The adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford freshman/chapter 4
MR. VERDANT GREEN BECOMES AN OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE.
Mr. Verdant Green arose in the morning more or less refreshed; and after breakfast proceeded with his father to Brazenface College to call upon the Master; the porter directed them where to go, and they sent up their cards. Dr. Portman was at home, and they were soon introduced to his presence.
Instead of the stern, imposing-looking personage that Mr. Verdant Green had expected to see in the ruler among dons, and the terror of offending undergraduates, the master of Brazenface was a mild-looking old gentleman, with an inoffensive amiability of expression and a shy, retiring manner that seemed to intimate that he was more alarmed at the strangers than they had need to be at him. Dr. Portman seemed to be quite a part of his college, for he had passed the greatest portion of his life there. He had graduated there, he had taken Scholarships there, he had even gained a prize-poem there; he had been elected a Fellow there, he had become a Tutor there, he had been Proctor and College Dean there; there, during the long vacation, he had written his celebrated "Disquisition on the Greek Particles," afterwards published in eight octavo volumes; and finally, there he had been elected Master of his college, in which office, honoured and respected, he appeared likely to end his days. He was unmarried; perhaps he had never found time to think of a wife; perhaps he had never had the courage to propose for one; perhaps he had met with early crosses and disappointments, and had shrined in his heart a fair image that should never be displaced. Who knows? for dons are mortals, and have been undergraduates once.
The little hair he had was of a silvery white, although his eye-brows retained their black hue; and to judge from the fine fresh-coloured features and the dark eyes that were now nervously twinkling upon Mr. Green, Dr. Portman must, in his more youthful days, have had an ample share of good looks. He was dressed in an old-fashioned reverend suit of black, with knee-breeches and gaiters, and a massive watch-seal dangling from under his waistcoat, and was deep in the study of his favourite particles. He received our hero and his father both nervously and graciously, and bade them be seated.
"I shall al-ways," he said, in monosyllabic tones, as though he were reading out of a child's primer,—"I shall al-ways be glad to see any of the young friends of my old col-lege friend Lar-kyns; and I do re-joice to be a-ble to serve you, Mis-ter Green; and I hope your son, Mis-ter, Mis-ter Vir—— Vir-gin-ius,—"
"Verdant, Dr. Portman," interrupted Mr. Green, suggestively, "Verdant."
"Oh! true, true, true! and I do hope that he will be a ve-ry good young man, and try to do hon-our to his col-lege."
"I trust he will, indeed, sir," replied Mr. Green; "it is the great wish of my heart. And I am sure that you will find my son both quiet and orderly in his conduct, regular in his duties, and always in bed by ten o'clock."
"Well, I hope so too, Mis-ter Green," said Dr. Portman, monosyllabically; "but all the young gen-tle-men do pro-mise to be regu-lar and or-der-ly when they first come up, but a term makes a great dif-fer-ence. But I dare say my young friend Mis-ter Vir-gin-ius,"—
"Verdant," smilingly suggested Mr. Green.
"I beg your par-don," apologized Dr. Portman; "but I dare say that he will do as you say, for in-deed my friend Lar-kyns speaks well of him."
"I am delighted—proud!" murmured Mr. Green, while Verdant felt himself blushing up to his spectacles.
"We are ve-ry full," Dr. Portman went on to say, "but as I do ex-pect great things from Mis-ter Vir-gin——Verdant, Verdant, I have put some rooms at his ser-vice; and if you would like to see them, my ser-vant shall shew you the way." The servant was accordingly summoned, and received orders to that effect; while the Master told Verdant that he must, at two o'clock, present himself to Mr. Slowcoach, his tutor, who would examine him for his matriculation.
"I am sor-ry, Mis-ter Green," said Dr. Portman, "that my en-gage-ments will pre-vent me from ask-ing you and Mis-ter Virg—Ver-dant, to dine with me to-day; but I do hope that the next time you come to Ox-ford I shall be more for-tu-nate."
Old John, the Common-room man, who had heard this speech made to hundreds of "governors" through many generations of freshmen, could not repress a few pantomimic asides, that were suggestive of anything but full credence in his master's words. But Mr. Green was delighted with Dr. Portman's affability, and perceiving that the interview was at an end, made his congé, and left the Master of Brazenface to his Greek particles.
They had just got outside, when the servant said, "Oh, there is the scout! Your scout, sir!" at which our hero blushed from the consciousness of his new dignity; and, by way of appearing at his ease, inquired the scout's name.
