A lad of such tastes was pretty sure to be sent to one of the universities: and after an interval of a delicious twelvewmonth at home, during which period of relaxation the young ’squire not only destroyed every rat in every barn within a day’s ride of The Ashes, but also made acquaintance with every tap of beer, and struck up a friendship with every blackguard, within the same distance, this promising acolyte was entered at Brazen-Nose, and went up to keep his terms at Alma Mater, and acquire whatever knowledge was most adapted to his intellectual hunger, at that repository of learning.
Here, it is needless to observe, he rowed a great deal, smoked a great deal, drank an enormous quantity of beer, and read not the least in the world. He acquired, however, considerable proficiency in the difficult art of driving a tandem, and could conceal boots and breeches under loose pantaloons, when attending chapel on a hunting morning, more dexterously than any undergraduate of his year.
He kept the drag, too, for one season, but found his mode of life too dissipated to admit of the nerve requisite for that amusement. These dare-devil young gentlemen, you see, go out for the express purpose of breaking each other’s necks. They ride, of course, directly at the leading hound; but that quadruped, generally an old stager, and stimulated by a red-herring steeped in aniseed, gives them plenty to do before they can catch him. It is a point of honour, I am given to understand, to turn away from nothing; and the man who can get through his horse quickest, is esteemed to have won the laurels of the day. It is scarcely possible to imagine an education more calculated to make a horseman, and spoil a sportsman, than the Oxford drag.
When Plumtree renounced the mastership of this dashing establishment, he devoted himself exclusively to driving, and became, if possible, more beery than before. For lectures he cherished an unaccountable aversion, nor was it likely that the wit and learning of the schools would prove very tempting to a man whose heart was habitually in the cellars.
Well, of course, it came to a finish at last; and Jovial Jem was rusticated; “Rusticated, by the Hookey!” to use his own remarkable words, “and recommended not to come up again. Well out of it, too, in my opinion: and as to another round, why if I do, I do; but if I do, I’m—!”
Old Plumtree was grievously disappointed, of course. By the way, I know very few cases in which sons do not disappoint their fathers. I suppose it would be difficult to persuade the latter that the former are not exclusively in fault. Old Squaretoes lays down a course of conduct for his child, totally irrespective of the feelings, inclination, and disposition of the latter. Then, if young Squaretoes don’t fit the groove, and slide easily down the metal, he is undutiful, disobedient, ungrateful, everything that the Prodigal Son was, before he came to eating husks amongst the swine. If young S. turn out “slow,” ten to one but old S., in suicidal folly, wishes he “had a spice more devil in him.” If he be fast, the governor shakes in his shoes, foreseeing debts, bills, acceptances, renewals, and eventual penury. If he make a figure in the world on his own wings, taking warning by Icarus, and scorning to use the paternal pinions, his father is often jealous of his success. If, on the contrary, he remain in secure and humble obscurity, then the cry is, “Why, the lad has no spirit in him! Look at what I should have done at his age, and with his advantages!” Good masters make good servants. Unselfish and considerate fathers, more than people are aware of, make attached and dutiful sons.
So Jovial Jem came home, and took up his abode at The Ashes, completely upsetting the regularity of that establishment, where, in his absence, everything went on like clockwork. For his own sake, Mr. Plumtree senior gave his son a couple of rooms, shut off from the rest of the mansion by double doors of baize, through which the fumes of latakia could not possibly penetrate, and ordered the domestics to serve their young master with breakfast and dinner at his own hours, when required, in his own apartments. By this arrangement, the heir was wonderfully little in his father’s way; and unless the pair happened to meet on a summer’s morning, when the old one was going to his hay-field, fresh and rosy, and the young one returning from a junketing, pale and exhausted, father and son often did not see each other for weeks. Consequently, they got on admirably. Young Plumtree swore “The Governor was a dear old bird; crotchety of course, but a regular brick nevertheless;” and old Plumtree, who always took a solemn pinch of snuff before he delivered himself of a remark, was fond of stating, very slowly and distinctly, that “Young men won’t settle at once. Can’t expect it, sir—can’t expect it! But the lad’s got something in him. If we could only get at it, sir! if we could only get at it!”
“I heard of your downer, old ’un,” this agreeable young gentleman observed with great cordiality, transferring his attention from Miss Lushington to myself. “Wasn’t out myself that day; couldn’t raise a prad, or I’d have seen you picked up, and dissected, and all that. First day I can get away from home, says I, I’ll just tool over and visit the mutilated sportsman. Thought you’d be dull, you know, with nobody but Miss Lushington, though she’s pleasant company too when she’s got her stockings on right-side-in.”
“Come, that’s a good one,” observed the lady alluded to thus familiarly, with a meaning glance. “As if you didn’t know of our late arrival! Oh, you’re a deep one, Mr. Plumtree, you are!”
The young gentleman blushed, a real honest shame-faced blush, such as I did not believe could have been raised, after six years of Eton and two of Oxford, to save a man’s life. “Get out!” said he, chivalrously ignoring the cause of his confusion. “None of your chaff, Miss L. Ain’t I always ready to help a lame dog over a stile? Wouldn’t I drive a hundred miles in a butcher’s cart without springs, to succour a mutilated friend? Ain’t I pitiful, and tender, and soft-hearted? Come, you know I am.”