twenty-pound note."
_IV.--The Search and the Counter Check_


Robert Audley awoke from his nap to find George Talboys gone. He
searched in the grounds and in the inn for him in vain. At the
railway-station he heard that a man who, from the description given,
might be Talboys, had gone by the afternoon train to London. In the
evening he went up to the Court to dinner. Lady Audley was gay and
fascinating; but gave a little nervous shudder when Robert, feeling
uneasy about his friend, said so.

Again, when Lady Audley was at the piano he observed a bruise on her
arm. She said that it was caused by tying a piece of ribbon too tightly
round her arm two or three days before. But Robert saw that the bruise
was recent, and that it had been made by the four fingers, one of which
had a ring, of a powerful hand.

Suspicion began to be aroused in the mind of Robert Audley, first as to
the real identity of Lady Audley; and second, as to the fate of his
friend. He brought into play all the keenness of his intellect, and
abandoned his lazy habits. He went to Southampton, saw Captain Maldon,
who told him that George Talboys had arrived the morning before at one
o'clock to have a look at his boy before sailing for Australia. On
inquiry at Liverpool, this proved to be false.

He sought the assistance of George's father, Squire Talboys, at Grange
Heath, Dorsetshire, to discover the murderer; but the squire resolutely
refused to accept that his son was dead. He was only hiding, hoping for
forgiveness, which would never be given.

The beautiful sister of George Talboys followed Robert when he left the
mansion and besought him passionately to avenge her brother's murder, in
which she implicitly believed, and this he promised to do.

Then he learned that Phoebe, Lady Audley's maid, had married her cousin
Luke Marks, who, under veiled threats, had obtained one hundred pounds
from her ladyship to enable him to lease the Castle Inn. And having
visited the place, and held conversation with the half-drunken landlord,
he felt assured that Luke Marks and his wife had by some means obtained
a sinister power over Lady Audley.

Robert thereafter traced the life history of Helen Maldon from her
marriage to George Talboys at Wildernsea, Yorkshire, her secret
departure from there after her husband's desertion, her appearance the
following day as a teacher in a girl's school at Brompton under the name
of Lucy Graham; her arrival as a governess in Essex, and finally her
marriage to Sir Michael Audley.

Once more he returned to the Court, where his uncle was lying ill,
attended by Lady Audley. He demanded a private audience of my lady, at
which he told her he had discovered the whole of the conspiracy
concocted by an artful woman who had speculated upon the chance of her
husband's death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of
committing a crime.

"My friend, George Talboys," said Robert, "was last seen entering these
gardens, and was never seen to leave them. I will have such a search
made as shall level that house to the earth, and root up every tree
rather than I will fail in finding the grave of my murdered friend."

"You shall never live to do this," she said. "I will kill you first!"

That evening Lady Audley gave to her husband a gloss of what his nephew
had said, and boldly accused him of being mad. "You would," she said,
"never let anyone influence you against me, would you, darling?"

"No, my love; they had better not try it."

Lady Audley laughed aloud, with a gay, triumphant peal as she tripped
out of the room; but as she sat in her own chamber, brooding, she
muttered: "Dare I defy him? Will anything stop him but--death?"

Just then Phoebe Marks arrived to warn Lady Audley that Robert had
appeared at the Castle Inn. She also explained that a bailiff was in the
house, as the rent was due, and she wanted money to pay him out. Lady
Audley, insisted to Phoebe's astonishment, that she herself would bring
the money. She did so; and, unknown to Phoebe, cunningly set fire to the
inn, hoping that Robert Audley would meet his death. She and her maid
then left the inn to make the long tramp back to the Court. Half the
distance had been covered, when Phoebe looked back and saw a red glare
in the sky. She stopped, suddenly fell on her knees, and cried: "Oh, my
God! Say it's not true! It's too horrible!"

"What's too horrible?" said Lady Audley.

"The thought that is in my mind."

"I will tell you nothing except that you are a mad woman; and go home."
Lady Audley walked away in the darkness.