"Robert Filcher, sir," replied the servant; "but the gentlemen always call 'em by their Christian names." And beckoning the scout to him, he bade him shew the gentlemen to the rooms kept for Mr. Verdant Green; and then took himself back to the Master.
Mr. Robert Filcher might perhaps have been forty years of age, perhaps fifty; there was cunning enough in his face to fill even a century of wily years; and there was a depth of expression in his look, as he asked our hero if he was Mr. Verdant Green, that proclaimed his custom of reading a freshman at a glance. Mr. Filcher was laden with coats and boots that had just been brushed and blacked for their respective masters; and he was bearing a jug of Buttery ale (they are renowned for their ale at Brazenface) to the gentleman who owned the pair of "tops" that were now flashing in the sun as they dangled from the scout's hand.
"Please to follow me, gentlemen," he said; "it's only just across the quad. Third floor, No. 4 staircase, fust quad; that's about the mark, I think, sir."
Mr. Verdant Green glanced curiously round the Quadrangle, with its picturesque irregularity of outline, its towers and turrets and battlements, its grey time-eaten walls, its rows of mullioned heavy-headed windows, and the quiet cloistered air that spoke of study and reflection; and perceiving on one side a row of large windows, with great buttresses between, and a species of steeple on the high-pitched roof, he made bold (just to try the effect) to address Mr. Filcher by the name assigned to him at an early period of his life by his godfathers and godmothers, and inquired if that building was the chapel.
"No, sir," replied Robert, "that there's the 'All, sir, that is—where you dines, sir, leastways when you ain't 'Æger,' or elseweer. That at the top is the lantern, sir, that is; called so because it never has no candle in it. The chapel's the hopposite side, sir.—Please not to walk on the grass, sir; there's a fine agen it, unless you're a Master. This way if you please, gentlemen!" Thus the scout beguiled them, as he led them to an open doorway with a large 4 painted over it; inside was a door on either hand, while a coal-bin displayed its black face from under a staircase that rose immediately before them. Up this they went, following the scout (who had vanished for a moment with the boots and beer), and when they had passed the first floor they found the ascent by no means easy to the body, or pleasant to the sight. The once white-washed walls were coated with the uncleansed dust of the three past terms; and where the plaster had not been chipped off by flying porter-bottles, or the heels of Wellington boots, its surface had afforded an irresistible temptation to those imaginative undergraduates who displayed their artistic genius in candle-smoke cartoons of the heads of the University, and other popular and unpopular characters. All Mr. Green's caution, as he crept up the dark, twisting staircase, could not prevent him from crushing his hat against the low, cobwebbed ceiling, and he gave vent to a very strong but quiet anathema, which glided quietly and audibly into the remark, "Confounded awkward staircase, I think!"
"Just what Mr. Bouncer says," replied the scout, "although he don't reach so high as you, sir; but he do say, sir, when he comes home pleasant at night from some wine-party, that it is the aukardest staircase as was ever put before a gentleman's legs. And he did go so far, sir, as to ask the Master, if it wouldn't be better to have a staircase as would go up of hisself, and take the gentlemen up with it, like one as they has at some public show in London - the Call-and-see-em, I think he said."
"The Colosseum, probably," suggested Mr. Green. "And what did Dr. Portman say to that, pray?"
"Why he said, sir, - leastways so Mr. Bouncer reported,—that it worn't by no means a bad idea, and that p'raps Mr. Bouncer'd find it done in six months' time, when he come back again from the country. For you see, sir, Mr. Bouncer had made hisself so pleasant, that he'd been and got the porter out o' bed, and corked his face dreadful; and then, sir, he'd been and got a Hinn-board from somewhere out of the town, and hung it on the Master's private door; so that when they went to early chapel in the morning, they read as how the Master was 'licensed to sell beer by retail,' and 'to be drunk on the premises'. So when the Master came to know who it was as did it, which in course the porter told him, he said as how Mr. Bouncer had better go down into the country for a year, for change of hair, and to visit his friends."
"Very kind indeed of Dr. Portman," said our hero, who missed the moral of the story, and took the rustication for a kind forgiveness of injuries.
"Just what Mr. Bouncer said, sir," replied the scout, "he said it were pertickler kind and thoughtful. This is his room, sir, he come up on'y yesterday." And he pointed to a door, above which was painted in white letters on a black ground, "Bouncer."
