Tales from Blackwood Volume Vi Part 12

With this indefinite a.s.surance I was obliged to be content; and accordingly, at half-past eight the next morning, after a very correct breakfast, we mounted the tandem-cart at the college back-gates, got the leader hitched on, as usual, a mile out of the city, for fear of proctors, and were bowling merrily along, in the slight frost of an autumn morning, towards B----. Leicester took the driving first, by Hurst's special request, after one or two polite but faint refusals, the latter sitting by his side; while I occupied, for the present, the queer little box which in those days was stuck on behind, (the more modern carts, which hold four, are an improvement introduced into the University since my driving days). With wonderful gravity and importance did Leicester commence his lectures on the whip to his admiring companion: I almost think he began in the approved style, with a slight allusion to the Roman _biga_, and deduced the progress of the n.o.ble science from Ericthonius down to "Peyton and Ward." I have a lively recollection of a comparison between Automedon of the Homeric times, and "Black Will" of Oxford celebrity--the latter being decided as only likely to be less immortal, because there was no Homer among the contemporary under-graduates. A good deal was lost to me, no doubt, from my position behind; but Hurst seemed to suck it all in with every disposition to be edified. From the history of his subject, Horace proceeded, in due course, to the theory, from theory to facts, from facts to ill.u.s.trations. In the practical department, Horace, I suspect, like many other lecturers, was on his weakest ground; for his own driving partook of the general under-graduate character.

"You throw the lash out so--you see--and bring it back sharp, so--no, not _so_ exactly--so--hang the thing, I can't do it now; but that's the principle, you understand--and then you take up your double thong, so--pshaw, I did it very well just now--to put it into the wheeler, so--ah, I missed it then, but that's the way to do it."

He put me considerably in mind of a certain professor of chemistry, whose lectures on light and heat I once was rash enough to attend, who, after a long dry disquisition which had nearly put us all to sleep, used to arouse our attention to the "beautiful effects" produced by certain combinations, which he would proceed to ill.u.s.trate, as he said, by a "little experiment." But, somehow or other, these little experiments always, or nearly always, failed: and after the room had been darkened, perhaps, for five minutes or so, in order to give the exhibition full effect, the result would be, a _fizz_ or two, a faint blue light, and a stink, varying according to circ.u.mstances, but always abominable. "It's very odd, John," the discomfited operator used to exclaim to his a.s.sistant; "very odd; and we succeeded so well this morning, too: it's most unaccountable: I'm really very sorry, gentlemen, but I can a.s.sure you, this very same experiment we tried to-day with the most beautiful result; didn't we, John?" "We did, sir," was John's invariably dutiful reply; and so the audience took John's word for it, and the experiment was considered to have been, virtually, successful.

So we rattled on to the ground: Leicester occasionally putting the reins into his companion's hand, teaching him to perform some impossible movement with his third finger, and directing his attention to non-existent flies, which he professed to remove from the leader, out of sheer compa.s.sion, with the point of the whip.

"You are sure you wouldn't like to take the reins now? Well, you'll drive home then, of course? Hawthorne, will you try your hand now?

Hurst's going to take up the tooling when we come back."

"No, thank you," said I; "I won't interfere with either of your performances."--"And if Hurst does drive home," was my mental determination, expressed to Leicester as far as a nod could do it, "I'll walk."

