from the railway-station; and a background of gently-rising hills. It was a cheerful scene, and the variety of figures gave life and animation to the whole.
Young ladies and unprotected females were found in abundance, dressed in all the engaging variety of light spring dresses; and, as may be supposed, our hero attracted a great deal of their attention, and afforded them no small amusement. But the unusual and terrific appearance of a spectacled gownsman with a cane produced the greatest alarm among the juveniles, who imagined our freshman to be a new description of beadle or Bogy, summoned up by the exigencies of the times to preserve a rigorous discipline among the young people; and, regarding his cane as the symbol of his stern sway, they harassed their nursemaids by unceasingly charging at their petticoats for protection.
Altogether, Mr. Verdant Green made quite a sensation.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. VERDANT GREEN DINES, BREAKFASTS, AND GOES TO CHAPEL.
OUR hero dressed himself with great care, that he might make his first appearance in Hall with proper eclat - and, having made his way towards the lantern-surmounted building, he walked up the steps and under the groined archway with a crowd of hungry undergraduates who were hurrying in to dinner. The clatter of plates would have alone been sufficient to guide his steps; and, passing through one of the doors in the elaborately carved screen that shut off the passage and the buttery, he found himself within the hall of Brazenface. It was of noble size, lighted by lofty windows, and carried up to a great height by an open roof, dark (save where it opened to the lantern) with great oak beams, and rich with carved pendants and gilded bosses. The ample fire-places displayed the capaciousness of those collegiate mouths of "the wind-pipes of hospitality," and gave an idea of the dimensions of the kitchen ranges. In the centre of the hall was a huge plate-warmer, elaborately worked in brass with the college arms. Founders and benefactors were seen, or suggested, on all sides; their arms gleamed from the windows in all the glories of stained glass; and their faces peered out from the massive gilt frames on the walls, as though their shadows loved to linger about the spot that had been benefited by their substance. At the further end of the hall a deep bay-window threw its painted light upon a dais, along which stretched the table for the Dons; Masters and Bachelors occupied side-tables; and the other tables were filled up by the undergraduates; every one, from the Don downwards, being in his gown.
Our hero was considerably impressed with the (to him) singular character of the scene; and from the "Benedictus benedicat" grace-before-meat to the "Benedicto benedicamur" after-meat, he gazed curiously around him in silent wonderment. So much indeed was he wrapped up in the novelty of the scene, that he ran a great risk of losing his dinner. The scouts fled about in all directions with plates, and glasses, and pewter dishes, and massive silver mugs that had gone round the tables for the last two centuries, and still no one waited upon Mr. Verdant Green. He twice ventured to timidly say, "Waiter!" but as no one answered to his call, and as he was too bashful and occupied with his own thoughts to make another attempt, it is probable that he would have risen from dinner as unsatisfied as when he sat down, had not his right-hand companion (having partly relieved his own wants) perceived his neighbour to be a freshman, and kindly said to him, "I think you'd better begin your dinner, because we don't stay here long.