_V.--My Lady Tells the Truth_


Lady Audley next day was under the dominion of a terrible restlessness.
Towards the dinner hour she walked in the quadrangle. In the dusk she
lost all self-control when a figure approached. Her knees sank under her
and she dropped to the ground. It was Robert Audley who helped her to
rise and then led her into the library. In a pitiless voice he called
her the incendiary of the fire at the inn. Fortunately, he had changed
his room, and escaped being burnt to death, saving, at the same time,
Luke Marks. The day was now past, he insisted, for mercy, after last
night's deed of horror; and she should no longer pollute the Court with
her presence.

"Bring Sir Michael," she cried, "and I will confess everything!"

And so the confession was made. Briefly stated, it was that as a little
child, in a Hampshire coast village, when she asked where her mother
was, the answer always was that that was a secret. In a fit of passion
the foster-mother told her that her own mother was a madwoman in an
asylum many miles away. Afterwards, she learned that the madness was a
hereditary disease, and she was instructed to keep the secret because it
might affect her injuriously in after life. Then she detailed the story
of her life until her marriage with Sir Michael Audley, justifying that
on the ground that she had a right to believe her first husband was
dead. In the sunshine of love at Audley Court she felt, for the first
time in her life, the miseries of others, and took pleasure in acts of
kindness.

In an Essex paper she read of the return of her first husband to
England. Knowing his character, she thought that unless he could be
induced to believe she was dead, he would never abandon his search for
her. Again she became mad. In collusion with her father she induced a
Mrs. Plowson in Southampton, who had a daughter in the last stage of
consumption, to pass off that daughter as Mrs. George Talboys, and
removed her to Ventnor, Isle of Wight, with her own little boy schooled
to call her "mamma." There she died in a fortnight, was buried as Mrs.
George Talboys, and the advertisement of the death was inserted in the
"Times" two days before her husband's arrival in England.

Sir Michael could hear no more. He and his daughter Alicia departed that
evening for the Continent. Next day, Dr. Mosgrave, a mental specialist,
arrived from London. He was fully informed of the history of Lady
Audley, examined her, and finally reported to Robert: "The lady is not
mad, but she has a hereditary taint in her blood. She has the cunning of
madness, with the prudence of intelligence. She is dangerous." He gave
Robert a letter addressed to Monsieur Val, Villebrumeuse, Belgium, who,
he said, was the proprietor and medical superintendent of an excellent
_maison de sante_, and would, no doubt, willingly receive Lady Audley
into his establishment, and charge himself with the full responsibility
of her future life.

Robert escorted Lady Audley to Villebrumeuse, where she was presented to
Monsieur Val as Madame Taylor. When Monsieur Val retired from the
reception room, at my lady's request, she turned to Robert, and said:
"You have brought me to a living grave; you have used your power basely
and cruelly."

"I have done that which I thought was just to others, and merciful to
you," replied Robert. "Live here and repent."

"I cannot," cried my lady. "I would defy you and kill myself if I dared.
Do you know what I am thinking of? It is of the day upon which George
Talboys--disappeared! The body of George Talboys lies at the bottom of
the old well in the shrubbery beyond the lime walk. He came to me there,
goaded me beyond endurance, and I called him a madman and a liar. I was
going to leave him when he seized me by the wrist and sought to detain
me by force. You yourself saw the bruises. I became mad, and drew the
loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood of the windlass. My first
husband sank with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well!"


_VI.--The Mystery Cleared Up_


On arrival in London, Robert Audley received a letter from Clara Talboys
saying that Luke Marks, the man whom he had saved in the fire at the
Castle Inn, was lying at his mother's cottage at Audley, and expressed a
very earnest wish to see him. Robert took train at once to Audley.

The dying man confessed that on the night of George Talboys's
disappearance, when going home to his mother's cottage, he heard groans
come from the laurel bushes in the shrubbery near the old well. On
search, he found Talboys covered with slime, and with a broken arm. He
carried the crippled man to his mother's cottage, washed, fed, and
nursed him.

Next day Talboys gave him a five-pound note to accompany him to the town
of Brentwood, where he called on a surgeon to have his broken arm set
and dressed. That done, Talboys wrote two notes in pencil with his left
hand, and gave them to Luke to deliver--one with a cross to be handed to
Lady Audley, and the other to the nephew of Sir Michael, and then took
train to London in a second-class carriage.

Phoebe, who had seen from her window Lady Audley pushing George Talboys
into the well, said that my lady was in their power, and that she would
do anything for them to keep her secret. So the letters were not
delivered.

