandem over the stones, as if such things never were let out at two guineas a-day: then a fishmonger, whose wide front, but a week before, teemed with such quantity and quality, as spoke audibly to every passer-by of bursary dinners and passing suppers, was now soliciting a customer to take his choice of three lank cod-fish, ticketed at so much per lb. Billiard-rooms were silent, save where a solitary marker practised impossible strokes: print-shops exhibited a dull uniformity of stale engravings; and the innumerable horde of mongrel puppies of all varieties, that, particularly towards the end of term, are dragged about three or four in a string, and recommended as real Blenheims, genuine King Charles's, or "one of old Webb's black and tan, real good uns for rats" – had disappeared from public life, to come out again, possibly, as Oxford sausages.
In this kind of way the three first weeks of the vacation passed over without any very notable occurences. We were quiet enough in college – there is no fun in two men kicking up a row for the amusement of each other; even in the eye of the law three are required to constitute a riot; so, on the strength of our good characters, albeit somewhat recent of acquisition, we dined two or three times with the fellows who were still in residence, and who, to do them justice, sank a point or so from the usual stiffness of the common room, and made our evenings agreeable enough. We certainly flattered ourselves, that if they found us in turbot and champagne, we contributed at least our share to the more intellectual part of the entertainment; we kept within due bounds, of course, and never overstepped that respect which young men are usually the more willing to pay to age and station the less rigidly it is exacted; but we made the old oak pannels ring with such hearty laughter as they seldom heard; and the pictures of founders and benefactors might have longed to come down from their frames to welcome even the shadow of those good old times when sound learning and hearty good fellowship were not, as now, hereditary enemies in Oxford. If my graver companions, from the calm dignity of collegiate office, deign to look back upon the evenings thus spent with two undergraduates in a Christmas vacation, when, unbending from the formal and conventional dulness of term and its duties, they interchanged with us anecdote and jest, and mingled with the sparkling imaginations of youth the reminiscences of riper years – I am sure they will have no cause to regret their share in those not ungraceful saturnalia, even though they may remember that the hour at which we separated was not always what we used to call "canonical."
We paid our friend almost daily visits in his banishment. The history of the expedition was generally the same; a walk out, a lunch, a cigar or two, a chat with farmer Nutt or his wife, a review of the last litter of pigs, or an enquiry as to the increasing muster-roll of lambs. We did not make much progress in farming matters. Chesterton was the most enterprising, and succeeded in ploughing a furrow in that kind of line which heralds call wavy, and would, as he declared, have made a very fair hand of thrashing, if he could but have hit the sheaf oftener, and his own head not quite so often. The most important events that took place during this time at the Grange, were the installation of a successor to the barrel in the corner, and the catching of an enormous rat, who had escaped poison and traps to be snapped up in broad daylight, in an unguarded moment by Bruin. Still John Brown declared that on the whole he got on very well; we all read moderately; the examination was too near to be trifled with, and an occasional gallop with the harriers made our only really idle days.
We had not, since our first visit, heard John recur at all to the subject of the Dean; and to say the truth, we began to hope for his sake, that he had given up a game which, however much longer it might be contested, had evidently begun to be a losing one on his part. But we were mistaken. We found him one morning in high spirits, and evidently in possession of some joke which he was anxious to impart.
"Shut the door and sit down," said he, before we were fairly within his premises. "I have a letter to show you."
"From the Dean?" (There was something in his manner, which made us sure that personage was concerned in some way.)
"No; but from his good mamma – from dear old Mrs Hodgett; you didn't know we were correspondents? Why, I wrote to her, you see, to ask where she lived now that she had resigned business, as I would not on any account have given up so valuable an acquaintance; and I begged her, at the same time, to order me a dozen pair of stockings from Mogg. (I assure you they were capital articles I had from him at first, and he's a very honest fellow; if you've sent that sparkling Moselle here to-day that you promised, Master Harry, we'll drink Mogg's very good health.) Well, I wrote to her, and here is her answer. You see Hodgett has been poisoning the old lady's mind."
I cannot give all John Brown's comments upon worthy Mrs Hodgett's epistle, without doing him great injustice in the recital; but here the contents are verbatim.