There was no difficulty in finding out the localities: the field in which the winning-flag was fixed was not far from the turnpike road, and conspicuous enough by the crowd already there collected. Of course, pretty nearly all the sporting characters among the gownsmen were there, the distance from the University being so trifling. Mounted on that seedy description of animal peculiar to Oxford livery-stables, which can never by any possibility be mistaken for anything but a hired affair, but will generally go all day, and scramble through almost anything; with showily mounted jockey-whips in their hands, bad cigars (at two guineas a-pound) in their mouths, bright blue scarfs, or something equivalent, round their necks--their neat white cords and tops (things which they _did_ turn out well in Oxford) being the only really sportsmanlike article about them; flattering themselves they looked exceedingly knowing, and, in nine cases out of ten, being deceived therein most lamentably; cl.u.s.tered together in groups of four or five, discussing the merits of the horses, or listening, as to an oracle, to the opinion of some Oxford horse-dealer, delivered with insolent familiarity--here were the men who drank out of a fox's head, and recounted imaginary runs with the Heythrop. Happy was he amongst them, and a positive hero for the day, who could boast a speaking acquaintance with any of those anomalous individuals, at present enshrouded in great-coats, but soon to appear in all the varieties of jockey costume, known by the style and t.i.tle of "gentlemen riders;" who could point out, confidentially, to his admiring companions, "Jack B----," and "Little M----," and announce, from authority, how many ounces under weight one was this morning, and how many blankets were put upon the other the night before, to enable him to come to the scales at all. Here and there, more plainly dressed, moving about quickly on their own thorough-breds, or talking to some neighbouring squire who knew the ground, were the few really sporting men belonging to the University; who kept hunters in Oxford, simply because they were used to keep them at home, and had been brought up to look upon fox-hunting as their future vocation. Lolling on their saddles, probably voting it all a bore, were two or three tufts, and their "tail;" and stuck into all sorts of vehicles, lawful and unlawful, buggies, drags, and tandems, were that ign.o.ble herd, who, like myself, had come to the steeple-chase, just because it was the most convenient idleness at hand, and because other men were going. There were all sorts of people there besides, of course: carriages of all grades of pretension, containing pretty bonnets and ugly faces, in the usual proportion; "all the beauty and fas.h.i.+on of the neighbourhood," nevertheless, as the county paper a.s.sured us; and as I may venture to add, from personal observation, a very fair share of its disreputability and blackguardism besides.

After wandering for a short time among these various groups, Leicester halted us at last in front of one of those old-fas.h.i.+oned respectable-looking barouches, which one now so seldom sees, in which were seated a party, who turned out to consist of an uncle and aunt, and the pair of cousins before alluded to. Hurst and I were duly introduced; a ceremony which, for my own part, I could have very readily excused, when I discovered that the only pair of eyes in the party worth mentioning bestowed their glances almost exclusively on Horace, and any attempt at cutting into the conversation in that quarter was as hopeless, apparently, as ungracious. Our friend's taste in the article of cousins was undeniably correct; Flora Leicester was a most desirable person to have for a cousin; very pretty, very good-humoured, and (I am sure she was, though I pretend to no experience of the fact) very affectionate. If one could have put in any claim of kindred, even in the third or fourth degree, it would have been a case in which to stickle hard for the full privileges of relations.h.i.+p. As matters stood, it was trying enough to the sensibilities of us unfortunate bystanders, whose cousins were either ugly or at a distance; for the rest of our new acquaintances were not interesting. The younger sister was shy and insipid; the squire like ninety-nine squires in every hundred; and the lady-mother in a perpetual state of real or affected nervous agitation, to which her own family were happily insensible, but which taxed a stranger's polite sympathies pretty heavily. Though constantly in the habit, as she a.s.sured me, of accompanying her husband to race-courses, and enjoying the sport, she was always on the look-out for an accident, and was always having, as she said, narrow escapes; some indeed so very narrow, that, according to her own account, they ought to have had, by every rule of probability, fatal terminations. In fact, her tone might have led one to believe that she looked upon herself as an ill-used woman in getting off so easily--at least she was exceedingly angry when the younger daughter ventured to remark, _en pendant_ to one of her most thrilling adventures, that "there was no great danger of an upset when the wheel stuck fast." Not content with putting her head out of the carriage every five minutes, to see if her own well-trained bays were standing quiet, as they always did, there was not a restive horse or awkward rider on the ground but attracted the good lady's ever watchful sense of danger. "He'll be thrown! I'm sure he will! foolish man, why don't he get off!" "Oh, oh! there they go! they're off, those horrid horses! they'll never stop 'em!" Such were the interjections, accompanied with extraordinary shudderings and drawings of the breath, with which Mrs John Leicester, her eyes fixed on some distant point, occasionally broke in upon the general conversation, sometimes with a vehemence that startled even her nephew and eldest daughter, though, to do them justice, they paid very little attention to any of us.