He hid them away; not a creature had seen them. The old mother, who had
been present throughout the confession, took the papers from a drawer
and handed them to Robert Audley.

The note to Robert said that something had happened to the writer, he
could not tell what, which drove him from England, a broken-hearted man,
to seek some corner of the earth where he might live and die unknown and
forgotten. He left his son in his friend's hands, knowing that he could
leave him to no truer guardian. The second note was addressed "Helen,"
saying, "May God pity and forgive you for that which you have done
to-day, as truly as I do. Rest in peace. You shall never hear from me
again. I leave England, never to return.--G. T."

Luke Marks died that afternoon. Robert Audley wrote a long letter the
same evening, addressed to Madame Taylor, in which he told the story
related by Marks; and as soon as possible he went down to Dorsetshire to
inform George Talboys's father that his son was alive. He stayed five
weeks at Grange Heath, and the love which had come to him at first sight
of Clara Talboys rapidly ripened.

Consent to the marriage was given, with a blessing by the old
Roman-minded squire, and the pair agreed to go on their honeymoon trip
to Australia to look for the son and brother. Robert returned for the
last time to his bachelor chambers in the Temple. He was told that a
visitor was waiting for him. The visitor was George Talboys, and he
opened his arms to his lost friend with a cry of delight and surprise.
The tale was soon told. When George fell into the well he was stunned
and bruised, and his arm broken. After infinite pains and difficulties
he climbed to the top and hid in a clump of laurel bushes till the
arrival of Luke Marks. He had not been to Australia after all, but had
exchanged his berth on board the Victoria Regia for another in a ship
bound for New York. There he remained for a time till he yearned for the
strong clasp of the hand which guided him through the darkest passage of
his life.

Two years passed. In a fairy cottage on the banks of the Thames, between
Teddington Lock and Hampton Bridge, George Talboys lives with his sister
and brother-in-law, the latter having now obtained success at the Bar.
Georgey pays occasional visits from Eton to play with a pretty baby
cousin. It is a year since a black-edged letter came to Robert Audley,
announcing that Madame Taylor had died after a long illness, which
Monsieur Val described as _maladie de longueur_. Sir Michael Audley
lives in London with Alicia, who is very shortly to become the wife of
Sir Harry Towers, a sporting Herts baronet.

*       *       *       *       *




EDWARD BRADLEY ("CUTHBERT BEDE")


The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green

Edward Bradley is one of few English humorists of the
mid-Victorian era who produced any work that is likely to
survive the wear of time and change of taste. "The Adventures
of Mr. Verdant Green," his earliest and best story, is, in its
way, a masterpiece. Never has the lighter and gayer side of
Oxford life been depicted with so much humour and fidelity;
and what makes this achievement still more remarkable is the
fact that Cuthbert Bede (to give Bradley the name which he
adopted for literary purposes and made famous) was not an
Oxford man. He was born at Kidderminster in 1827, and educated
at Durham University, with the idea of becoming a clergyman.
But not being old enough to take orders, he stayed for a year
at Oxford, without, however, matriculating there. At the age
of twenty he began to write for "Punch," and "The Adventures
of Verdant Green" was composed in 1853, when he was still on
the staff of that paper. The book, on its publication, had an
immense vogue, and though twenty-six other books followed from
his pen, it is still the most popular. He died on December 11,
1889.


_I.--A Very Quiet Party_


As Mr. Verdant Green was sitting, sad and lonely, in his rooms
overlooking the picturesque, mediaeval quadrangle of Brazenface College,
Oxford, a German band began to play "Home, Sweet Home," with that truth
and delicacy of expression which the wandering minstrels of Germany seem
to acquire intuitively. The sweet melancholy of the air, as it came
subdued into softer tones by distance, would probably have moved any lad
who had just been torn from the shelter of his family to fight, all
inexperienced, the battle of life. On Mr. Verdant Green it had such an
overwhelming effect that when his scout, Filcher, entered the room he
found his master looking very red about the eyes, and furiously wiping
the large spectacles from which his nick-name, "Gig-lamps," was derived.