"Dear Sir, – Your favour of last week came safe to hand, and was very glad to find you was well, as it leaves us at present. Concerning your calling here next journey, am sorry to say shall be from home at that time. Sir, I should have been very glad to see you, but my son says you are not of an undeniable character, which, in a widow woman's establishment, must be first consideration. That was what I said to Mr Spriggins. Betsy, my daughter, as you know, is to be married to him next month. I don't think he is quite so steady as some, in regard that he must have his cigar and his tilberry on Sundays – John Mogg never did; but we can't all be Moggs in this world, or there wouldn't be no great failures.
"S. Hodgett, in declining business, returns thanks for all past favours, and remain, Dear Sir,
"Your obedient servant,"J. Spriggins,(late S. Hodgett.)
"P.S. – I am afraid college is a sad place for such young men as is not steady. Mrs Hicks, our great butcher's lady, told me that, when her son, who was a remarkable good lad, came home from Cambridge college after being there only two months, they found a short pipe in his best coat pocket, and he called his father 'governor,' which, as Mrs H. said, he never was, and he wouldn't wear his nightcap."
"Well," said Chesterton, when we had read this original document two or three times over, "it doesn't seem quite usual for a man to sign his own testimonials, especially when, as in Mr Spriggins's case, they are not the most flattering. Do you suppose he really wrote this, or signed it by mistake, or what is it?
"Neither one nor the other. Don't you see, the old lady, in declining the linen-drapery, merges her own identity in that of her successor? There's no such firm as 'Hodgett' now, it's 'Spriggins,' and she thinks it necessary to sign accordingly. Here's the card enclosed."
"Well, there's one thing very certain, that Mrs Hodgett declines doing business with you in future, John."
"Yes; and I'm rather annoyed at it. I meant to have got Mogg to come down and see me at Oxford, and should have asked the Dean to meet him. I don't see how he could have refused; any way, I think I could have paid him in full for his late good offices. Well, I am not quite sure now, when I've taken my degree, that I sha'n't go and see the old lady again, and win her heart by paying a wedding-visit to the Spriggins's. I'll take you with me, if you like, Hawthorne, and introduce you as Lord some-body-or-other, an intimate friend of the dean's – or stay, Chesterton will make the best lord of the two. Look with what supreme disgust he is eyeing poor Mrs Nutt's best wine-glasses. Come now, I think that vine-leaf pattern is quite Horatian; and if you turn up your nose at that, Master Harry, you shall have your wine out of a tea-cup next time you come here. Draw the cork of that Moselle, and then I have something else to tell you. Do either of you men care about shooting, or can you shoot?"
"Why, I flatter myself I can," said Chesterton. "I'll bet you I'll hit two eggs right and left, nine tines out of ten, as often as you like to throw them up."
"I don't call that shooting; and you had better not let Mrs Nutt hear you talk of breaking eggs right and left in any such extravagant manner. But what I was going to say is this, that some friend of old Nutt's has some ground near here for which he has the deputation, and I have been offered a day's shooting there, for myself and any friend I like to bring. Now, I don't shoot – though I remember the days when I was a dead pot-shot at a blackbird; but if either of you are sportsmen, or fancy you are, which amounts to much the same thing, why, you can have a day at this place if you like, and I will go with you on condition you don't carry your guns cocked. Mind, I can't promise what sort of sport you will have, as it is too near Oxford not to be pretty well poached over; but you can try."
Shooting over a man's ground without leave (especially if in the face of a "notice" to the contrary) is decidedly the best sport, but unfortunately one of those stolen delights which only schoolboys and poachers can with any sort of conscience enjoy. Shooting with leave comes next, but is immeasurably inferior in point of piquancy. Shooting in one's own preserves at birds which have been reared and turned out, and cost you on the average about five guineas per brace, is decidedly the most fashionable, and consequently – the dullest. A day's shooting of any kind about Oxford, was a rare privilege, confined chiefly to those who were fortunate enough to be fellows of St – , or to have an acquaintance among the surrounding squirearchy. True, that there were some enterprising spirits, who would gallop out some three or four miles to a corner of Lord A – 's preserves, give their horses in charge to a trusty follower, and after firing half a dozen shots, bag their two or three brace of pheasants, remount and dash off to Oxford, before the keepers, whom the sound of guns in their very sanctuary was sure to draw to the spot, could have any chance of coming up with them. But such exploits were deservedly rather reprobated than otherwise, even when judged by the under-graduate scale of morality; and even in the parties concerned, were the offspring rather of a Robin-Hood-like lawlessness than a genuine spirit of poaching.
