We were one sunny afternoon sitting under the mulberry tree, tired with searching on the grass round its trunk for the fine ripe fruit which had fallen thickly there, and which, after all, we thought, came next to guignes, when a window at the end of that side of the quadrangle to which the College kitchens were attached opened, and a curly head was thrust out, to which belonged very bright eyes and very blooming cheeks, and a mouth wide opened by laughter. It was an upper window belonging to a suite of rooms let to the students. ‘Little girls,’ said the head, ‘how do you sell your mulberries?’ ‘They are not ours, Sir,’ said Jane—she was always the spokeswoman—‘we cannot sell them.’ ‘You can only eat them? eh?’ said the head again, and many voices from behind joined now in the laughter. ‘Jane,’ said I, in a low voice, ‘don’t go on talking to that young man, you know my Aunt would not like it.’ ‘What nonsense!’ said Jane, ‘where’s the harm of answering a question.’ ‘Well! little girls! won’t you sell me some mulberries? I’ll give you a tune on the french horn for them.’ And thereupon our new acquaintance began to play, we thought beautifully, upon an instrument that we thought charming. ‘A basket full of mulberries for a tune? eh? My aunt won’t be angry.’ A basket with a string to it dangled quite coquettishly from the window. But we were firm! we refused to fill it. And because we were such very good, honest little girls, we had a great many tunes on the french horn played to us for nothing, till I, who was always a coward, coaxed Jane away. It was getting near the dinner hour. My uncle’s man William, regularly as old Anne began to dish, crossed the garden to the private door of the buttery, where he went daily for Ale. We thought it best, therefore, to retire from this first interview with our musical acquaintance, although we were not sufficiently modest to avoid the chance of succeeding ones. Indeed that corner of the garden was so shady, so out of the way of my Aunt’s windows and so near the mulberry tree, that we naturally preferred to amuse ourselves there; the head and the horn as naturally continued to appear to us, till at length we grew so friendly as to take their acquaintances into the alliance, and we found ourselves chatting and laughing merrily with about a dozen ‘Commoners.’
‘Pray, Mr Rowley,’ said my Uncle the Master one day to the Dean, ‘who plays the french horn here in College? No very studious young gentleman, I should think.’ ‘Mr So-and-So,’ said Mr Rowley—Is it not strange that I should have completely forgotten our friend’s name—‘He is no bad performer, I believe, and a very quiet young man,’ etc. etc. We were crimson, we bent over our work in very shame, certain that our highly improper flirtation had been discovered, and that this conversation was meant as a hint for us to behave ourselves. I daresay however neither my Uncle nor Mr Rowley had the least notion of our musical propensities, and were only mentioning a simple fact, but conscience terrified us too much to allow of our ever haunting the buttery steps again.
This recreation being at an end, we began another. My Aunt obliged us to darn our stockings every week when they came from the washing, up in our own room. That is, obliged me to darn them, for Jane couldn’t work and wouldn’t work,—the only specimen of her abilities in this feminine accomplishment during our Oxford visit being the rather singular piece of patchwork which always stays on the chimney piece in my room, and which I use as a kettle holder, but she read to me while I worked, and this made the time pass more pleasantly. My Uncle’s lodgings, as I have mentioned, occupied two sides of the Square of buildings forming the inner quadrangle. Our room was close to the corner, at right angles with the spare apartments he had let for College rooms. The nearest set to us was occupied by a Mr Coxe, a very tall young man from Yorkshire, with a remarkably loud voice, as we knew by the tone in which it was his habit to read aloud, for the weather being warm and the windows open, we could distinctly hear him spouting either from book or from memory as he paced up and down his study. We could see him too, for we were very close neighbours, when either he or we looked out of our casements, and as he acted the parts he was speaking with such emphasis, I found it much more amusing to watch Mr Coxe’s anticks than to fill up the great holes Jane thumped out in the heels of her stockings. Down therefore went my hands, and forward stretched my long neck, intent as I was on the scene enacting, when Mr Coxe, finding himself noticed, so encreased the force with which he ranted, that I could not contain my laughter. At this he humbly bowed, his hand upon his heart. I laughed the more. He shook his head; he clasped his hands; he threw his arms here and there, starting, stamping, and always roaring. In short, the pantomime proceeded with vigour to a most amusing height before Jane, who was sitting below me faithfully reading through the pages of the Spectator, perceived what was going on. Some one else must have perceived it too, probably Mr Rowley, for he was always prowling about, for though neither he, nor my Uncle, nor my Aunt ever mentioned the subject to us, muslin blinds were fastened to our windows next day, which we were or no account to displace, and we were ordered in future to take all our mendings down to that horrid and most melancholy library, where she said, my Aunt I mean said, that we were more within her reach should she want us. Mr Coxe was really very diverting, I regretted losing his theatricals extremely.
