THE JUNIOR ON LEAVE OUT.
Saints’ Days—Early Leave Out—Poaching—Rowing—A Dinner—Sunday
Leave Out.
Thoroughly to realise the merits of the holy men of old, one should have
been at a public school; nobody ever welcomed the recurrence of their
anniversaries with more sincere joy than a Junior at Winchester, always
supposing that he had friends in the town or neighbourhood who would
invite him to visit them on such occasions, otherwise the advantages,
as hinted at above, were more than doubtful. If invited by friends in
the neighbourhood, we were allowed “Early leave out,” _i.e._, from
immediately after morning chapel; or if by friends in the town, from one
o’clock; in both cases we had to be back for evening chapel, at a quarter
before nine. I was fortunate enough to have hospitable friends, and a
Saint’s-day seldom failed to be a day of rejoicing to me.
If we had early leave out we used generally to hire a “four-wheeler” from
Watt’s of the Blue Boar, and gallop out to our destination, arriving
probably before the family were up; and the breakfasts we used to devour
on these occasions must have caused our kind entertainers to rejoice that
Saints’ days did not occur every day of the week.
We frequently spent our days in fishing or shooting, according to the
season of the year, varied with skating, boating, rifle practice in a
chalk pit, &c., &c. Our shooting expeditions were generally undertaken
without leave from any proprietor, but I have not much on my conscience
as regards the amount of our depredations. The best bag that we ever made
was, to the best of my recollection, one hare, two rats, a swallow, and
fifteen larks. On that memorable day we quietly walked into a preserve
four abreast, and blazed away, without doing the least harm, (except
to one most unfortunate hare, that would sit still,) until a keeper
appeared. I immediately bolted, shouting to my companions to separate and
do the same; instead of doing so, however, they followed me in Indian
file, and we were ultimately run to ground in a chalk pit. Our pursuer
had no roof to his mouth; and between that, recent beer, rage, and
exhaustion from the pace he had come, his speech was perhaps slightly
incoherent. I offered him a cigar, but he was not amenable to reason, and
we ultimately left him in the chalk pit gnashing his teeth.
This was not our last interview with this gentleman, but on the second
occasion our intentions were innocent; we were walking through this same
plantation, without guns, or any notion of game, when we espied a hare
lying dead under a tree; on closer inspection it proved to be caught in
a wire; we held an inquest on the body, and the unanimous opinion being
that a _post-mortem_ examination was necessary, and that that would more
conveniently be entered upon at home, it was forthwith tucked up in one
of our gowns; but, lo! scarcely had this been accomplished when, in the
tree immediately above that under which the corpse had been lying, we
heard a cracking of twigs, and before we could fully realise the state of
things, our friend without a palate lay on his back in the midst of us.
As he had heard all the particulars of the inquest, he must have known
that we were not the murderers, but on our representing this to him, he
very sagely remarked, that he had been up in the tree for six hours,
and that he was quite contented with having secured us, and had not the
slightest intention of mounting guard again for the chance of discovering
the real offenders. We had a long argument with him, but he failed to see
the thing in the proper light, and we with some difficulty succeeded in
compromising the affair for a half-sovereign.
Popjoy was not contented with a little poaching in the shooting line, but
used also occasionally to indulge his fishing propensities without going
through the preliminary form of requesting leave. He one day had recourse
to a stratagem to indulge in his favourite pursuit that for brazen
impudence beats anything of the kind I ever heard of. He drove over to
Avington, and commenced fishing in the Duke of Buckingham’s best water.
Of course he hadn’t been there half an hour before the keeper appeared,
saying—
“You mustn’t fish here, sir.”
_Popjoy._ “I have the Duke’s leave; please stand back, you disturb the
fish.”
_K._ “What’s your name.”
_P._ “Popjoy.”
_K._ “Don’t know that name, and you must be off.”
“Wont you believe the Duke’s own handwriting,” rejoined the undaunted
Popjoy, handing him a letter received that morning from his affectionate
mamma.
The keeper twisted the mysterious document about in his hands for a
little, and returned it to the owner with a grunt. Popjoy then proceeded
to extract from him all possible information about flies, the haunts of
the fish, &c., &c., and had a particularly good day’s sport.
Another great resource on Leave-out days was a row on the river in one of
Etheridge’s boats,—they were rather sorry tubs, but we managed to extract
amusement out of them; if, in this particular line, “_militavi non sine
gloriâ_,” I can’t say that my Winchester education had much to do with
it. However, the most consummate master of the art of rowing that ever
adorned Oxford always preferred to take raw hands and teach them to pull,
to Eton or Westminster men, who came up to Oxford fancying themselves
perfect already; and I am proud to say that among the immortal Seven of
Henley there were two Wykehamists.
I am indebted to the liberal hospitality of an esteemed relative for
many very pleasant days, and especially for one, which was perhaps the
jolliest I spent during the whole time I was at Winchester I received a
letter from him one morning, informing me that on a given day he would
pass through Winchester, and requesting me to furnish him with a list of
boys to ask to dinner; accordingly I selected half a dozen, and we got
leave out for the afternoon. He only stopped to change horses, (it was
in the posting days,) and on his departure he told the landlord of the
George to provide us with the best dinner he could, gave me a five-pound
note, and a “tip” for all my friends. That was a specimen of the tip
royal; how fervently we blessed him, and what a jolly dinner we had!
Every alternate Sunday also we were allowed to spend the afternoon with
friends in the town, if invited, but we had to be back for five o’clock
chapel. Happy were those boys who were so fortunate as I was in being
acquainted with Mr Sissmore, the patriarch of the College fellows, whose
hospitable board was always surrounded on these days by a circle of boys,
whom he used to amuse with stories of the pranks of their ancestors, as
he remembered many of their grandfathers when little boys at school.
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