The fact was that Mr. Verdant Green was a freshman of the freshest kind.
It was his first day in Oxford. He had been brought up entirely by his
mother and a maiden aunt. Happily, Mr. Larkyns, the rector of Manor
Green, the charming Warwickshire village of which the Greens had been
squires from time immemorial, convinced his mother that Verdant needed
the society of young men of his own age. Mr. Larkyn's own son, a manly
young fellow named Charles, had already been sent up to Brazenface
College, where he was rapidly distinguishing himself; and after many
tears and arguments, Mrs. Green had consented to her boy also going up
to Oxford.

As we have said, Mr. Verdant Green felt very tearful and lonely as his
scout entered his rooms. But the appearance of Filcher reminded him that
he was now an Oxford man, and he resolved to begin his career by calling
upon Mr. Charles Larkyns.

He found Mr. Larkyns lolling on a couch, in dressing-gown and slippers.
Opposite to him was a gentleman whose face was partly hidden by a pewter
pot, out of which he was draining the last draught. Mr. Larkyns turned
his head, and saw dimly through the clouds of tobacco smoke that filled
his room a tall, thin, spectacled figure, with a hat in one hand, and an
envelope in the other.

"It's no use," he said, "stealing a march on me in this way. I don't owe
you anything; and if I did it is not convenient to pay it. Hang you
Oxford tradesmen! You really make a man thoroughly bill-ious. Tell your
master that I can't get any money out of my governor till I've got my
degree. Now make yourself scarce! You know where the door lies!"

Mr. Verdant Green was so confounded at this unusual reception that he
lost the power of motion and speech. But as Mr. Larkyns advanced towards
him in a threatening attitude, he managed to gasp out: "Why, Charles
Larkyns, don't you remember me, Verdant Green?"

"'Pon my word, old fellow," said his friend, "I thought you were a dun.
There are so many wretched tradesmen in this place who labour under the
impression that because a man buys a thing he means to pay for it, that
my life is mostly spent in dodging their messengers. Allow me," he
added, "to introduce you to Mr. Smalls. You will find him very useful in
helping you in your studies. He himself reads so hard that he is called
a fast man."

Mr. Smalls put down his pewter pot, and said that he had much pleasure
in forming the acquaintance of a freshman like Mr. Verdant Green; which
was undoubtedly true. And he then showed his absorbing interest in
literary studies by neglecting the society of Mr. Verdant Green and
immersing himself in the perusal of one of those vivid accounts of "a
rattling set-to between Nobby Buffer and Hammer Sykes" which make
"Bell's Life" the favourite reading of many Oxford scholars.

"I heard from my governor," said Mr. Larkyns, "that you were coming up,
and in the course of the morning I should have come to look you up. Have
a cigar, old chap?"

"Er--er--thank you very much," said Verdant, in a frightened way; "but I
have never smoked."

"Never smoked!" exclaimed Mr. Smalls, holding up "Bell's Life," and
making private signals to Mr. Larkyns. "You'll soon get the better of
that weakness! As you are a freshman, let me give you a little advice.
You know what deep readers the Germans are. That is because they smoke
more than we do. I should advise you to go at once to the
vice-chancellor and ask him for a box of good cigars. He will be
delighted to find you are beginning to set to work so soon."

Mr. Verdant Green thanked Mr. Smalls for his kind advice, and said that
he would go without delay to the vice-chancellor. And Mr. Smalls was so
delighted with the joke, for the vice-chancellor took severe steps to
prevent undergraduates from indulging in the fragrant weed, that he
invited Verdant to wine with him that evening.

"Just a small quiet party of hard-working men," said Mr. Smalls. "I hope
you don't object to a very quiet party."

"Oh, dear, no! I much prefer a quiet party," said Mr. Verdant Green;
"indeed, I have always been used to quiet parties; and I shall be very
glad to come."

In order to while away the time between then and evening, Mr. Charles
Larkyns offered to take Mr. Verdant Green over Oxford, and put him up to
a thing or two, and show him some of the freshman's sights. Naturally,
he got a considerable amount of fun out of his young and very credulous
friend. For some weeks afterwards, Mr. Verdant Green never met any of
the gorgeously robed beadles of the university without taking his hat
off and making them a profound bow. For, according to his information,
one of them was the vice-chancellor, and the rest were various
dignitaries and famous men.

