Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ their own perquisites suffering thereby. But Job Allen was a scout of a thousand. His honesty and integrity made him quite the "rara avis" of his class —i. e., a white swan amongst a flock of black ones. Though really, since I have left the university, and been condemned to house-keeping, and have seen the peculation and perquisite-hunting existing pretty nearly in the same proportion amongst ordinary servants – and the higher you go in society the worse it seems to be – without a tittle of the activity and cleverness displayed by a good college scout, who provides supper and etceteras for an extemporary party of twenty or so at an hour's notice, without starting a difficulty or giving vent to a grumble, or neglecting any one of his other multifarious duties, (further than perhaps borrowing for the service of the said supper, some hard-reading freshman's whole stock of knives, and leaving him to spread his nocturnal bread and butter with his fingers;) since I have been led to compare this with the fuss and fidget caused in a "well-regulated family" among one's own lazy vagabonds by having an extra horse to clean, or by a couple of friends arriving unexpectedly to dinner, when they all stare at you as if you were expecting impossibilities, I have nearly come to the conclusion that college servants, like hedgehogs, are a grossly calumniated race of animals – wrongfully accused of getting their living by picking and stealing, whereas they are in fact rather more honest than the average of their neighbours. It is to be hoped that, like the hedgehogs, they enjoy a compensation in having too thick skins to be over-sensitive. At all events, Job Allen was an honest fellow. He had been known to expostulate with some of his more reckless masters upon the absurdities of their goings-on; and had more than once had a commons of bread flung at his head, when taking the opportunity of symptoms of repentance, in an evident disrelish for breakfast, to hint at the slow but inevitable approach of "degree-day." Cold chickens from the evening's supper-party had made a miraculous reappearance at next morning's lunch or breakfast; half-consumed bottles of port seemed, under his auspices, to lead charmed lives. No wonder, then, there was very little information about the private affairs of Russell to be got out of Job Allen. He had but a very poor talent for gossip, and none at all for invention. "Mr Russell's a very nice, quiet sort of gentleman, sir, and keeps his-self pretty much to his-self." This was Job's account of him; and, to curious enquirers, it was provoking both for its meagreness and its truth. "Who's his friend in the rusty gown, Job?" "I thinks, sir, his name's Smith." "Is Mr Russell going up for a class, Job?" "I can't say indeed, sir." "Does he read hard?" "Not over-hard I think, sir." "Does he sit up late, Job?" "Not over-late, sir." If there was any thing to tell, it was evident Job would neither commit himself nor his master.

      Russell's conduct was certainly uncommon. If he had been the son of a poor man, dependent for his future livelihood on his own exertions, eking out the scanty allowance ill-spared by his friends by the help of a scholarship or exhibition, and avoiding society as leading to necessary expense, his position would have been understood, and even, in spite of the prejudices of youthful extravagance, commended. Or if he had been a hard-reading man from choice – or a stupid man – or a "saint" – no one would have troubled themselves about him or his proceedings. But Russell was a gentleman-commoner, and a man who had evidently seen something of the world; a rich man, and apparently by no means of the character fitted for a recluse. He had dined once with the principal, and the two or three men who had met him there were considerably surprised at the easy gracefulness of his manners, and his information upon many points usually beyond the range of undergraduates: at his own table, too, he never affected any reserve, although, perhaps from a consciousness of having virtually declined any intimacy with his companions, he seldom originated any conversation. It might have been assumed, indeed, that he despised the society into which he was thrown, but that his bearing, so far from being haughty or even cold, was occasionally marked by apparent dejection. There was also, at times, a breaking out as it were of the natural spirits of youth, checked almost abruptly; and once or twice he had betrayed an interest in, and a knowledge of, field-sports and ordinary amusements, which for the moment made his hearers fancy, as Tichborne said, that he was "coming out." But if, as at first often happened, such conversations led to a proposal for a gallop with the harriers, or a ride the next afternoon, or a match at billiards, or even an invitation to a quiet breakfast party – the refusal, though always courteous – and sometimes it was fancied unwilling – was always decided. And living day by day within reach of that close companionship which similarity of age, pursuits, and tastes, strengthened by daily intercourse, was cementing around him, Charles Russell, in his twentieth year, in a position to choose his own society, and qualified to shine in it, seemed to have deliberately adopted the life of a recluse.

      There were some, indeed, who accounted for his behaviour on the ground of stinginess; and it was an opinion somewhat strengthened by one or two trifling facts. When the subscription-list for the College boat was handed to him, he put his name down for the minimum of one guinea, though Charley White, our secretary, with the happy union of impudence and "soft sawder" for which he was remarkable, delicately drew his attention to the fact, that no other gentleman-commoner had given less than five. Still it was not very intelligible that a man who wished to save his pocket, should choose to pay double fees for the privilege of wearing a velvet cap and silk gown, and rent the most expensive set of rooms in the college.

      It happened that I returned one night somewhat late from a friend's rooms out of college, and had the satisfaction to find that my scout, in an unusually careful mood, had shut my outer "oak," which had a spring lock, of which I never by any chance carried the key. It was too late to send for the rascal to open it, and I was just planning the possibility of effecting an entrance at the window by means of the porter's ladder, when the light in Russell's room caught my eye, and I remembered that, in the days of their former occupant, our keys used to correspond, very much to our mutual convenience. It was no very great intrusion, even towards one in the morning, to ask a man to lend you his door-key, when the alternative seemed to be spending the night in the quadrangle: so I walked up his staircase, knocked, was admitted, and stated my business with all proper apologies. The key was produced most graciously, and down I went again – unluckily two steps at a time. My foot slipped, and one grand rattle brought me to the bottom: not head first, but feet first, which possibly is not quite so dangerous, but any gentleman who has tried it will agree with me that it is sufficiently unpleasant. I was dreadfully shaken; and when I tried to get up, found it no easy matter. Russell, I suppose, heard the fall, for he was by my side by the time I had collected my ideas. I felt as if I had skinned myself at slight intervals all down one side; but the worst of it was a sprained ankle. How we got up-stairs again I have no recollection; but when a glass of brandy had brought me to a little, I found myself in an easy-chair, with my foot on a stool, shivering and shaking like a wet puppy. I staid there a fortnight, (not in the chair, reader, but in the rooms;) and so it was I became intimately acquainted with Charles Russell. His kindness and attention to me were excessive; I wished of course to be moved to my own rooms at once, but he would not hear of it; and as I found every wriggle and twist which I gave quite sufficiently painful, I acceded to my surgeon's advice to remain where I was.

      It was not a very pleasant mode of introduction for either party. Very few men's acquaintance is worth the pains of bumping all the way downstairs and spraining an ankle for: and for a gentleman who voluntarily confines himself to his own apartment and avoids society, to have another party chummed in upon him perforce, day and night, sitting in an armchair, with a suppressed groan occasionally, and an abominable smell of hartshorn – is, to say the least of it, not the happiest mode of hinting to him the evils of solitude. Whether it was that the one of us, compelled thus against his will to play the host, was anxious to show he was no churl by nature, and the other, feeling himself necessarily in a great degree an intruder and a bore, put forth more zealously any redeeming social qualities he might possess; be this as it might, within that fortnight Russell and I became sincere friends.

      I found him, as I had expected, a most agreeable and gentlemanlike companion, clever and well informed, and with a higher and more settled tone of principles than is common to his age and position. But strongly contrasted with his usually cheerful manner, were sudden intervals of abstraction approaching to gloominess. In him, it was evidently not the result of caprice, far less of any thing approaching to affectation. I watched him closely, partly from interest, partly because I had little else to do, and became convinced that there was some latent cause СКАЧАТЬ