Those days at Oxford are written in our memories in red letters, even though a party more bent on triviality and foolishness has not often disgraced the hospitality of a Scholar. He does not, I fear, forget how, after patient and learned exposition and exhibition of many colleges, one asked him, in genuine, even painstaking, ignorance, to remind her which of them had been “Waddle College”; and how he was only able to recall it to the inquirer’s memory by the mention of a certain little white dog that was sitting at the entrance gate. Nor how, when taken to the roof of the Bodleian, to be shown the surrounding glories of Oxford, the sight of one of the ventilators of its reading-room had evoked in Martin Ross an uncontrollable longing to shriek down it, in imitation of a dog whose tail has been jammed in a door. (An incomparable gift of hers, that has made the fortune of many a dull dinner-party.) I have often wondered what the grave students in that home of learning thought of the unearthly cry from the heavens, Sirius, as it were, in mortal agony. We were not permitted to wait for a sequel. Our host, with blanched face, hurried us away.
“These be toys,” but they were pleasant, and one more recollection of that time may be permitted. It was April 30th, and on May morning, as all properly instructed persons know, the choristers of Magdalen salute the rising sun from the top of Magdalen Tower. Our host, the Don, being a man having authority, determined that we were to view this ceremony; and being also a man of intelligence, decided that one of his menials should for the occasion take his office of guide and protector. Accordingly, at some four of the clock, a faithful undergraduate threw small stones at our windows in the Mitre Hotel, and, presently, with an ever increasing crowd, we ran at his heels to Magdalen Tower. We gained the spiral stone staircase with a good few on it in advance of us, and a mighty multitude following behind. Then it was, when about halfway up, and anything save advance was impossible, that the youngest and the tallest of us announced that giddiness had come upon her, and that she was unable to move. The faithful undergraduate rose to the occasion, and immediately directed her to put her arms round his waist. This she did, and, unsolicited, buried her face in his Norfolk jacket’s waist-band. Thus they arrived safely at the antechamber to the roof. There we left her, and climbed the ladder that leads to the roof. The sun rose, the white-robed choir warbled their Latin hymn, the Tower rocked, we saw its battlements sway between us and its neighbour spires, and while these things were occurring, a very long thing, like an alligator, crawled across the leads towards us—the youngest of the party, unable to be out of it, but equally unable to stand up. The faithful undergraduate renewed his attentions.
All this is long ago; the two gayest spirits, who made the fortunes of that visit, have left us. Magdalen, and its cloisters, and its music, have moved into the bright places of memory. When I think now of those May days
“There comes no answer but a sigh,
A wavering thought of the grey roofs,
The fluttering gown, the gleaming oars,
And the sound of many bells.”[12]
and I “can make reply,” falteringly,
“‘I too have seen Oxford.’”
About a fortnight after this we sold “The Real Charlotte” to Messrs. Ward and Downey for £250 and half American rights (which, as far as I can remember, never materialised). After this we devoted ourselves to the trousseau of the youngest of the party—which was a matter that had not been divulged to the faithful undergraduate, and is only mentioned now in order to justify the chronicling of two of the comments of Castle Haven on the accompanying display of wedding presents. One critic said that to see them was like being in Paradise. Another declared that it was for all the world like a circus.
Are things that are equal to the same thing equal to each other? It is a question for the Don of Magdalen to decide.
* * * * *
Not for another year did “The Real Charlotte” see the light. Various business disasters pursued and detained her; it was in May, 1894, that she at length appeared, and was received by no means with the trumpets and shawms suggested by Sir William Gregory.