LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 193, 21 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE ST. SWITHIN'S JUNIOR PROCTOR. BY COMPTON' READE, M.A. Concluded. . 'l'll tell you what it is; I'll serve those fellows out. By Jove I will. Let me think —gone to town. When do they come back ?' 'By the last train,' answered Mr Rapax, still grappling manfully with his excited neighbour's breakfast. ' The last train, - ' echoed Mr Bumpus—' the last train ! Yes, I have it, sir—l have it ! I've guessed the riddle.' Wherewith he fell a-chuckling, as one perfectly self-satisfied and passing happy. ' Riddle ?' gurgled Mr Rapax! through his toast and tea. ' Yes, you idiot. Take that eye-glass out of your eye, and don't glare at me like an octopus. You've had too much to eat. Hello ! why, where's my breakfast ?' » * # * It is very much the fashion in university circles to vote ' hens' a bore, however well feathered those attractive bipeds may be. Mr Bumpus, therefore, was quite en regie in dubbing himself an injured man, because the duties of hospitality unexpectedly devolved upon his shoulders. Nevertheless, when once he found himself dispensing pulled chickens, pate de foie gras, and cup to his really lovely relatives and their buxom mamma—Miss Dody for the nonce actually exerting herself to entrance her host —his spirits rose, and he felt like one who could go in cavalierly and cut out the inimitable Pompone. 'lam sure,' urged Miss Lulu, apologetically, 'I cannot comprehend how Mr Pompone and Mr Temperly could have left us in the lurch. We certainly wrote to them last night, and I posted my letter and Dody's myself, with my own hands.' 'I think,'remarked Mr Rapax, who had been pressed into the service of lioniser, ' our friends had made their arrangements yesterday. At all events, Mr Pompone must have had some " very important business" to take him to London, as he was determined to go, although Mr Temperly tried hard to dissuade him.' Whereat Mr Bumpus grinned audibly; Miss Dody flushed with anger: Miss Lulu's azure orbs began to display signs of moisture. 'l'm sure,' said Miss Dody, with flashing eyes, 'it will be a longtime before I again accept an undergraduate's invitation.' In her wrath she forgot that they had themselves proposed this ill-starred incursion. ' Some little mistake—easily explained—no intentional rudeness, my dee-ar,' ejaculated Dody's mamma. ' Not a bit of it,' cried Mr Bumpus cheerily. ' I take it all in. Pleasure before duty, you know, is the old maxim of ingenuous youth. However, if you will only wait till the last train, I'll show you a bit of sport. In fact, we will roast these truants famously, and you shall enjoy the spectacle. Don't ask questions. The plot will develop itself naturally. Are you all agreed ?' ' I am afraid,' remarked Miss Dody's and Miss Lulu's mamma, ' that half-past ten will be very late for us. Besides, lam too old for practical jokes.' ' Mamma, how can you be so selfish,' cried Miss Dody. ' Mamma, dear,' whispered Lulu, ' I should so like to see him, if only for a minute. Do wait.' The appeal of her younger daughter prevailed, and the result was that the whole party placed themselves unreservedly under the guardianship of Mr Bumpus. Chapter 111. To render ourselves passably lucid, we must explain that the university does not recognise the liberty of the undergraduate subject to travel to and from the metropolis without special leave from college authorities. Hence, as for instance on a Derby-day, when young blood will be disobedient—if any number of undergrads. are suspected of having thus misused the G. W. R., a proctor, or university magistrate, is in attendance at the station to catch the peccant birds on their wing homeward, and, metaphorically, to put salt on their tails. About ten o'clock, pacing the platform of the above-named railway station at Oxford, on the evening of this eventful day the curious observer might have remarked an elderly lady, rather fagged, with 'two bright-eyed girls, who seemed to be waiting for the train which, arriving from London, would proceed to Leamington. Strange to say, in close conversation with these people was a proctor of the university, distinguished by his black velvet sleeves and long bands, and with him a person who to all appearance seemed to be a bull dog, ie. one of the posse comitatus who follow the proctor's heels as a body guard. Both the proctor and his man were heavily bearded, and assumed an aspect truly ferocious. The party seemed merry enough, the dignitary exhibiting especially signs of extreme exhilaration ; whilst the bulldog, instead of keeping at a respectful distance, joined in conversation with all three ladies quite affably, and on equal terms. As soon as the train was signalled, both the proctor and his man took leave of the ladies with much cordiality, and at once marched off :to the other end of the platform.

