Here, at last, then, had I once more met with Miss Curzon! Yet how was she altered! She was now about sixteen, and considerably above the common height of women, and her figure possessed an air of far greater slenderness than when I first met her. Then, too, her hair, which was mostly concealed, was light—now she wore a profusion of it, of a dark and glossy brown. She was in deep mourning.
Every day did I direct my steps to this hallowed spot, but in vain. She had been on a visit, I suppose, and had now left the neighbourhood. But, to my imagination, she was ever present, the last vision at night, and the first in the morning, but I never could dream about her.
CHAPTER VIII.[ToC]
Though ever leading a life very much at variance with the established discipline of the college, it was seldom that I was detected; but about this time, though really living in far greater conformity to its rules than usual, it was very hard upon me that I should now meet with a surprising run of ill-luck.
At one time I had become ambitious of exercising the rites of hospitality, which was the more patriotic on my part, as every article of the repast had to be stolen. I had been led on to this expense by a friend presenting me with three bottles of port, which, of course, would need a few biscuits to accompany them; and then I thought of a dessert, and at length ascended to the determination of giving a downright supper.
The brace of partridges, then, and the moor-hen, I shot on the other side of Dorney Common; the milk for the bread-sauce, came as usual from the old black and white cow. The ale, bread, knives and forks, I easily procured from my dame's own supper-table, just before she and the rest of the boys entered the room.
An hour or two after all in the house had gone to bed, my two friends and I had roasted our birds, and enjoyed probably such a meal as we shall never again so much appreciate. Had each of us preferred the partridges, the affair had not gone off so well; but, fortunately, Tyrrel very aptly began to speculate on the virtues of the moor-hen, informing us that it was undoubtedly the highly prized ορτυξ of the early Greeks, but kindly relinquishing his share of it, Kennedy enjoyed the whole of it to himself; for, though I doubted not but that the subject had been classically handled, I obstinately returned to my old opinion relative to the difference between a partridge and a tough old moor-hen. These, then, had been duly respected, and we were sitting round the fire, with the second bottle of port looking rather foolish in front of us, and were wondering at the cannons which were then being fired on Windsor hill, when we were alarmed on hearing somebody coming quickly up the stairs. Having blown out the candles, and put the bottles into my drawer, we each jumped into our beds, but were by no means pleased when the man-servant entered merely to awaken and inform us, that Tim Cannon had won his fight of Josh Hudson, for which great event the guns were then firing, and that, in the joy of his heart, he had got up to claim an even bet of sixpence, which he had made with Kennedy relative to the result.