We of course were delighted with the proposition which would have had quite sufficient attraction for us at any time; but coming in the dulness of vacation, it was an offer to be jumped at. "What game is there in this place?" said Chesterton. "Is there any cover shooting?"
"Oh, I can't tell you any thing about the place! It's about a mile off, but I never saw it. There's a good deal of ground to go over, I believe."
"What shall we do for dogs?"
"Mrs Nutt will lend you Boxer, I daresay; and Bruin is a capital hand at putting up water-rats."
"Stuff! I can borrow some dogs, though. And now, what day shall it be?"
The day was fixed, the dogs procured, the occupant of the property was to send a man to meet us and show us the ground, and it was settled that we were to come to breakfast at the farm at half-past seven precisely, and make a long day of it. Much to his disgust, we roused the deputy porter from his bed at seven on a raw foggy morning; and with a lad leading the dogs, and carrying guns and ammunition, we made our way to Farmer Nutt's. We were proceeding up-stairs, as usual, to Brown's apartment, when we heard our friend's voice hailing us from the "house," as the large hall was called which the farmer and his wife used as a kind of superior kitchen. There we found him snugly seated by a glorious fire, superintending his hostess in the slicing and broiling of a piece of ham such as Oxfordshire and Berkshire farm-houses may well pride themselves upon; while a large pile of crisp brown toast was basking in front of the hearth, supported on a round brass footman. It was a sight which might have given a man an appetite at any time, but, after a two-mile walk on a cold winter's morning, it was like a glimpse of paradise.
"Here," said Brown – "here's breakfast, old fellows. Come and make your bows to Mrs Nutt, who is the very pattern of breakfast makers, and fit to concoct tea for the Emperor of China. Ah! if ever I marry, Mrs Nutt, it shall be somebody who is just like you."
Mrs Nutt laughed merrily, and welcomed us with many curtsies, and hopes that we should find things comfortable; and when the worthy farmer, after a brief apology, sat down with us, and the strong black tea and rich cream were duly amalgamated, what a breakfast we did make! There was not much conversation; but such a hissing and frizzling of ham upon the gridiron, such a crumping of toast and rattling of knives, forks, cups and saucers, surely five people seldom made. We were hungry enough; and our hospitable entertainers were so pressing in their attentions, that we caught ourselves eating plum-cake with broiled ham, honey with fresh-laid eggs, and taking gulps of strong tea and sips of raspberry-brandy alternately. We bore up against it all, however, wonderfully; the prospect of a long day's walk put headache and indigestion out of the question, and we were beginning to think of moving when certain ominous preparations on the part of our hostess attracted our attention. A hot slice of toast having been saturated with brandy, she proceeded, to our undisguised amazement, to pour upon it the richest and thickest cream her dairy could produce, and to cover this again with sundry wavy lines of treacle. This was the bonne bouche with which, in her part of the world, Devonshire I think she said, a breakfast to be perfect must always conclude. Start not, delicate reader, until you have had an opportunity of trying this remarkable compound; but take my word for it, it only wants a French name to make it a first-rate sweetmeat. We too regarded it at first with fear and trembling; tasted it out of courtesy to the fair compoundress, and finally, like Oliver Twist, asked for more.
"Now these gentlemen know what a breakfast is, Mr Nutt," said John; "but I am afraid we can't introduce your good wife's receipt into college; our cows give nothing but skim-milk. Well, now we had better be off, if you mean to have any shooting."
Off we set accordingly, and had to trudge a mile or so before we got into our preserves. There were some not unpromising covers; the lad who was to be our guide professed some vague reminiscences of having seen pheasants there "a bit ago;" and there was no question as to a hare having been started so lately as yesterday morning. We began our day, therefore, with somewhat sanguine expectations, which, however, every subsequent half-hour's progress gradually dispelled. We tumbled out of one deep ditch into another, scrambled perseveringly through brambles and brushwood, saw places where pheasants ought to have been, and places where they had been, but never saw a bird except a jack-snipe in the distance. The only sport we had was in the untiring energy of the lad already mentioned, who, long after the dogs had given it up as a bad job, continued to beat every bush as diligently as at first starting, and kept up a form of hortatory interjections addressed to the invisible game, with a hopeful perseverance which was really enviable. One satisfaction we had; towards the close of the day we started the hare from a bush which had certainly been tried at least twice before; she fell victim to a platoon fire of four barrels; the second, I believe, brought her down, but we were anxious to have all the shots we could get. And, in truth, there was some credit in killing her, for Mr Nutt, to whom we presented her, declared that she was so tough, he wondered how the shots ever got through her skin.