There must have been more than one undergraduate in that train, for scarcely had it drawn up with the usual jerk when a loud cry was raised of ' Proctor ! Proctor !' and several pairs of heels were exhibited in flight. The dreaded functionary, however, instead of chasing stray birds, marched leisurely down the train, poking his nose inquisitively into the first-class carriages! In one of the compartments he detected no less a personage than Mr Pompone, who was about to attempt to escape from the opposite door of his carriage. 4' Your name and college, sir?' asked the proctor, raising his cap with studied politeness. ' P'hompone of St. Swithin's, was the response. ' Call upon me to-morrow at ten o'clock,' said the proctor in a tone of extreme asperity and at once passed on rapidly to investigate the other carriages. Mr Temperly, however, if he had been in the train, had eluded his vigilance, and the proctor, apparently satisfied with his capture of Mr Pompone, turned round to see that gentleman off the platform. The train was now in motion, and the stalwart figure of the tall dark undergraduate, as he stood pensively on the platform, feeling perhaps beautifully less as he bitterly thought of the morrow with its possible rustication, seemed passed like a grim statue, when from the window of a carriage a white handkerchief fluttered a sarcastic welcome, and he perceived to his sublime horror Dody, his precious Dody, with her mamma and Lulu, slowly and majestically move off into the darkness which lay between Oxford and Leamington. And Mr Temperly ? His fate was less tragic, thongh not less painful. At the terrible cry of ' Proctor !' he had first of all essayed to hide himself under the seat of the carriage ; finding this manoeuvre for obvious reasons impossible, he looked out of the window farthest from the platform, hailed a porter, who accepting a sovereign in mistake for a shilling, unlocked the door. In his blind haste poor Mr Temperly tripped and fell in a sedent attitude on the farther line of rails, to his unutterable pain. From this ugly position he recovered himself with difficulty, scrambled up the opposite platform, and limped off post haste to St Swithin's. On arriving at the porter's lodge he encountered Mr Pompone, very crestfallen indeed, not to say melancholy. Arm in arm they passed through the portal into the inner quadrangle, where, to their amazement were gathered a crowd of expectant undergrads, who greeted them with peals of derisive laughter. Suddenly from their midst emerged a proctor and bull dog gesticulating pantomimically. ' Your name, sir, and college ? Call on me to-morrow at ten.' Thfe voice was familiar. In a trice both men whisked off their beards, revealing the exuberantly jovial countenances of Messrs Bumpus and Rapax. ' A nice lot you are,' quoth the former,' to leave me alone to lionise your hens. On their tables they found letters to state that, as Friday was an archery meeting, the young ladies would make their appearance on Thursday, hoping the surprise would be pleasant. Let us bury the chaff, which these hapless wights encountered, in oblivion, They bore it good humouiedly. Nevertheless, after the lapse of years, we learn from authentic sources that Miss Dody did not attain the dignity of becomig Lady Pompone, but somehow sank down to be plain Mr Bumpus; also, that Mr Temperly went out to Queensland to avoid creditors, but did not expatriate Miss Lulu, who is still in spinsterhood, waiting for the coming man. V* MY GRANDFATHER'S WEDDING. A STORY OF IRELAND IN THE OLDEN TIME. My ancestors had been settled for generations in the vicinity of a small seaport in the west of Ireland. I doubt if richer or more varied scenery is to be met with anywhere. Landwards stretches a broad lake studded with green islands, and begirt by lofty hills, most of the latter being wooded to the top. On every commanding point stands a ruined stronghold; and in every one of the many pleasant valleys mouldered a long-deserted shrine. While some of these ruins are renowned in history, all have their traditions of surpassing interest, even when told by the rude peasants. Westwards the narrow harbour expands into a wide bay, which, in its turn, opens out into the illimitable ocean. The coast is a wild one; it consists, in great part, of a range of stupendous cliffs stretching for miles, and rising in many places more than a thousand feet sheer above the water. What with its magnificent scenery and its wild legends, S— and its neighbourhood is precisely the spot to nourish the spirit of poetry and adventure. Our family was one of eight or nine which divided two counties between them in the time of James I. Towards the close of the last century, the period of my story, its prosperity had long been on the decline. A succession of representatives given to duelling, gambling, drinking, rollicking, and unlimited hospitality, had sadly diminished its resources. They were a race unusually reckless for even the Ireland of the olden time. A fair specimen of them was my grandfather, While yet a mere youth he had succeeded to the headship, of the house, with its fortunes and its liabilities. The