Just as I was meditating something desperate, in order to relieve myself from the office of soother-general of Mrs Leicester's imaginary terrors, and to bring Flora's sunny face once more within my line of vision (she had been turning the back of her bonnet upon me perseveringly for the last ten minutes), a general commotion gave us notice that the horses were started, and the race begun. The hill on which we were stationed was close to the winning-post, and commanded a view of pretty nearly the whole ground from the start. The race was, I suppose, pretty nearly like other steeple-chases, and there is the less need for me to describe it, because a very full and particular account appeared in the _Bell's Life_ next ensuing. The princ.i.p.al impressions which remain on my mind, are of a very smart gentleman in black and crimson, mounted on a very powerful bay, who seemed as if he had been taking it easy, who came in first, and after having been sufficiently admired by an innocent public, myself among the number, as the winner, turned out to have gone on the right hand instead of the left of some flag or other, and to have lost the race accordingly; and of a very dirty-looking person, who arrived some minute or two afterwards without a cap, whose jacket was green and his horse grey, so far as the mud left any colour visible, and who, to the great disappointment of the ladies especially, turned out to be the real hero after all.

We had made arrangements to have an independent beefsteak together after the race, in preference to joining the sporting ordinary announced as usual on such occasions; but the squire insisted on Leicester bringing us both to dine with his party at five. After a few modest and conscientious scruples on my part, at intruding on the hospitality of comparative strangers, and a strong private remonstrance from Hurst, on the impropriety of sitting down to dinner with ladies in a surtout and white cords, we accepted the invitation, and betook ourselves to kill the intervening hour or so as we best could.

"Well, Horace," said I, as Hurst went off to make his apology for a toilette--"how are you going to settle about the driving home?"

"Oh! never fear; I'll manage it: I have just seen Miller and Fane; they've got a drag over here, and there's lots of room inside; so they've promised to take Hurst home with them, if we can only manage to leave him behind: they are going to dine here, and are sure not to go home till late; and we must be off early, you know, because I have some men coming to supper; so we'll leave our friend behind, somehow or other. A painful necessity, I admit; but it must be done, even if I have to lock him up in the stable."

Leicester seemed to have more confidence in his own resources than I had; but he was in too great a state of excitement to listen to any demurrers of mine on the point, and hurried us off to join his friends.

Ushered into the drawing-room A.1. of the Saracen's Head, we found _la bella_ Flora awaiting us alone, the rest of the family being not as yet visible. There was not the slightest necessity for inquiring whether she felt fatigued, for she was looking even more lovely than in the morning; or whether she had been amused or not, for if the steeple-chase had not delighted her, something else had, for there was a radiant smile on her face which could not be mistaken. Hurst was cut short rather abruptly in a speech which appeared tending towards a compliment, by Leicester's inquiring--"My good fellow, have you seen the horses fed?"

"No, upon my word," said Hurst, "I"----

"Well, I have then; but I wish you would just step across the yard, and see if that stupid ostler has rubbed them dry, as I told him. You understand those things, I know, Hurst--the fellows won't humbug you very easily; as to Hawthorne, I wouldn't trust him to see to anything of the sort. Flora here knows more about a horse than he does."

Any compliment to Hurst's acuteness in the matter of horse-flesh was sure to have its effect, and he walked off with an air of some importance to discharge his commission.

"Now, then," said Horace eagerly, "we have got rid of him for ten minutes, which was all I wanted; if you please, Flora dear, we must have your cleverness to help us in a little difficulty."

"Indeed!" said Miss Leicester, colouring a little, as her cousin, in his eagerness, seized her hand in both of his--"what sc.r.a.pe have you got into now, Horace, and how can I possibly help you?"

"Oh, I want you to hit upon some plan for keeping that fellow Hurst here after we are gone."

"Upon my word!"

"Stay; you don't know what I mean. I'll tell you why--if he drives home to Oxford, he'll infallibly upset us; and drive he must if he goes home with us, because, in fact, the team is his, and I drove them all the way here, and it's his turn back, you see."

"Then why, in the mult.i.tude of absurdities which you Oxonians perpetrate--I beg your pardon, Mr Hawthorne--but why need you have come out in a tandem at all, with a man who can't drive?"

