“Oh! grief for words too deep,
From all his loved ones parted,
He could not choose but weep,
He was so lonely-hearted.”
--Shortfellow.
“How does the water come down at Lodore?
Dashing and flashing, and splashing and clashing,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.”
--Southey.
“PRAY, Fairlegh, what did you mean by not coming down till eleven
o'clock?” asked Cumberland in an angry tone.
“Did its mamma say it was always to have its breakfast in bed, a dear?”
sneered Lawless.
“When she fastened that pretty square collar round its neck,” chimed in
Coleman.
“Just like a great gal,” added Mullins.
“Mildman was exceedingly angry about it, I can tell you,” continued
Cumberland, “and desired me to speak seriously to you on the subject;
such abominable idleness is not to be tolerated.”
“It was not idleness,” answered I, warmly; “you all know very well, why
I could not come down, and I don't think it was at all right or kind of
you to play me such a trick.”
“Eh--now don't say that--you will hurt my feelings; I declare it
is quite affecting,” said Coleman, wiping his eyes with Mullins's
handkerchief, of which he had just picked his pocket.
~22~~“I'd have given five pounds to have seen old Sam's phiz, when he
was trying to make out what ailed young stupid here, whether he was
really ill, or only shamming,” said Lawless; “depend upon it, he thinks
it was all pretence, and he can't bear anything of that sort; that was
why he began spinning him that long yarn about 'meriting his approbation
by upright and straightforward conduct,' this morning. I saw what the
old boy was aiming at in a minute; there's nothing puts him out so much
as being deceived.”
“Won't he set him all the hard lines to construe, that's all!” said
Mullins.
“It will be 'hard lines' upon him if he does,” observed Coleman.
“Hold your tongue, Freddy! your puns are enough to make one ill,” said
Cumberland.
“Well, I don't know whether you are going to stand here all day baiting
your pinafore, Cumberland?” interrupted Lawless; “I'm not, for I've got
a horse waiting for me down at Snaffles's, and I am going to ride over
to Hookley; there's a pigeon-match coming off to-day between Clayton, of
the Lancers--(he was just above me at Eton, you know)--and Tom Horton,
who won the great match at Pinchley, and I have backed Clayton pretty
heavily--shall you come?”
“No,” replied Cumberland, “no, I am going down to
F------Street.”
“As usual, the board of green cloth, eh? you will go there once too
often, if you don't mind, old fellow.” “That's my look out,” replied
Cumberland. And away they went to their different pursuits, each, as
he left the room, making me a very low obeisance; Coleman taking the
trouble to open the door again after he had gone out, to beg, “that,
if I were going to write to my mother, I would tell her, with his love,
that she need not make herself in the least uneasy, as _he had quite_
got over his last little attack”. In a few minutes they had all quitted
the house, and I remained the sole tenant of the pupils' room.
Many a long year has passed over my head since the day I am now
describing, and each (though my life has been on the whole as free
from care as that of most of the sons of Adam) has brought with it some
portion of sorrow or suffering to temper the happiness I have enjoyed,
and teach me the much required lesson, that “here we have no abiding
place”. I have lived to see bright hopes fade--high and noble
aspirations fall to the ground, checked ~23~~by the sordid policy of
worldly men--and the proud hearts which gave them birth become gradually
debased to the level of those around them, or break in the unequal
struggle--and these things have pained me. I have beheld those dear to
me stretched upon the bed of sickness, and taken from me by the icy
hand of death; and have deemed, as the grave closed over them, that my
happiness, as far as this world was concerned, was buried with them. I
have known (and this was grief indeed) those loved with all the warm
and trustful confidence of youth prove false and unworthy of such deep
affection; and have wished, in the bitterness of my soul, that the pit
had shut her mouth upon me also, so I had but died with my faith in them
unshaken. Still, although such sorrows as these may have produced a
more deep and lasting effect, I do not remember ever to have felt more
thoroughly desolate than upon the present occasion. The last scene,
though trifling in itself, had made a great impression upon me, from the
fact that it proved, as I considered, the animus of the pupils towards
me. “Every man's hand was against me.” Even the oaf Mullins might insult
me with impunity; secure that, in so doing, if in nothing else, he
would be supported by the rest. Then I had offended my tutor, all my
predilections in whose favour had returned with double force, since I
had satisfied myself that he was not addicted to the commission of petty
larceny; offended him by allowing him to suppose that I had practised
a mean deception upon him. Moreover, it was impossible to explain my
conduct to him without showing up Coleman, an extreme measure for which
I was by no means prepared. Besides, every one would think, if I were to
do so, that I was actuated by a paltry spirit of malice, and that would
have been worse to bear than anything. No--turn my gaze to whichever
side I. would, the horizon seemed alike clouded; there was no comfort
for me anywhere. I looked at my watch--two o'clock! Three long hours to
dinner-time, in which I might do what I liked. _What I liked_! there was
mockery in the very sound. What was there for me to do? go out and see
more new faces looking coldly on me, and wander up and down in strange
places alone, amidst a crowd? No! I had not the heart to do that. Sit
down, and write home, and by telling them how miserable I was, render
them unhappy too?--that was worst of all. At length I found a book, and
began reading as it were mechanically, but so little was I able to fix
my attention that, had I been questioned at the end of the time as to
the subject of the work I had been ~24~~perusing, I should have been
utterly at a loss for an answer. I had fairly given it up as hopeless,
and closed the book, when I heard footsteps in the passage, followed by
the sudden apparition of the ever-smiling Mr. Frederick Coleman, who,
closing the door after him, accosted me as follows:--
“What, Fairlegh, all in the downs, old fellow?--'never say die!'--come,
be jolly--look at me”.
