The lapse of years made little difference with the Reverend John
Rosedew, except to mellow and enfranchise the heart so free and rich
by nature, and to pile fresh stores of knowledge in the mind so stored
already. Of course the parson had his faults. In many a little matter
his friends could come down upon him sharply, if minded so to do. But
any one so minded would not have been fit to be called John Rosedewʼs
friend.
His greatest fault was one which sprang from his own high chivalry. If
once he detected a person, whether taught or untaught, in the attempt
to deceive or truckle, that person was to him thenceforth a thing to be
pitied and prayed for. Large and liberal as his heart was, charitable
and even lenient to all other frailties, the presence of a lie in the
air was to it as ozone to a test–paper. And then he was always sorry
afterwards when he had shown his high disdain. For who could disprove
that John Rosedew himself might have been a thorough liar, if trained
and taught to consider truth a policeman with his staff drawn?
Another fault John Rosedew had—and I do not tell his foibles (as
our friends do) to enjoy them—he gave to his books and their bygone
ages much of the time which he ought to have spent abroad in his
own little parish. But this could not be attributed to any form of
self–indulgence. Much as he liked his books, he liked his flock still
better, but never could overcome the idea that they would rather not be
bothered. If any one were ailing, if any one were needy, he would throw
aside his Theophrastus, and be where he was wanted, with a mild sweet
voice and gentle eyes that crannied not, like a craneʼs bill, into the
family crocks and dustbin. It was a part, and no unpleasant one, of his
natural diffidence, that he required a poor manʼs invitation quite as
much as a rich oneʼs, ere ever he crossed the threshold; unless trouble
overflowed the impluvium. In all the parish of Nowelhurst there was
scarcely a man or a woman who did not rejoice to see the rector pacing
his leisurely rounds, carrying his elbows a little out, as men with
large deltoid muscles do, wearing his old hat far back on his head, so
that it seemed to slope away from him, and smiling quietly to himself
at the children who tugged his coat–tails for an orange or a halfpenny.
He never could come out but what the urchins of the village were down
upon him as promptly as if he were apple–pie; and many of them had the
impudence to call him “Uncle John” before his hair was grey.
Instead of going to school, the boys were apprenticed to him in the
classics; and still more pleasantly he taught them to swim, and fish,
and row. Of riding he knew but little, except from the treatise of
Xenophon, and a paper on the Pelethronian Lapiths; so they learned it
as all other boys do, by dint of crown and hard bumpage. Moreover, Mark
Stote, head gamekeeper, took them in hand very early as his pupils in
woodcraft and gunnery. To tell the truth, Uncle John objected to this
accomplishment; he thought that the wholesome excitement and exercise
of shooting afforded scarcely a valid reason for the destruction of
innocent life. However, he recollected that he had not always thought
so—his conversion having been wrought by the shrieks of a wounded
hare—neither did he expect to bind all the world with his own girdle.
Sir Cradock insisted that the young idea should be taught to shoot, and
both the young ideas took to it very kindly.
Perhaps on the whole they were none the worse for the want of
public–school training. What they lost thereby in quickness, suspicion,
and effrontery, was more than balanced by the gain in purity,
simplicity, love of home, and kindliness. For nature had not gifted
them with that vulgar arrogance, for which the best prescription is
“calcitration nine times a day, and clean the boots for kicking you”.
Every year their father took them for a month or two to London, to
garnish with some courtly frilling the knuckles of his Hampshire hams.
But they only hated it; thorough agricoles they were, and well knew
their own blessings: and sweet and gladsome was the morning after each
return, though it might be blowing a gale of wind, or drizzling through
the ash–leaves. And then the headlong rush to see beloved Uncle John.
Nature they loved in any form, sylvan, agrarian, human, when that human
form was such as they could climb and nestle in. And there was not in
the parish, nor in all the forest, any child so rough and dirty, so
shock–headed, and such a scamp, that it could not climb into the arms
of John Rosedewʼs fellow–feeling.
But I must not dwell on these pleasant days, the fatherʼs glory,
the hopes of the sons, the love of all who came near them, and the
blessings of Mrs. OʼGaghan.
They were now to go to Oxford, and astonish the natives there, by
showing that a little _hic_, _hæc_, _hoc_, may come even out of
Galilee; that a youth never drawn through the wire–gauge of Eton,
Harrow, or Rugby, may carry still the electric spark, and be taper and
well–rounded. Half their learning accrued _sub dio_, in the manner of
the ancients. Uncle John would lead them between the trees and down
to some forest dingle, the boy on his right hand construing aloud
or parsing very slowly, the little spark at his left all glowing to
explode at the first mistake. _Δεξιύσειρος_ made the running, until he
tripped and fell mentally, and even then he was set on his legs, unless
the other was down upon him; but in the latter case the yoke–mate
leaped into the harness. The stroke–oar on the river that evening was
awarded to the one who paced the greatest number of stades in the
active voice of expounding. The accuracy, the caution, born of this
warm rivalry, became at last so vigilant, that the boy who won the toss
for the right–hand place at starting, was almost sure of the stroke–oar.