"Simply, Flora, because I had no other way of coming at all."

"It was very absurd in us, Miss Leicester, I allow," said I, "but you know what an attraction a steeple-chase is, to your cousin especially; and after having made up his mind to come--altogether, you see, it would have been a disappointment"--(to all parties, I had a mind to add, but I thought the balance was on my side without it.)

"After all," said Horace, "I shouldn't care a straw to run the chance, as far as I am concerned. I dare say the horses will go home straight enough, if he'll only let them: or if he wouldn't, I shouldn't mind knocking him off the box at once--by accident; but Frank here is rather particular, and I promised him I would not let Hurst drive. I thought once, if we had dined by ourselves, of persuading him he was drunk, and sending him home in a fly; but I am afraid, as matters stand, that plea is hardly practicable."

"Could I persuade him to let you or Mr Hawthorne drive, do you think?"

Horace looked at her as if he thought, as I dare say he did, that his cousin Flora could, if she were so minded, persuade a man to do anything; so I was compelled, somewhat at the expense of my reputation for gallantry, to a.s.sure them both, that if Ulysses of old, among his various arts and accomplishments, had piqued himself upon his tandem-driving, his vanity would have stopped his ears effectually, and the Syren might have sung herself hoa.r.s.e before he would have given up the reins.

"I'll give the Boots half-a-crown to steal his hat," said Horace, "and start while he is looking for it."

"Stay," said his cousin; "I dare say it may be managed." But I thought she looked disappointed. "Did you know we were all going to the B---- theatre to-night?"

"No! really! what fun!"

"No fun for you; for you must start early, as you said just now. The owners of the horses here patronise a play, and they have made papa promise to go, and so we must, I suppose, and"----

"Oh! we'll all go, of course," said Horace decidedly.--"You'll stay and go, won't you, Hawthorne?"

"You forget your supper party," said I.

"Oh! hang it, they'll take care of themselves, so long as the supper's there; they won't miss me much."

"Didn't I hear something of your being confined to college after nine?"

"Ah, yes; I believe I am--but it won't matter much for once; I'll call on the dean to-morrow, and explain."

"No, no, Horace, that won't do; you and Mr Hawthorne must go home like good boys," said Flora, with a smile only half as merry as usual, "and Mary and I will persuade Mr Hurst to stay and go to the theatre with us."

"Oh! confound it!"--Horace began.

"Hus.h.!.+ here comes papa; remember this is my arrangement; you ought to be very much obliged, instead of beginning to swear in that way; I'm sure Mr Hawthorne is very grateful to me for taking so much interest in the question of his breaking his neck, if you are not. Oh! papa," she continued, "do you know that we shall lose all our beaux to-night; they have some horrid supper party to go back to, and we shall have to go to the play by ourselves!"

Most of the Squire's sympathies were at this moment absorbed in the fact that dinner was already four minutes late, so that he had less to spare for his daughter's disappointment than Mrs Leicester, who on her arrival took up the lamentation with all her heart. She attacked her nephew at once upon the subject, whose replies were at first wavering and evasive, till he caught Flora's eye, and then he answered with a dogged sort of resolution, exceedingly amusing to me who understood his position, and at last got quite cross with his aunt for persisting in her entreaties.

I declared, for my part, that I was dependent on Horace's movements; that, if I could possibly have antic.i.p.ated the delightful evening which had awaited us, every other arrangement should have given way, &c. &c.; when Hurst's reappearance turned the whole force of Mrs Leicester's persuasions upon him, backed, too, as she was by both her daughters.