By the time the inventive powers of Mr. Larkyns were exhausted, it was
necessary to dress for the very quiet party. Some hours afterwards, Mr.
Verdant Green was standing in a room filled with smoke and noise,
leaning rather heavily against the table. His friends had first tempted
him with a cigar; then, as his first smoke produced the strange effects
common in these cases, they had induced him to take a little strong
punch as a remedy. He was now leaning against the table in answer to the
call of "Mr. Gig-lamps for a song." Having decided upon one of those
vocal efforts which in the bosom of his family met with great applause,
he began to sing in low and plaintive tones, "'I dre-eamt that I dwelt
in Mar-ar-ble Halls, with'"--and then, alarmed by hearing the sound of
his own voice, he stopped.

"Try back, Verdant," shouted Mr. Larkyns.

Mr. Verdant Green tried back, but with an increased confusion of ideas,
resulting from the mixture of milk-punch and strong cigars. "'I dre-eamt
that I dwe-elt in Mar-arble Halls, with vassals and serfs at my
si-hi-hide; and--'--I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I really forget----oh,
I know--'And I also dre-eamt, which ple-eased me most--' No, that's not
it."

And, smiling very amiably, he sank down on the carpet, and went to sleep
under the table. Some time afterwards, two men were seen carrying an
inert body across the quad; they took it upstairs and put it on a bed.
And late the next morning, Mr. Verdant Green woke up with a splitting
headache, and wished that he had never been born.

As time went on, all the well-known practical jokes were played upon
him; and gradually--and sometimes painfully--he learnt the wisdom that
is not taught in books, nor acquired from maiden aunts.


_II.--Mr. Verdant Green Does as He Has Been Done By_


One morning, Mr. Green and one of his friends, little Mr. Bouncer, were
lounging in the gateway of Brazenface, when a modest-looking young man
came towards them. He seemed so ill at ease in his frock coat and high
collar that he looked as if he were wearing these articles for the first
time.

"I'll bet you a bottle of blacking, Gig-lamps," said Mr. Bouncer, "that
we have here an intending freshman. Let us take a rise out of him."

"Can you direct me to Brazenface College, please, sir?" said the
youthful stranger, flushing like a girl.

"This is Brazenface College," said Mr. Bouncer, looking very important.
"And, pray, what is your business here and your name?"

"If you please," said the stranger, "I am James Pucker. I came to enter,
sir, for my matriculation examination, and I wish to see the gentleman
who will examine me."

"Then you've come to the proper quarter, young man," said Mr. Bouncer.
"Here is Mr. Pluckem," turning to Mr. Verdant Green, "the junior
examiner."

Mr. Verdant Green took his cue with astonishing aptitude and glared
through his glasses at the trembling, blushing Mr. Pucker.

"And here," continued Mr. Bouncer, pointing to Mr. Fosbrooke, who was
coming up the street, "is the gentleman who will assist Mr. Pluckem in
examining you."

"It will be extremely inconvenient to me to examine you now," said Mr.
Fosbrooke; "but, as you probably wish to return home as soon as
possible, I will endeavour to conclude the business at once. Mr.
Bouncer, will you have the goodness to bring this young gentleman to my
rooms?"

Leaving Mr. Pucker to express his thanks for this great kindness to Mr.
Bouncer, who whiled away the time by telling him terrible stories about
the matriculation ordeal, Mr. Verdant Green and Fosbrooke ran upstairs,
and spread a newspaper over a heap of pipes and pewter pots and bottles
of ale, and prepared a table with pen, ink, and scribble-paper. Soon
afterwards, Mr. Bouncer led in the unsuspecting victim.

"Take a seat, sir," said Mr. Fosbrooke, gravely. And Mr. Pucker put his
hat on the ground, and sat down at the table in a state of blushing
nervousness. "Have you been at a public school?"

"Yes, sir," stammered the victim; "a very public one, sir. It was a
boarding school, sir. I was a day boy, sir, and in the first class."

"First class of an uncommon slow train!" muttered Mr. Bouncer.

"Now, sir," continued Mr. Fosbrooke, "let us see what your Latin writing
is like. Have the goodness to turn what I have written into Latin; and
be very careful," added Mr. Fosbrooke sternly, "be very careful that it
is good Latin!" And he handed Mr. Pucker a sheet of paper, on which he
had scribbled the following:

"To be turned into Latin after the Manner of the Animals of Tacitus: She
went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple-pie. Just then a
great she-bear, coming down the street, poked its nose into the shop
window. 'What! No soap? Bosh!' So he died, and she (very imprudently)
married the barber. And there were present at the wedding the
Joblillies, and the Piccannies, and the Gobelites, and the great
Panjandrum himself, with the little button on top. So they all set to
playing catch-who-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of
their boots."