The young men had a hundred ways of amusing themselves, quite independent of the Master’s childish nieces. Mr Rowley having made himself disagreeable to some of his pupils who found it suit their health to take long rides in the country, they all turned out one night to hunt the Fox under his window. A Mr Fox, in a red waistcoat and some kind of a skin for a cap, was let loose on the grass in the middle of the quadrangle, with the whole pack of his fellow students barking around him. There were cracking whips, shrill whistles, loud halloos, and louder harkaways, quite enough to frighten even the dignitaries. When those great persons assembled to encounter this confusion, all concerned skipped off up the different staircases, like so many rats to their holes, and I don’t believe any of them were ever regularly discovered, though suspected individuals were warned as to the future. Mr Fox, I remember, was found quietly reading in his room, undisturbed by all the tumult, although a little flurried by the very authoritative knocks which forced him, at that hour of the night, to unlock his door. My Uncle was very mild in his rule or very indolent, yet there were circumstances which roused the indignation of the quietest Colleges,
The ringleader in every species of mischief within our grave walls was Mr Shelley, afterwards so celebrated for better things, though I should think to the end half crazy. He began his career by every kind of wild prank at Eton, and when kindly remonstrated with by his Tutor, repaid the well meant private admonition by spilling an acid over the carpet of that gentleman’s study, a new purchase, which he thus completely destroyed. He did no deed so malicious at University, but he was very insubordinate, always infringing some rules, the breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, neither wearing garters nor suspenders, nor indeed taking any pains to fasten any of his garments with a proper regard to decency, and when spoken to about these irregularities, he was in the habit of making such extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as to overset first the gravity, and then the temper, of the lecturing tutor, Of course these scenes reached unpleasant lengths, and when he proceeded so far in his improprieties as to paste up atheistical squibs on the Chapel door,3 it was considered necessary to expel him, privately, out of regard for Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who, being written to concerning his wayward son, arrived in much anxiety, had a long conference with my Uncle in the Study, to which presently both the young man and Mr Rowley were admitted, and then Sir Timothy and his son left Oxford together. Quiet was restored to our sober walls after this disturber of its peace had been got rid of, although some suspicious circumstances connected with the welfare of a principal favourite of my Aunt’s still required to be elucidated, as Mr Rowley said, and at once checked.
Our inner quadrangle had buildings on only three of its sides, the fourth side was a wall, a high wall, the wall of the Maste
r’s garden. The centre part of this wall was raised a few feet higher than the lengths on either hand, carved in a son of scroll. Against this more elevated portion on the garden side was trained a fruit tree, a baking pear, very old and very sturdy, with great branching arms spread regularly at equal distances from bottom to top, a perfect step ladder! The defences of the garden on the Stable side next the lane were of no moment, very easily surmounted, and the vigilant eyes of Mr Rowley had discovered, on the College side of the high pear tree wall, certain indications of the pear tree’s use to those tenants, steady or unsteady, who returned from their rambles later than suited the books of the porter’s lodge. The pear tree must come down, beautifully as it was trained, splendid as the fruit was—large brown half pound weight pears on which my Aunt reckoned for her second course dishes. The wall, too, looked so bare without it. My Aunt never thoroughly forgave Mr Rowley for this extreme of discipline, and, like Mrs Balquhidder’s cow, the pears grew so in size and flavour, and the tree became so wonderfully fruitful after its decease, that my Uncle, after enduring a fair allowance of lamentations for it, had to forbid the subject. I have often thought since when on my hobby—as my brother John calls my educating mania—that if we were to make wise matters more lovable, young ardent spirits would not waste the activity natural to their age on follies. Too much work we hardly any of us have, but work too dry, work too absorbing, work unsuitable, is the work cut out for and screwed on to every young mind of every nature that fails under the iron rule of School or College. Learning is such a delight, there must be errour in the teaching when the scholars shirk it and debase themselves to merely sensual pleasures, of a low order too. Drinking, gambling, and the like were the pursuits which caused the destruction of the pear tree.