So they passed the matriculation test with consummate ease, and
delighted the college tutor by their clear bold writing. They had
not read so much as some men have before entering the University,
but all their knowledge was close and firm, and staunch enough for a
spring–board. And they wrote most excellent Latin prose, and Greek
verse easily flowing. However, Sir Cradock was very nervous on the eve
of their departure for the first term of Oxford residence, and led John
Rosedew, in whose classical powers he placed the highest confidence,
into his private room, and there begged him, as a real friend, tested
now for forty years, to tell him bluntly whether the boys were likely
to do him credit.
“Donʼt spare me, John, and donʼt spare them: only let us have no
disappointment about it”.
“My dear fellow, my dear fellow”! cried John, tugging at his collar,
as he always did when nonplussed, for fear of losing himself; “how on
earth can I tell? Most likely the men know a great deal more in the
University now than they did when I had lectures. Havenʼt I begged you
fifty times to have down a young first–classman”?
“Yes, I know you have, John. But I am not quite such a fool, nor so
shamelessly ungrateful. To upset the pile of your ten years’ labour,
and rebuild it upon its apex! And talk to me of young first–classmen!
Why, you know as well as I do, John, that there is not one of them,
however brilliant, with a tenth part of your knowledge. It could never
be, any more than a young tree can carry the fruit of an old one. Why,
when you took your own first–class, they could only find one man to put
with you, and you have never ceased to read, read, read, ever since you
left old Oriel, and chiefly in taste and philology. And such a memory
as you have! John, I am ashamed of you. You want to impose upon me”.
And Sir Cradock fixed the parsonʼs eyes with that keen and point–blank
gaze, which was especially odious to the shy John Rosedew.
“I am sure I donʼt. You cannot mean that”, he replied, rather warmly,
for, like all imaginative men, when of a diffident cast, he was
desperately matter–of–fact the moment his honour was played with.
His friend began to smile at him, drawing up his grey moustache, and
saying, “Yes, John, you are a donkey”.
“I know that I am”, said John Rosedew, shutting his eyes, as he loved
to do when he got on a favourite topic; “by the side of those mighty
critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—the Scaligers,
the Casaubons, the Vossii, the Stephani,—what am I but a starving
donkey, without a thistle left for him? But as regards our English
critics—at least too many of them—I submit that we have been misled by
the superiority of their Latin, and their more slashing style. I doubt
whether any of them had a tenth part of the learning, or the sequacity
of genius——”
“Come, John, I canʼt stand this, you know; and the boys will be down
here directly, they are so fond of brown sherry”.
“Well, to return to the subject—I own that I was surprised and hurt
when a former Professor of Greek actually confounded the Æolic form of
the _plusquam perfectum_ of so common a verb as——”
“Yes, John, I know all about that, and how it spoiled your breakfast.
But about the boys, the boys, John”?
“And again, as to the delicate sub–significance, not the well–known
tortuousness of _παρά_ in composition, but——”
“Confound it, John. Theyʼve got all their things packed. Theyʼll be
here in a moment, pretending to rollick for our sakes; and you wonʼt
tell me what you think of them”.
“Well, I think there never were two finer fellows to jump a gate since
the days of Castor and Pollux. ‘_Hunc equis, illum superare pugnis._’
You remember how you took me down for construing ‘_pugnis_’ wrongly,
when we were at Sherborne”?
“Yes, and how proud I was, John! You had been at the head of the form
for three months, and none of us could stir you; but you came back
again next day in the fifth Æneid. But here come the villains—now itʼs
all over”.
And so the boys went away, and their father could not for his life
ascertain what opinion his ancient friend had formed as to the chances
of their doing something good at Oxford. Simple and straightforward as
Mr. Rosedew was, no man ever lived from whom it was harder to force an
opinion. He saw matters from so many aspects, everything took so many
facets, shifting lights, and playing colours, from the versatility
of his mind, that whoso could fix him at such times, and extort his
real sentiments, might spin a diamond ring, and shave by it. He had
golden hopes about his “nephews”, as he often called them, but he
would not pronounce those hopes at present, lest the father should be
disappointed. And so the boys went up to Oxford, half a moon before the
woodcocks came.