Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

his window on to the leads, and informs you that he won't be able to hold on much longer unless they pass soon. Then the querulous voice of the old housekeeper is heard. She has discovered a youth, also one of your party, who vainly imagined the window curtains would conceal him; she orders him to his room instantly, and then she enters your study and you immediately smother yourself in your handkerchief, to avoid laughing. She hears the rustle, and suggests to the butler that she always told Mr. Oswell "there was mice in these studies; especially," adds she, kicking the hamper and powdering my head with hay-seeds, "when young gentlemen will have such mess about their rooms."

The ordeal is past: you hear the second door closed and locked, and you are in a prison, and have as yet no idea who or how many are your fellow prisoners. Gradually they all assemble, and rapidly recount their several adventures; abusing Thompson for being such a muff as to be caught. Suddenly he appears, having returned from his bedroom while the housekeeper was locking the upper door.

K

How we do work, and how sleepy we get, and what quantities of coffee we imbibe to keep us awake! We construe every line each alternately, as we should all be asleep before our turn came if we construed half a page without changing. At three o'clock we have a grand feast, and then go to the præpostor's study, take his key, let ourselves into the bedrooms, and wake up the next gang; whom nothing but the most violent measures would rouse.

But all this energy and work brings its own reward; and although there is a good deal of chance in the examination, still I never worked without getting well rewarded, and never heard of any one who did.

The luck we had sometimes was wonderful: in a fit of nervousness, a friend and I, who were determined to get a first class in divinity, sat down to read through the whole of the Old Testament together; we read steadily to the end of Genesis, then skipped to the Second Book of Kings; and when the "papers" were given out, found that the answers to eleven questions out of twenty were contained in these very books.

Again, having agreed that we remembered the reign of William and Mary better than any other, we never read it over at all; and we found to our great consternation, that our examiners, in a sudden fit of Whiggism, had requested an essay on "the causes and results of the abdication and flight of James II."

At length it is all over, and the playground is itself again; the class lists will be out tomorrow, and we shall go home the day but one after. The masters will not divulge, and the printer's devil is inexorable: no persuasion will get a look out of the former, and the honesty of the latter is above all bribes; so we must perforce content ourselves with the fact, that we shall know all about it to-morrow; and with the consciousness that we shall not be in No. 1 list, even if we manage to be in that of No. 2.

[ocr errors]

A crowd-all the school in fact-surround the head-master as he reads forth all the names; and warmly is each favourite cheered as his honour is announced. All the second class consider they should have been in the first; all the third class are rather surprised at being anywhere; and all

the fourth class would rather not have had their names mentioned at all.

Then came the "speeches." These individually and separately considered, are dreary indeed; for who can be interested in Smith's view of the Eastern question, in Latin elegiacs; or in the severe criticism of Brown on Cromwell, in Greek iambics? But the speeches are great fun, this being the only perfectly legitimate occasion on which we may behave as wild beasts, and the only day during the half-year when we may make as much noise as we please.

Cheer follows cheer: perhaps the head-master's beautiful wife, surrounded with her pretty children, is more applauded than the holidays; but any how, these two toasts head the noisy list; then come the "Masters" and the "Eleven." No subject can be started that will not call forth a yell; and when our waggish friend gives three cheers for fagging, we hug our chains and give him one cheer more.

CHAPTER X.

AND HOW WE PLAYED.

"Arma virumque cano."

VIRGIL.

"While he whom toil has braced or manly play,

Has light as air each limb,

Each thought as clear as day."

OUR cricketing needs no eulogy from me; for wherever its votaries are to be found, there will the name of Harbeans be venerated, and our prowess respected.

During the months of May, June, August, and September, the whole school devoted themselves to the game. On two of the half-holidays out of the three which we had each week, some great schoolmatch was played, and the rest of the school looked on only; on the third half-holiday, numberless little games went on in every corner of the large cricket-ground.

« ZurückWeiter »