I am setting down all my Oxford experiences together, without regard to vacation or term time, an unclassical proceeding, which, if I had thought about, I would not have done. The long vacation began soon after the Commemoration was over in July, and lasted till October, and though some reading men remained to study, and some of the Fellows came and went, Oxford was empty for the time of all the hubbub I had gone to form a part of till close upon Gaudy day. My Uncle and Aunt remained there however till the month of September, when they went to Cheltenham for a few weeks on account of my Uncle’s health, and took us with them. William, the man servant, attended us, but neither of the maids; we were to wait on our Aunt and on each other. Our lodgings were small but very neat, as every lodging was, and is, at Cheltenham. We had a good drawing room and small dining room over a Cabinet maker’s shop, and bedrooms above. We were just opposite to a chemist’s, beside whose house was the paved alley which led past the old church to the walk up to the old wells at the end of the Avenue. We all drank the waters and we all ate famous breakfasts afterwards, and Jane and I, out most of the day with my Uncle, were so happy wandering about the outskirts of what was then only a pretty village, that we very much regretted remaining here so short a time. My Aunt, who walked less, and who could patch away any where, of course, preferred her comfortable home, for she had found no acquaintances almost in Cheltenham; only old Mrs Colonel Ironside, the Widow of the Indian Cousin in whose gay London house she had spent such happy times in her young days, and Admiral Ricketts, Mrs Ironside’s nephew, with his very kind Irish wife. We saw very little of any of them; I fancy morning calls had been the extent of the civilities. What I recollect of Cheltenham is the beautiful scenery. The long turning High Street, the rich well wooded plain the little town was settled in, the boundary of low hills, Malvern in the distance, and that charming well walk, always shady, where we were told the King and Queen had appeared by seven o’clock in the morning, when His Majesty King George the third had been ordered by his physicians to try the waters. Half a lifetime afterwards, when I returned married from India and revisited this pretty place, I remembered it all as it had been, even found my way about it, though so altered, and I must say I regretted that the lovely rural village had grown into a large town, beautiful still with its hundreds of handsome villa residences and long streets of excellent houses, but not half so pleasing to me as it was in the ‘olden time.’ I hear now that they have cut down the fine avenue that shaded the old well walk, built rows of shops from the Crescent up to the old pump room, and that the town extends through the fields beyond. The children then of these times will be tired before getting to their country walks. Jane and I had green fields to run in.
