CHAPTER XII.THE JUNIOR ON LEAVE OUT.Saints’ Days—Early Leave Out—Poaching—Rowing—A Dinner—Sunday Leave Out.
Saints’ Days—Early Leave Out—Poaching—Rowing—A Dinner—Sunday Leave Out.
Thoroughly to realise the merits of the holy men of old, one should have been at a public school; nobody ever welcomed the recurrence of their anniversaries with more sincere joy than a Junior at Winchester, always supposing that he had friends in the town or neighbourhood who would invite him to visit them on such occasions, otherwise the advantages, as hinted at above, were more than doubtful. If invited by friends in the neighbourhood, we were allowed “Early leave out,”i.e., from immediately after morning chapel; or if by friends in the town,from one o’clock; in both cases we had to be back for evening chapel, at a quarter before nine. I was fortunate enough to have hospitable friends, and a Saint’s-day seldom failed to be a day of rejoicing to me.
If we had early leave out we used generally to hire a “four-wheeler” from Watt’s of the Blue Boar, and gallop out to our destination, arriving probably before the family were up; and the breakfasts we used to devour on these occasions must have caused our kind entertainers to rejoice that Saints’ days did not occur every day of the week.
We frequently spent our days in fishing or shooting, according to the season of the year, varied with skating, boating, rifle practice in a chalk pit, &c., &c. Our shooting expeditions were generally undertaken without leave from any proprietor, but I have not much on my conscience as regards the amount of our depredations. The best bag that we ever made was, to the best of myrecollection, one hare, two rats, a swallow, and fifteen larks. On that memorable day we quietly walked into a preserve four abreast, and blazed away, without doing the least harm, (except to one most unfortunate hare, that would sit still,) until a keeper appeared. I immediately bolted, shouting to my companions to separate and do the same; instead of doing so, however, they followed me in Indian file, and we were ultimately run to ground in a chalk pit. Our pursuer had no roof to his mouth; and between that, recent beer, rage, and exhaustion from the pace he had come, his speech was perhaps slightly incoherent. I offered him a cigar, but he was not amenable to reason, and we ultimately left him in the chalk pit gnashing his teeth.
This was not our last interview with this gentleman, but on the second occasion our intentions were innocent; we were walking through this same plantation, without guns, or any notion of game, when we espied a hare lying dead under atree; on closer inspection it proved to be caught in a wire; we held an inquest on the body, and the unanimous opinion being that apost-mortemexamination was necessary, and that that would more conveniently be entered upon at home, it was forthwith tucked up in one of our gowns; but, lo! scarcely had this been accomplished when, in the tree immediately above that under which the corpse had been lying, we heard a cracking of twigs, and before we could fully realise the state of things, our friend without a palate lay on his back in the midst of us. As he had heard all the particulars of the inquest, he must have known that we were not the murderers, but on our representing this to him, he very sagely remarked, that he had been up in the tree for six hours, and that he was quite contented with having secured us, and had not the slightest intention of mounting guard again for the chance of discovering the real offenders. We had a long argument with him, but he failed to see the thing in the proper light,and we with some difficulty succeeded in compromising the affair for a half-sovereign.
Popjoy was not contented with a little poaching in the shooting line, but used also occasionally to indulge his fishing propensities without going through the preliminary form of requesting leave. He one day had recourse to a stratagem to indulge in his favourite pursuit that for brazen impudence beats anything of the kind I ever heard of. He drove over to Avington, and commenced fishing in the Duke of Buckingham’s best water. Of course he hadn’t been there half an hour before the keeper appeared, saying—
“You mustn’t fish here, sir.”
Popjoy.“I have the Duke’s leave; please stand back, you disturb the fish.”
K.“What’s your name.”
P.“Popjoy.”
K.“Don’t know that name, and you must be off.”
“Wont you believe the Duke’s own handwriting,”rejoined the undaunted Popjoy, handing him a letter received that morning from his affectionate mamma.
The keeper twisted the mysterious document about in his hands for a little, and returned it to the owner with a grunt. Popjoy then proceeded to extract from him all possible information about flies, the haunts of the fish, &c., &c., and had a particularly good day’s sport.
Another great resource on Leave-out days was a row on the river in one of Etheridge’s boats,—they were rather sorry tubs, but we managed to extract amusement out of them; if, in this particular line, “militavi non sine gloriâ,” I can’t say that my Winchester education had much to do with it. However, the most consummate master of the art of rowing that ever adorned Oxford always preferred to take raw hands and teach them to pull, to Eton or Westminster men, who came up to Oxford fancying themselves perfect already; and I am proud to say that among the immortal Seven of Henley there were two Wykehamists.
I am indebted to the liberal hospitality of an esteemed relative for many very pleasant days, and especially for one, which was perhaps the jolliest I spent during the whole time I was at Winchester I received a letter from him one morning, informing me that on a given day he would pass through Winchester, and requesting me to furnish him with a list of boys to ask to dinner; accordingly I selected half a dozen, and we got leave out for the afternoon. He only stopped to change horses, (it was in the posting days,) and on his departure he told the landlord of the George to provide us with the best dinner he could, gave me a five-pound note, and a “tip” for all my friends. That was a specimen of the tip royal; how fervently we blessed him, and what a jolly dinner we had!
Every alternate Sunday also we were allowed to spend the afternoon with friends in the town, if invited, but we had to be back for five o’clock chapel. Happy were those boys who were so fortunate as I was in being acquainted with Mr Sissmore, the patriarch of the College fellows, whosehospitable board was always surrounded on these days by a circle of boys, whom he used to amuse with stories of the pranks of their ancestors, as he remembered many of their grandfathers when little boys at school.