It takes something more serious than a bad day's sport to damp youthful spirits; and upon our return we found the good farmer's wife much more annoyed at our failure than ourselves. "Why, the chap as has the deputation told my master he had killed ten brace of pheasants there this season!" He killed the last he could find before he sent us there, no doubt. Nothing dispirited, we sat down to a leg of mutton, which Brown had so far departed from his household economy as to order for us at six, and enjoyed our evening as thoroughly as if we had been a triple impersonation of Colonel Hawker in point of successful sportmanship. Nor was it until after the second bottle of port that we began to accuse each other of being sleepy.
"Well," said I at last, "it is about time for us to be off; it wants but three minutes of half-past eleven, and we shall have sharp work of it now to get into college by twelve. What sort of a night is it?"
The shutters of the sitting-room were closed, and I stepped into the bed-room adjoining in order to look out. The window opened into the court-yard; the moon was shining pretty brightly in spite of the fog, and I was just turning round to remark that we should have a dry walk home, when I saw two figures steal quietly across the yard, apparently from the gateway, and disappear in one of the outhouses. It was too late for any of the men about the farm to be out, in all probability; I was certain neither of the two figures was Farmer Nutt himself, so I quietly closed the door between the sitting and bed rooms, in order that no light might be seen, and watched the spot where I had lost sight of them. In a few seconds, I distinctly saw a third man come over the yard-gates, (which were secured inside at night,) and after apparently reconnoitring for a moment or two, move in the same direction as the others. I returned at once to the room where I had left Brown and Chesterton, closing the bed-room door hastily and noiselessly, and motioning them to be silent.
"I say, Hawthorne, what's up?" said Harry Chesterton, pausing, with a parting cigar half-lighted.
I confess I was somewhat flurried, and my account of what I had seen was not the most distinct.
"Oh!" said Chesterton, "it's some of the girl's sweethearts, I dare say; let's go down and have 'em out, Brown – shall we?"
Brown shook his head.
"Put out the lights," said I.
We did so, and then opened the shutters of the sitting-room window. We had hardly done so when the bright flash of a lantern was visible from the opposite side of the yard. For a few minutes we could see nothing else, and were obliged to hide carefully behind the shutters to avoid being noticed from below.
"Is that old Nutt?" said I.
Brown thought not. He never knew him carry a lantern.
At that moment the light disappeared, and in a few seconds we heard a loud knocking at the back-door.
"That must be the farmer come home," said I.
"No," said Brown, looking carefully into the yard, where we could now plainly distinguish at least three persons, and overhear voices in a low tone – "No; old Nutt's brown greatcoat would cover all three of those fellows."
"What stall we do," said Chesterton, seizing his double-barrel, which stood in the corner. "Shall we open the window and threaten to fire?"
"With an empty gun?" said Brown: "no, no, that won't do. Not but what they would run away fast enough, perhaps; but I think, if they really are come to attack the house, we ought not to let them off so easily. What say you, Hawthorne?"
"Certainly not; but they can hardly be housebreakers, or they would not keep knocking at the door," said I, as the sounds were repeated more loudly than before.
"I don't know that; every body about here is perfectly aware that old Nutt is gone to Woodstock fair; and they might give a pretty good guess, even supposing they did not watch him, that he would not be home till late; and if Mrs Nutt or any of the servants are fools enough to open the door, it's an easier way of getting in than breaking it open. However, there's no time to be lost; here's a box of lucifers; come into this dark passage, you two, and get a candle lighted, while I go and try to get up Mrs Nutt. I can find my way in the dark."
"By Jove, Brown," said Chesterton and myself in the same breath, "you sha'n't go about the house by yourself – we'll come with you."
"And break your necks down some of the old staircases; or, at all events, make row enough to let your friends below know that there's somebody moving in this part of the house. No, just keep quiet where you are – there's good fellows – and take care not to show the light." And taking off his shoes, Brown proceeded along the old passages, which seemed to creak more than usual out of very spitefulness, into the unknown regions where lay the unconscious Mrs Nutt.
Having got a light, after the usual number of scrapings with the lucifers, we were awaiting his return with some impatience, when a third and more violent series of knocks at the door were followed by the sound of a female voice. Concealing the light, we crept to the window of the sitting-room, whence we could now distinguish only one figure standing by the door, with whom Mrs Nutt appeared to be holding a communication from a window above.