On returning to Oxford we all resumed our graver habits. Jane and I had that odious Library and our Masters. My Uncle and Aunt the duties of society. All the great people having reassembled, they had all to interchange their calls and then to invite one another to dinner. In the evenings sometimes there were routs—thirty or forty people to tea and cards, refreshments handed round before separating. Jane and I were spared appearing at the desserts; we were found in the drawing room by the ladies, dressed in the fine muslin frocks bought for the Persian ambassador, with the gold chains and the cairngorm crosses, of course. We also sat up as late as the company staid, and were much noticed; luckily the home parties were not many. The ladies were really all so common place, they made very little impression. There was a handsome, very vulgar and very good natured Mrs Lee, from Ipswich; an extremely pretty Mrs Hodson from Lancaster; a fat Mrs Landon, whose husband was uncle to L. E. L.; a tall Mrs Marlow and the Misses Williams, all three with squeaky voices, and all elderly. No young women seemed to live in Oxford. A single Miss Eveleigh, by no means good looking, but rich, soon married. The Principal of Jesus College, Dr Hughes, a most huge mishapen mountain of a Welshman, was our particular favourite among the gentlemen, I believe because he let each of us sit in the large silver punch bowl belonging to his headship. It held Jane easily. Dr Williams never got into my good graces, nor Mr Rowley, he was such a little ugly and very pompous man. Mr Moises we were very fond of.4 A particular friend of my Uncle’s, the son of that Newcastle Schoolmaster who educated Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, Mr Collins, then rather a Beau, was another great ally of ours. They were all clergymen, as were most of the travellers who paid passing visits, such as our two cousins Horseman, whom we distinguished as the ‘clean and the dirty’ one, both odd, but John, the elder and the dirty one, much the queerer. James was just going to be married, for which John called him a great fool. Mr Surtees came several times, once with his wife, such a pretty little woman, very small, one of those half dozen Miss Allans, who were all rich. Three of them married three Wedgwoods, and one of them married Sir James MacKintosh. Miss Allan, the nicest of them, remained single. Mr Surtees was brother to Lady Eldon,—of course got well up in the Church. In early life he had been in love with Aunt Leitch, though she had never smiled on him. Lord Eldon never happened to come to my Uncle’s while I was there, though they were so intimate as to correspond. Lord Chancellors have not much time for travelling; besides, the King was in very uncertain health just then, giving everybody about him a good deal of uneasiness. Lord Stowell, then Sir William Scott, was often with us, and a very agreeable old man he was.
What very strange women those two clever brothers married. Lady Eldon’s was a runaway affair and she had not a penny, but she was very beautiful, and to the last hour of her life retained her husband’s affections, in spite of her eccentricities. Latterly she was never seen but by him. She lived up in her own rooms dressed in a hat and habit, and was called too much of an invalid to see visitors. But she got up to make his breakfast every morning, however early he required it, as she had done from the day of their marriage; nothing ever prevented this but her two or three confinements, her layings in; on other occasions, when indisposed with colds or headaches, she still waited on him, and returned to bed when he went off to Court or Chambers. She never learned that they were rich.5 When he was making thousands at the Bar, and later when his official salary was so large, she continued the careful management of their early struggling days, locking up stores and looking after remains, and herself counting the coalsacks, maki
ng the carters hold up the bags and shake them as they were emptied into the cellars, she standing at the window of her Lord’s handsome house in her hat and habit, giving a little nod as each empty sack was laid upon the pavement.
Lady Scott was still more thrifty, at least we heard a great many more stories concerning her oddities. She had money and no beauty; and if there ever had been any love it did not last long, for they were little together. He was said to be miserly too, but he was not miserable. She grudged him his clean shirt daily, and used to take a day’s wear out of the cast one herself, putting it on instead of a bedgown, thereby saving that article in her own wardrobe. Then she allowed him but one towel a week, and Mr Collins had a story of her, that on closing a visit to a friend of his, she entered her hostess’s presence before taking leave, laden with a great pile of towels, which she thought it her duty to bring into view, in order to expose the extravagance of the servants who had supplied them with linen so profusely, priding herself on having used but two, one for herself and one for Sir William. There were tales of her serving up chickens reheated continually and having wings and legs of some fictitious kind skewered on in the places of the real ones which had been eaten; of a leg of mutton doing duty all the week, roast, cold hashed, minced, made into broth at the end and I rather think boiled at the beginning; of her cutting a turkey in two when she found her son dined out, and on his unexpectedly returning, sewing the turkey up again. Mr Collins and Mr Moises, both north country men, used to keep us laughing by the hour at all the oddities they told of her. She died at last, but long after this, and he made a second unlucky venture. Old Lady Sligo, the dowager of her day, was a worse wife than this first one. What they married for at their advanced age no one could fancy. She was near seventy, and he was past it. He had both a son and a daughter, the daughter very agreeable. She was often at Oxford as Mrs Townsend, and occasionally after becoming Lady Sidmouth; and as she had been at school with aunt Lissy, we imputed this also as a merit to her.
Memoirs of a Highland Lady Page 20