"Won't _you_ stay, Mr Hurst? Must you go too? Will you be so shabby as to leave us?" How could any man stand it? William Wellington Hurst could not, it was very plain. At first he looked astonished; wondered why on earth we couldn't all stay; then protested he couldn't think of letting us go home by ourselves; a piece of self-devotion which we at once desired might not be thought of; then hesitated--he was meditating, no doubt, on the delight of driving--how was he to get home? the inglorious occupant of the inside of a drag; or the solitary tenant of a fly (though I suggested he might drive that if he pleased); couldn't Leicester go home, and I and he follow together? I put in a decided negative; he looked from Mrs Leicester's anxious face to Flora's, and surrendered at discretion. We were to start at eight precisely in the tandem, and Miller and his party, who were sure to wait for the play, were to pick up Mr Wellington Hurst as a supernumerary pa.s.senger at some hour unknown. And so we went to dinner. Mrs Leicester marched off in triumph with her new capture, as if fearful he might give her the slip after all, and committed Flora to my custody. I was charitable enough, however, in consideration of all circ.u.mstances, to give up my right of sitting next to her to Horace, and established myself on the other side of the table, between Mrs Leicester and her younger daughter; and a hard post I had of it. Mary would not talk at all, and her mamma would do nothing else; and she was one of those pertinacious talkers, too, who, not content with running on themselves, and leaving you to put in an occasional interjection, inflict upon you a cross-examination in its severest form, and insist upon a definite and rational answer to every question. However, availing myself of those legitimate qualifications of a witness, an unlimited amount of impudence, and a determination not to criminate myself, I got on pretty tolerably. Who did I think her daughter Flora like? I took the opportunity of diligently examining that young lady's features for about four minutes--not in the least to her confusion, for she scarcely honoured me with a glance the whole time--and then declared the resemblance to mamma quite startling. Mary?

Oh, her father's eyes decidedly; upon which the squire, whose pet she appeared to be--I suppose it was the contrast between her quietness and Mrs Leicester's incessant fidgetting that was so delightful--laughed, and took wine with me. Then she took up the subject of my private tastes and habits. Was I fond of riding? Yes. Driving? Pretty well. Reading?

Very. Then she considerately hoped that I did not read much by candle-light--above all by an oil-lamp--it was very injurious. I a.s.sured her that I would be cautious for the future. Then she offered me a receipt for eye-water, in case I suffered from weakness arising from over-exertion of those organs;--declined, with thanks. Hoped I did not read above twelve hours a-day; some young men, she had heard, read sixteen, which she considered as really inconsistent with a due regard to health. I a.s.sured her that our sentiments on that point perfectly coincided, and that I had no tendency to excesses of that kind. At last she began to inst.i.tute inquiries about certain under-graduates with whose families she was acquainted; and the two or three names which I recognised being hunting men, I referred her to Hurst as quite _au fait_ in the sporting circles of Oxford, and succeeded in hooking them into a conversation which effectually relieved me.

Leicester, as I could overhear, had been still rather rebellious against going home before the play was over, and was insisting that his being in college by nine was not really material; nor did he appear over-pleased, when, in answer to an appeal from Flora, I said plainly, that the consequences of his "knocking in" late, when under sentence of strict confinement to the regular hour, might not be pleasant--a fact, however, which he himself, though with a very bad grace, was compelled to admit.

At last the time arrived for our party to separate: Horace and I to return to Oxford, and the others to adjourn to see _Richard the Third_ performed at the B---- theatre, under the distinguished patronage of the members of the H---- Hunt. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and as Hurst accompanied us to the stable-yard to "start us," as he complacently phrased it, it was clear that he was suffering, like a great many unfortunate individuals in public and private life, under an overweening sense of his own importance. "You'll have an uncommon pleasant drive of it; upon my word you will," he remarked; "it wouldn't do for me to say I would not stay, you know, as Miss Leicester--Mrs Leicester, that is--seemed to make such a point of it; but really"----

"Oh, come, Hurst," said I, "don't pretend to say you've made any sacrifice in the matter; I know you are quite delighted; I'm sure I should have liked to stay of all things, only it would have been uncivil to our friend here to send him home by himself from his own party."

"Oh! hang it, I don't mean to call it a sacrifice; I have no doubt I shall have a very pleasant evening; only I wish we could all have stayed, and driven home together afterwards."

"You may keep Hawthorne with you now, if you like," said Horace, who was not in the best of tempers; "I can take the horses home myself."

"No, no, that would be hardly fair," said I.

"Oh! no--off with you both," said Hurst; "stay, Leicester, you'll find the grey go more pleasantly if you drive him from the cheek; I'll alter it in a second."