It was well for the purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's
trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; he
was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by
word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin
writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslatable word "bosh."
As he could make nothing of this, he gazed appealingly at the benignant
features of Mr. Verdant Green. The appealing gaze was answered by our
hero ordering Mr. Pucker to hand in his paper, and reply to the
questions on history and Euclid. Mr. Pucker took the two papers of
questions, and read as follows:

HISTORY.

"1. Show the strong presumption there is, that Nox was the god of
battles.

"2. In what way were the shades on the banks of the Styx supplied with
spirits?

"3. Give a brief account of the Roman emperors who visited the United
States, and state what they did there.

EUCLID.

"1. Show the fallacy of defining an angle, as a worm at one end and a
fool at the other.

"2. If a freshman _A_ have any mouth _x_ and a bottle of wine _y_, show
how many applications of _x_ to _y_ will place _y_+_y_ before _A_.

"3. Find the value of a 'bob,' a 'tanner,' a 'joey,' a 'tizzy,' a
'poney,' and a 'monkey.'

"4. If seven horses eat twenty-five acres of grass in three days, what
will be their condition on the fourth day? Prove this by practice."

Mr. Pucker did not know what to make of such extraordinary and
unexpected questions. He blushed, tried to write, fingered his curls,
and then gave himself over to despair; whereupon Mr. Bouncer was seized
with an immoderate fit of laughter, which brought the farce almost to an
end.

"I'm afraid, young gentleman," said Mr. Bouncer, "that your learning is
not yet up to the Brazenface standard. But we will give you one more
chance to retrieve yourself. We will try a little _viva voce_, Mr.
Pucker. If a coach-wheel 6 inches in diameter and 5 inches in
circumference makes 240 revolutions in a second, how many men will it
take to do the same piece of work in ten days?"

Mr. Pucker grew redder and hotter than before, and gasped like a fish
out of water.

"I see you will not do for us yet awhile," said his tormentor, "and we
are therefore under the painful necessity of rejecting you. I should
advise you to read hard for another twelve months, and try to master
those subjects in which you have now failed."

Disregarding poor Mr. Pucker's entreaties to matriculate him this once
for the sake of his mother, when he would read very hard--indeed he
would--Mr. Fosbrooke turned to Mr. Bouncer and gave him some private
instructions, and Mr. Verdant Green immediately disappeared in search of
his scout, Filcher. Five minutes afterwards, as the dejected Mr. Pucker
was crawling out of the quad, Filcher came and led him back to the rooms
of Mr. Slowcoach, the real examining tutor.

"But I have been examined," Mr. Pucker kept on saying dejectedly. "I
have been examined, and they rejected me."

"I think it was an 'oax, sir," said Filcher.

"A what!" stammered Mr. Pucker.

"A 'oax--a sell," said the scout. "Those two gents has been 'aving a
little game with you, sir. They often does it with fresh parties like
you, sir, that seem fresh and hinnocent like."

Mr. Pucker was immensely relieved at this news, and at once went to Mr.
Slowcoach, who, after an examination of twenty minutes, passed him. But
Filcher was alarmed at the joyful way in which he rushed out of the
tutor's room.

"You didn't tell 'im about the 'oax, sir, did yer?" asked the scout
anxiously.

"Not a word," said the radiant Mr. Pucker.

"Then you're a trump, sir!" said Filcher. "And Mr. Verdant Green's
compliments to yer, sir, and will you come up to his rooms and take a
glass of wine with him, sir?"

It need hardly be said that the blushing Mr. Pucker passed a very
pleasant evening with his new friends, and that Mr. Verdant Green was
very proud of having got so far out of the freshman's stage of existence
as to take part in one of the most successful hoaxes in the history of
Oxford.