"Why," said Mr. Green to his son, "now I think of it, Bouncer was the name of that short young gentleman who came with us on the coach yesterday, and made himself so—so unpleasant with a tin horn."
"That's the gent, sir," observed the scout; "that's Mr. Bouncer, agoing the complete unicorn, as he calls it. I dare say you'll find him a pleasant neighbour, sir. Your rooms is next to his."
With some doubts of these prospective pleasures, the Mr. Greens, père et fils, entered through a double door painted over the outside, with the name of "Smalls"; to which Mr. Filcher directed our hero's attention by saying, "You can have that name took out, sir, and your own name painted in. Mr. Smalls has just moved hisself to the other quad, and that's why the rooms is vacant, sir."
Mr. Filcher then went on to point out the properties and capabilities of the rooms, and also their mechanical contrivances.
"This is the hoak, this 'ere outer door is, sir, which the gentlemen sports, that is to say, shuts, sir, when they're a readin'. Not as Mr. Smalls ever hinterfered with his constitootion by too much 'ard study, sir; he only sported his hoak when people used to get troublesome about their little bills. Here's a place for coals, sir, though Mr. Smalls, he kept his bull-terrier there, which was agin the regulations, as you know, sir." (Verdant nodded his head, as though he were perfectly aware of the fact.) "This ere's your bed-room, sir. Very small, did you say, sir? Oh, no, sir; not by no means! We thinks that in college reether a biggish bed-room, sir. Mr. Smalls thought so, sir, and he's in his second year, he is." (Mr. Filcher thoroughly understood the science of "flooring" a freshman.)
"This is my room, sir, this is, for keepin' your cups and saucers, and wine-glasses and tumblers, and them sort o' things, and washin' 'em up when you wants 'em. If you likes to keep your wine and sperrits here, sir—Mr. Smalls always did—you'll find it a nice cool place, sir: or else here's this 'ere winder-seat; you see, sir, it opens with a lid, 'andy for the purpose."
"If you act upon that suggestion, Verdant," remarked Mr. Green aside to his son, "I trust that a lock will be added."
There was not a superfluity of furniture in the room; and Mr. Smalls having conveyed away the luxurious part of it, that which was left had more of the useful than the ornamental character; but as Mr. Verdant Green was no Sybarite, this point was but of little consequence. The window looked with a sunny aspect down upon the quad, and over the opposite buildings were seen the spires of churches, the dome of the Radcliffe, and the gables, pinnacles, and turrets of other colleges. This was pleasant enough: pleasanter than the stale odours of the Virginian weed that rose from the faded green window-curtains, and from the old Kidderminster carpet that had been charred and burnt into holes with the fag-ends of cigars.
"Well, Verdant," said Mr. Green, when they had completed their inspection, "the rooms are not so very bad, and I think you may be able to make yourself comfortable in them. But I wish they were not so high up. I don't see how you can escape if a fire was to break out, and I am afraid collegians must be very careless on these points. Indeed, your mother made me promise that I would speak to Dr. Portman about it, and ask him to please to allow your tutor, or somebody, to see that your fire was safely raked out at night; and I had intended to have done so, but somehow it quite escaped me. How your mother and all at home would like to see you in your own college room!" And the thoughts of father and son flew back to the Manor Green and its occupants, who were doubtless at the same time thinking of them.
Mr. Filcher then explained the system of thirds, by which the furniture of the room was to be paid for; and, having accompanied his future master and Mr. Green downstairs, the latter accomplishing the descent not without difficulty and contusions, and having pointed out the way to Mr. Slowcoach's rooms, Mr. Robert Filcher relieved his feelings by indulging in a ballet of action, or pas d'extase; in which poetry of motion he declared his joy at the last valuable addition to Brazenface, and his own perquisites.
Mr. Slowcoach was within, and would see Mr. Verdant Green. So that young gentleman, trembling with agitation, and feeling as though he would have given pounds for the staircase to have been as high as that of Babel, followed the servant upstairs, and left his father, in almost as great a state of nervousness, pacing the quad below. But it was not the formidable affair, nor was Mr. Slowcoach the formidable man, that Mr. Verdant Green had anticipated; and by the time that he had turned a piece of Spectator into Latin, our hero had somewhat recovered his usual equanimity of mind and serenity of expression: and the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and Homer, and the answering of a few questions, was a mere form; for Mr. Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very few minutes if the freshman before him (however nervous he might be) had the usual average of abilities, and was up to the business of lectures. So Mr. Verdant Green was soon dismissed, and returned to his father radiant and happy.