Confessions of an Etonian Part 6

There was a maid-servant in Eton, who was a modest, respectable, and certainly very pretty girl. Notwithstanding the stoutness of her ancle, she had made a deep impression on many of the bigger boys, though probably not one of them had exchanged a syllable with her.

This girl now became betrothed to a Windsor tradesman. No sooner was this ascertained, than her admirers let him plainly know, that should he presume to prosecute his design, it should cost him dearly. Several of them now never met the poor fellow without insulting him; and I remember one boy, more ardent than the rest, went into his shop and fought him chivalrously, like a good knight and true. So high did the feud now run, that the shop-keepers sided with their townsman, and for months half the school was each evening engaged in a spirited skirmish with the Windsor mobility for this Fair Maid of Perth; and I believe that, in consequence of the excitement they evinced on the occasion, the match was postponed for nearly two years. The boy who particularised himself for his pugnacious prowess has since become a preacher in the open fields, and a zealous supporter of the miraculously unknown tongues.

"But these are foolish things to all the wise," and particularly so to me, though my head was altogether turned, and my heart too. My days were more than ever dedicated to roaming over the country; and in the evening I used to love to scull my skiff far up the stream, and then float quietly down while I watched the sun setting, and the luxurious yet modest forget-me-not, on the banks; then leave my boat to sit motionless on a retired stile, and listen to "the still small voice"

of the mysterious bat, or the drowsy soothing hum of the beetle. One of these evenings, by the bye, was productive of a little adventure.

I had just accomplished "the shallows," and was now rowing hard against the stream opposite Boveney Church, when I was startled for the moment by the sounds of a number of female voices, some of which even amounted to screams. On looking over my shoulder, I now observed an enormous pleasure-barge, with its deck and cabin crowded with a numerous party of ladies and gentlemen. It was drawn up the stream by three or four horses. At this spot the stream ran with such rapidity, that a boat which was fastened to the stern, had broken away, and the ladies became, in a degree, panic-struck, when they saw their only means of communication with the sh.o.r.e quickly floating away from them.

It was now for me to do my best to capture it, though when I had fastened it to my skiff, it was with great difficulty that I could stem the stream with it, and reach them. Having at length succeeded in this, the instant I arrived, in addition to innumerable thanks, many fair and braceleted wrists were now proffering full and fizzing b.u.mpers of champagne, while others showered various fruits into my skiff.

Without any hesitation, I emptied a respectable number of gla.s.ses of their contents; and having declined the rest, they were reluctantly withdrawn, with the exception of one. I thought I might as well take that; I looked at its fair and kind donor, and--there was Miss Curzon!

As I raised the gla.s.s to my lips, I glanced across its brim, and again the same depression of the slender figure--the same expression and mixture of fixed seriousness!

Now, then, I at last had a certainty of gleaning some tidings of her.

I saw Maberly standing by her side, and, the next morning, I questioned him closely, but warily, upon the subject.

"I was rather lucky, last night, Maberly," I observed.

"Yes," he replied; "it was no common person who gave you that gla.s.s of wine. Do you not think she was very lovely?"

"There were several lovely persons," I answered.

"You know whom I mean."

"O yes," I prudently answered; "she was sitting on a sofa, close to the steerage, and gave me--bless her!--the first gla.s.s of wine."

"Thank you," said Maberly; "that was my sister."

"Then she was a very nice-looking person," I replied.

"Don't you recollect, now, the girl who held out the last gla.s.s to you?"

"Perfectly; but is she the person you admire so?"

"Oh! you know, you're near-sighted, or you would have thought so."

"And who is she, after all?"

"I am not quite certain that I know her name," said Maberly; "but I suppose it is the same as her uncle's, Mr. St. Quentin, with whom she lives there, at the Grange, by Old Windsor."

I said but little more, and withdrew, by no means dissatisfied with the information I had gained.

CHAPTER X.

When I look back at this period of my life, though it must be with a feeling of disapprobation--and when I coldly say disapprobation, I insinuate remorse--let me confess that I still do so with an undeniable leaven of envy; envy at the lawless liberty I enjoyed, not only with regard to my actions, but to my conscience; revelling in a deficiency of forethought and blindness of consequences, as truly delightful for the present, as overwhelming and deplorable for the future.

I was not aware that "coming events cast their shadows before;" and, alas! that past ones, leave them.

But there was one thing of which I was aware, and of which persons rarely are, at the time,--I knew that I was happy; yet I deemed that this ought not to be, so long as I remained subject to any trace of palpable, or, as I then thought, irrational restraint.

In truth, like a good many other foolish fellows of that age, I began to entertain no small opinion of myself. I now felt that it was degrading to be shut in each night, like sheep within a fold, or to peep through the grated windows like a felon, and that I would not rest until I had freed myself from such restraints.

The impediments and risks opposed to my design were great, but my fortune, or misfortune, carried me through them all.

On examining the different windows of the house with this intention, I at last found one which I judged to offer greater facilities than any other; but as it was in the room of two other boys, it became necessary that I should intrust them with the matter. As, of course, they were also to be partic.i.p.ators in the benefits arising from the success of our attempt, they were happy to join me.

It occupied but little time to make our preparations for the sortie.