_III.--Town and Gown_


Mr. Verdant Green, Mr. Charles Larkyns, and a throng of their
acquaintances were sitting in Mr. Bouncer's rooms, on the evening of
November 5, when a knock at the oak was heard; and as Mr. Bouncer roared
out, "Come in!" the knocker entered. Opening the door, and striking into
an attitude, he exclaimed in a theatrical tone and manner:

"Scene, Mr. Bouncer's rooms in Brazenface; in the centre a table, at
which a party are drinking log-juice, and smoking cabbage leaves. Door,
left, third entrance. Enter the Putney Pet. Slow music; lights half
down."

Even Mr. Verdant Green did not require to be told the profession of the
Putney Pet. His thick-set frame, his hard-featured, battered, hang-dog
face proclaimed him a prize-fighter.

"Now for a toast, gentlemen," said Mr. Bouncer. "May the Gown give the
Town a jolly good hiding!"

This was received with great applause, and the Putney Pet was dressed
out in a gown and mortar-board, and the whole party then sallied out to
battle. From time immemorial it has been the custom at Oxford for the
town-people and the scholars to engage, at least once a year, in a wild
scrimmage, and the pitched battle was now due. No doubt it was not quite
fair for the men of Brazenface to bring the Putney Pet up from London
for the occasion; but for some years Gown had been defeated by Town, and
they were resolved to have their revenge.

When Mr. Bouncer's party turned the corner of Saint Mary's, they found
that the Town, as usual, had taken the initiative, and in a dense body
had swept the High Street and driven all the gownsmen before them. A
small knot of 'varsity men were manfully struggling against superior
numbers by St. Mary's Hall.

"Gown to the rescue!" shouted Mr. Bouncer, as he dashed across the
street. "Come on, Pet! Here we are in the thick of it, just in the nick
of time!"

Poor Mr. Verdant Green had never learnt to box. He was a lover of peace
and quietness, and would have preferred to have watched the battle from
a college window; but he had been drawn in the fray against his will by
Mr. Bouncer. He now rushed into the scrimmage with no idea of fighting,
and a valiant bargee singled him out as an easy prey, and aimed a heavy
blow at him. Instinctively doubling his fists, Mr. Verdant Green found
that necessity was indeed the mother of invention; and, with a passing
thought of what would be his mother's and his maiden aunt's feelings
could they see him fighting with a common bargeman, he managed to guard
off the blow. But he was not so fortunate in the second round, for the
bargee knocked him down, but was happily knocked down in turn by the
Putney Pet. The language of this gentle and refined scholar had become
very peculiar.

"There's a squelcher for you, my kivey," he said to the bargee, as he
sent him sprawling. Then, turning round, he asked a townsman: "What do
you charge for a pint of Dutch pink?" following up the question by
striking him on the nose.

Unused to being questioned in this violent way, the town party at last
turned and fled, and the gownsmen went in search of other foes to
conquer. Even Mr. Verdant Green felt desperately courageous when the
town took to their heels and vanished.

At Exeter College another town-and-gown fight was raging furiously. The
town mob had come across the Senior Proctor, the Rev. Thomas Tozer; and
while Old Towzer, as he was called, was trying to assert his proctorial
authority over them, they had jeered him, and torn his clothes, and
bespattered him with mud. A small group of gownsmen rushed to his
rescue.

"Oh, this is painful," said the Rev. Thomas Tozer, putting the
handkerchief to his bleeding nose. "This is painful! This is exceedingly
painful, gentlemen!"

He was at once surrounded by sympathising undergraduates, who begged him
to allow them to charge the town at once. But the Town far outnumbered
the Gown, and, in spite of the assistance of the reverend proctor, the
fight was going against them. The Rev. Thomas Tozer had just been
knocked down for the first time in his life, and the cry of "Gown to the
rescue!" fell very pleasantly on his ears. Mr. Verdant Green helped him
to rise, while the Putney Pet stepped before him and struck out right
and left. Ten minutes of scientific pugilism, and the fate of the battle
was decided. The Town fled every way, and the Rev. Thomas Tozer was at
last able to look calmly about him. He at once resumed his proctorial
duties.

"Why have you not on your gown, sir?" he said to the Putney Pet.

"I ax yer pardon, guv'nor," said the Pet deferentially. "I couldn't get
on in it, nohow. So I pocketed it; but some cove has gone and prigged
it."

"I am unable to comprehend the nature of your language, sir," said the
Rev. Thomas Tozer angrily, thinking it was an impudent undergraduate. "I
don't understand you, sir; but I desire at once to know your name and