latter included a feud with a neighboring clan, the commencement of which nobody remembered, but which had been transmitted from sire to son, exasperating as it went. Three months never passed without riot and homicide—sometimes on an extensive scale—between the parties. As it happened, the Gregg chieftain of the day was also young, though some years the senior of my grandfather—a fine powerful man of twenty six. Fortune willed that the pair should become rivals in love, both wooing the beauty of the province. She was indeed a beauty. I saw her fifty years later, withered with age and worn with troubles of no ordinary kind, yet still handsome ; and her portrait, taken in her prime, fully justified the high praise awarded to her attractions in song, and the still higher praise included in the fiery affections which they excited, and in the deeds as fiery to which they impelled. Here I shall take leave to remark that the world contains no finer specimens of humanity than abound among the higher classes of Western Ireland. In the case of my grandmother, a strong infusion of Spanish blood had added the dash and brilliance of the South to the native grace of the ' handsome Hamiltons,' My grandfather was one of the wildest spirits of his age and country, was

an enthusiastic sportsman. He delighted in high excitement, was an unerring shot and a daring horseman, and no less skilful in handling sail and oar than in guiding the steed. Indeed, 'little' Allan Grant's desperate feats and hairbreadth escapes to this day form the theme of fireside story in the land of his birth. He was about the last of mortals whom one would think of turning rhymer. But love effects strange transformations. I have before me a bundle of mildewed papers, written over with verses addressed to 'Pretty Fanny Hamilton.' They might be more polished, perhaps, but they could hardly be more earnest and original, or more free from affectation and conceit. The following carries with it its own explanation : ' Full thirty long minutes or more Have I been awaiting her here; She never delay'd so before, And won't come at all now, I fear. To tease one like this is a shame, I begin to suspect 'tis a plan; But the worst of it is—l can't blame; For who could be angry with Fan ! When met by her smile, who could frown t Or chide 'neath the glance of her eye ? If a man on that face could look down Reproving, that man is not I. And yet, if I thought she beguiled, For another annoying me so, By Jove ! I should go downright wild ; Nor spare her while squashing the beaul' That last verse is characteristic ; and so, also, are the following verses—- ' Within me rises passion's flood, Contemptuous of control : I am a thing of flesh and blood, Of sense as well as soul. Then wherefore, Fanny, thus reproveAs now and then you do ? I love you as a man should love • A woman such as you. I want your clasp—l want your kiss— I want—oh, why conceal ? For me there is no other bliss In all the earth to feel. Does speech so plain your anger more, Dear Fanny ? It is true I love you as a man should love A woman such as you.' Nor less in character are the following,' the last of my grandfather's rhymes which I shall cite for the present : ' Your lip preaches duty—l look at that lip; And then, darling, how can I miss it ? Naughty thoughts by the score through this brain of mine skip, Each one of them bidding me—" Kiss it!" Your frowns give additional charms to your face, They tighten still further Love's fetter; Your wrath throws you into new postures of grace, And makes me but like you the better.' My ancestor's rival was favoured of the relatives of the beauty; and my ancestor was favoured of the beauty herself, whose heart was completely carried away by the impetuosity of the frank fearless rhymer. In those stormy days, however, the relatives of Irish beauty were accustomed to bestow it in marriage without much regard to the feelings of its possessor. And so 'Pretty Fanny,' as she was called to the day of her death, was condemned to wed Mr Gerald Gregg, though the fact that her affections were fixed elsewhere was notorious. Her prayers and her tears were unavailing to move the despots of the domestic circle. Her threats—for a beauty of spirit can threaten—were despised. And when she took to pining, they merely remarked with a laugh, * Marriage will soon rouse her out of that.' But if they treated Pretty Fanny thus lightly, they took another course with her lover. When he avowed, as he soon did, that he would make her his own 'in spite of all the Greggs and Hamiltons in existence,' every precaution that prudence could suggest was adopted. This, be it remembered, was the era of abduction, and * Little Allan' was just the man to conduct an abduction with success. Here, perhaps, it may be as well to explain the cognomen which, as in the case of most other Irish gentlemen of the the day, attached to him. A man standing five feet seven, and weighing over fifteen stone, can hardly be termed 'little.' But Allan Grant was so broad in the shoulder and so massive of limb, that his height was out of proportion with his width, and really made him look quite dwarfish. To be continued.