As he said this I involuntarily raised my eyes to his features, and
certainly if ever there were a face formed for banishing blue devils by
a glance, it was his. It was a round face, not remarkable for beauty
of outline, inasmuch as it bore a strong resemblance to that of the
gentleman on the blue China plates, in two pigtails and a petticoat,
who appears to pass a mild ornithological and botanical existence in
studying intently certain fishy-looking birds, and a cannon-ball tree,
which form the leading feature of the landscape in his vicinity. With
regard to expression, however, Coleman had a decided advantage over
the Chinese horticulturist, for, whereas the countenance of the latter
gentleman expresses (if indeed it can be said to express anything) only
meek astonishment, Coleman's small black eyes danced and sparkled with
such a spirit of mischief and devilry, while such a fund of merriment,
and, as it now for the first time struck me, of good-nature also, lurked
about the corners of his mouth, that it seemed impossible to look at him
without feeling that there was something contagious in his hilarity.
“Why,” said I, “everything here is so new to me, so entirely different
from all I have been accustomed to before, and the unkind--that is,
the odd way in which Lawless and the rest of you seem to behave to me,
treating me as if you thought I was either a fool or a baby--it all
seems so strange, that I confess I am not over-happy.”
“Precious odd if you were, I think,” replied Coleman; “and it was a
horrid shame of me to hide your trousers as I did this morning. Oh! how
delightfully miserable you did look, as you stood shivering up in the
cold! I'm sorry for it now, but I'm such a chap for a bit of fun, that
if a trick like that comes into my head, do it I must. Oh! I get into no
end of scrapes that way! Why it was but the other day I put a piece
of cobbler's wax on the seat of Mildman's chair, and ruined his best
Sunday-going sit-upons; he knew, too, who did it, I'm sure, for the next
day he gave me a double dose of Euclid, to take the nonsense out of me,
I suppose. He had better mind what he's at, though! I have got another
dodge ready for him ~25~~if he does not take care! But I did not mean to
annoy you: you behaved like a brick, too, in not saying anything about
it--I am really very sorry.”
“Never mind,” said I; “it's all right again now: I like a joke as well
as anybody when I know it's only fun; the thing I am afraid of now is,
that Dr. Mildman may think I wanted to deceive him, by pretending to be
ill, when I was not.”
“I daresay he has got a pretty good notion how it is,” said Coleman,
“but we'll get Thomas to tell him what I was up to, and that will set it
all straight again.”
“That will be very kind indeed,” replied I; “but will not Dr. Mildman be
angry with you about it?”
“Not he,” said Coleman, “he never finds fault unless there's real
necessity for it; he's as good a fellow as ever lived, is old Sam, only
he's so precious slow.”
“I am glad you like him, he seems so very kind and good-natured,” said
I, “just the sort of person one should wish one's tutor to be. But about
Cumberland and Lawless; what kind of fellows are they when you come to
know them?”
“Oh, you will like Lawless well enough when he gets tired of bullying
you,” replied Coleman; “though you need not stand so much of that as I
was obliged to bear; you are a good head taller than I am--let's look at
your arm; it would be all the better for a little more muscle, but that
will soon improve. I'll put on the gloves with you for an hour or so
every day.”
“Put on the gloves!” repeated I; “how do you mean?--what has that to do
with Lawless?”
“Oh, you muff! don't you understand?--of course, I mean the
boxing-gloves; and when you know how to use your fists, if Lawless comes
it too strong, slip into him.”
“He must bully a good deal before I am driven to that,” replied I; “I
never struck a blow in anger in my life.”
“You will see before long,” rejoined Coleman; “but at all events there
is no harm in learning to use your fists; a man should always be able to
defend himself if he is attacked.”