The bars of this window were placed so widely apart, that by taking off our coats and waistcoats, we could each squeeze through. We had, then, only to subscribe the ropes of our trunks, and saw off the legs of our chairs, and in a few minutes we possessed a lengthy rope-ladder. We now went to bed, appointing three-o'clock in the morning for the hour of our first sally. Notwithstanding the height from the ground, and our suspicions of the weakness of our ropes, so eager was each to be the first to descend, that we drew lots for the precedence. This fell to Bush, who instantly commenced his descent, and the next moment, the silence of night was dispersed by the awful cras.h.i.+ng and jingling of apparently a hundred panes of gla.s.s! Both legs and half of his body had pa.s.sed directly through the window below. We had conjectured that there had been no window, but here was that of the unlucky laundry. The instant he had reascended, I coiled up the ladder, and retreating with it to my room, threw it under my bureau and jumped into bed, instantly expecting the whole house to be in an uproar, though, as it turned out, no one was awoke by the clatter. The following morning, the effects were merely attributed to the attempts of some villains to break into the house, instead of out of it.

I had now to set about and devise some other mode of egress. The place I next fixed on for this purpose was my own window. Should I succeed, detection would be almost impossible, every suspicion being lulled, in consequence of the apparent difficulties for such an attempt. In addition to the bars, there was a wire grating in front of the window, which, moreover, was at the top of the house; but, then, the two windows beneath it had been economically bricked up, in order to avoid an acc.u.mulation of the window-tax. By knotching a breakfast-knife very finely, I managed to pa.s.s it beneath the fat piece of iron in which the bar terminated, and then to saw in two one of the nails which fixed it. I then took out the head of the nail, and the bar turning round the remaining nail, as on a pivot, left a sufficient s.p.a.ce for my body to pa.s.s between it and the window-frame. I had but to twist the bar back again, stick in the head of the nail, and everything was, apparently, in its former state. By wrenching, in a slight degree, the tenter-hooks, I could now disengage the lower part of the grating in a moment, sufficiently to pa.s.s beneath, and having constructed a sliding board in the floor, under which I deposited my rope-ladder, I felt entirely secure from detection, and I was not mistaken.

It was indeed a joyous moment when I made my first experiment, and felt my foot on the dewy gra.s.s, for I deemed that

"Then the world it was mine oyster, Which I with knife might open."

Among these nightly rambles, there is one that will ever be, I should think, deeply impressed upon me.

Everybody in the house had been in bed for hours. As I was far too restless to doze on the occasion, I had been stationary at the open window, counting the hours as they slowly pa.s.sed, and it was now getting towards two o'clock, when I was to descend the ladder, already placed and hanging from the window.

In those days I was rarely troubled by low spirits, but at the present moment, I must own, that they partook considerably of the gloominess of the hour, and the scenery around. The night was very dark, but I could just see the ghost-like ma.s.ses of the gigantic elms, as they stood motionless against the gloomy sky, and could even hear the quiet rippling sound of the river as it glided along in the distance, the night was so very still. But all this now horribly contrasted with a scene I had witnessed but a few hours ago on the banks of that river now so deserted.

A school-fellow and friend had there been drowned, and I had heard his piercing shriek as he fell from his boat. His body had not yet been recovered. This morning we had been playing at fives together. How were he and I occupied now! I dared hardly think, and then I pictured to myself his listless and lifeless body rolling under the stream into some dark depth:--

"And there I sat all heavily As I heard the night-wind sigh-- Was it the wind that through some hollow stone Sent that soft and tender moan!"

Just then the deep tone of the Castle death-bell came swelling across the river from the other side. In an instant I knew it was the harbinger of death--of the Princess Charlotte? I was right--she was just then dead!

This now struck me as a frightful moment. It was not from the fear of death, nor, alas! from the fear of G.o.d. What could it be? I am convinced that no one has literally trembled from fear, but now my heart felt as though it s.h.i.+vered. I stood motionless till the last and least sound had reverberated through the now silent court, and there was nothing to be heard but the beating of my own heart. There I stood fixed like a statue, afraid to stir, even to heave my chest to sigh--this, then, was superst.i.tion.

I gradually arose from my trance to be conscious of the truth; and now even concluding it to be my duty to combat against the weakness, though in a joyless mood, I descended the ladder.

"Time and tide tarry for no man," and I think even less for me. The day had now come that I was to take leave of Keate and of Eton, and return to my father's house--and for what! I had not a suspicion, or whether I was destined for the army, church, law, or for anything else. The prospect, however, appeared cloudy and comfortless, and I was now to reside for an indefinite period at the only place, much as I did love the spot, where I ever felt myself to be in the midst of strangers. Here, apparently, I was another being than when at Eton--reserved, gloomy and distrustful--cold and unfeeling--wandering about the place like a solitaire, as I was. I had not, nor have I ever had, an acquaintance in the county--I had never been into another house. Should any friends of the family be staying with them, I would take my breakfast of bread and milk before the usual hour, in order to avoid meeting them, and then absented myself for the rest of the day, until dinner-time. This last was indeed a painful ordeal, especially should there be any ladies present.

The truth is, circ.u.mstances, and by no means my own inclinations, forced me to be mute, and that, too, at times, when I would have almost given my life to have been otherwise, and then I looked ashamed of myself, as I really was, for my apparent deficiency of good breeding.

But now it was that I was bidding farewell to Eton--an eternal farewell! now it was that I felt

"How dear the schoolboy spot, We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot."

I had been an Etonian for ten lovely years, and--what had I acquired?