“Yes, that's very true,” observed I; “but you have not told me anything
of Cumberland. Shall I ever like him, do you think?”
“Not if you are the sort of fellow I take you to be,” replied he;
“there's something about Cumberland not altogether right, I fancy;
I'm not very strait-laced myself, particularly if there's any fun in a
thing, not so much so as I should be, I suspect; but Cumberland is too
bad even ~26~~for me; besides, there's no fun in what he does, and then
he's such a humbug--not straightforward and honest, you know. Lawless
would not be half such a bully either, if Cumberland did not set him
on. But don't you say a word about this to any one; Cumberland would
be ready to murder me, or to get somebody else to do it for him--that's
more in his way.”
“Do not fear my repeating anything told me in confidence,” replied
I; “but what do you mean when you say there's something wrong about
Cumberland?”
“Do you know what Lawless meant by the 'board of green cloth' this
morning?”
“No--it puzzled me.”
“I will tell you then,” replied Coleman, sinking his voice almost to a
whisper--“the billiard table!”
After telling me this, Coleman, evidently fearing to commit himself
further with one of whom he knew so little, turned the conversation,
and, finding it still wanted more than an hour to dinner, proposed that
we should take a stroll along the shore together. In the course of
our walk I acquired the additional information that another pupil was
expected in a few days--the only son of Sir John Oaklands, a baronet of
large fortune in Hertfordshire; and that an acquaintance of Coleman's,
who knew him, said he was a capital fellow, but very odd--though in what
the oddity consisted did not appear. Moreover, Coleman confirmed me in
my preconceived idea, that Mullins's genius lay at present chiefly in
the eating, drinking, and sleeping line--adding that, in his opinion,
he bore a striking resemblance to those somewhat dissimilar articles, a
muff and a spoon. In converse such as this, the time slipped away, till
we suddenly discovered that we had only a quarter of an hour left
in which to walk back to Langdale Terrace, and prepare for dinner;
whereupon a race began, in which my longer legs gave me so decided an
advantage over Coleman that he declared he would deliver me up to
the tender mercies of the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals,” for what he was pleased to call “an aggravated case of
over-driving a private pupil”.
We had not more than five minutes left when we arrived at Dr. Mildman's
door, Coleman affording a practical illustration of the truth of
the aphorism, that “it is the pace that kills”; so that Thomas's
injunction, “Look sharp, gentlemen,” was scarcely necessary to induce
us to rush upstairs two steps at a time. In the same hurry I entered
my bedroom, without observing that the door was standing ajar rather
suspiciously, for which piece of inattention I ~27~~was rewarded by a
deluge of water, which wetted me from head to foot, and a violent blow
on the shoulder, which stretched me on the ground in the midst of a
puddle. That I may not keep the reader in suspense I will at once inform
him that I was indebted for this agreeable surprise to the kindness
and skill of Lawless, who, having returned from his pigeon-match
half-an-hour sooner than was necessary, had devoted it to the
construction of what he called a “booby trap,” which ingenious piece of
mechanism was arranged in the following manner: The victim's room-door
was placed ajar, and upon the top thereof a Greek Lexicon, or any other
equally ponderous volume, was carefully balanced, and upon this was set
in its turn a jug of water. If all these were properly adjusted, the
catastrophe above described was certain to ensue when the door was
opened.
[Illustration: page27 Caught in a Trap]
“Fairly caught, by Jove,” cried Lawless, who had been on the watch.
“By Jupiter Pluvius, you should have said,” joined in Coleman, helping
me up again; for so sudden and unexpected had been the shock that I
had remained for a moment just as I had fallen, with a kind of vague
expectation that the roof of the house would come down upon me.
“I suppose I have to thank you for that,” said I, turning to Lawless.
“Pray, don't mention it, Pinafore,” was the answer; “what little trouble
I had in making the arrangement, I can assure you, was quite repaid by
its success.”
“I'll certainly put on the gloves to-morrow,” whispered I to Coleman--to
which he replied by a sympathetic wink, adding:--
“And now I think you had better get ready, more particularly as you
will have to find out 'how to dress _jugged hair_,' as the cookery-books
say”.
By dint of almost superhuman exertions I did just contrive to get down
in time for dinner, though my unfortunate “jugged hair,” which was
anything but dry, must have presented rather a singular appearance. In
the course of dinner Dr. Mildman told us that we should have the whole
of the next day to ourselves, as he was obliged to go to London on
business, and should not return till the middle of the day following--an
announcement which seemed to afford great satisfaction to his hearers,
despite an attempt made by Cumberland to keep up appearances, by putting
on a look of mournful resignation, which, being imitated by Coleman,
who, as might be expected, rather overdid the thing, failed most
signally. ~28~~