O’er the depths of my darkened existence forever!”
But our old friend C——, he’s married now, and is the happy father of eight children, I believe. He always had an insane passion for crowds. Do you remember the night he escorted the whole boarding-school home with his umbrella; he always would, like the author of “Calavar,” have his umbrella with him—a green one—and this night the gods were propitious. It blew a hurricane, and the rain came pitching down in sheets, as if Niagara had attached a spout to the passing clouds. C—— plied between the concert-room and the boarding-school, with the regularity and precision of a Brooklyn ferry-boat, showing his regard for the fair. After having deposited the fifteenth damsel safely, he totally upset the propriety of an elderly lady who opened the door with a polite invitation for him to “walk in”—an open sesame worth a ducat—with the information that “he was afraid some more of the folks were without umbrellas, and he must see them home!” A spirit of self-denial and enlarged philanthropy worthy of a martyr.
Do you remember the exploits of S—— with those gay girls? He was a determined dandy and lady-killer, and resolved to take the whole school by storm, and to punish the refractory. But some how or other they wouldn’t be taken; so after firing into the flock a dozen times, with his most distinguished bow, and letting off a whole volley of passionate verses upon imprisoned damsels generally without execution—for no enamored Julia threw herself at his feet, or replied—he resolved to pick his bird. S—— had a cousin who visited a Miss T——, who was immured in that dungeon which frowned most terrifically, in S.’s mind, upon those within as well as those without; and he made, through this channel, her acquaintance. A walk to church in company with his cousin and Miss T—— perfected his little plot of taking the whole castle by this entrance; but a simple incident destroyed the forces of the enemy, and routed him, horse, foot, and dragoons. A violent storm came on while they were at church one Sunday evening, and the streets were flooded when they came out. The storm had passed, however, and a dull moon lent but a feeble light to the escort. S—— dropped his cousin at her door—it was the first chance he had, and starting on with Miss T——, opened the batteries of the sentimental upon his victim in most magnificent strength and style. As they crossed Canal street, S——, who had been carefully piloting the way, releasing the lady’s arm gently from his, and taking hold of the tips of those taper fingers with a grace that D’Orsey could not have excelled, requested her to “please step upon that stone,”—which the dull moon had made in the water—and, presto! the lady stepped into a pool which would have discolored the belt of a grenadier of six feet; and in his horror at his mistake, S—— missed his footing, and plunged in with a dive that would have gained him admirers in frogdom.
You remember the wit of Miss T——; she was out of the water almost before he was in it, and turning round with a gay laugh at the discomfited dandy, begged that “if his thoughts of suicide were confirmed, to try the river the next time, but she must decline being either the disconsolate mourner, or a party to the folly!” and with a light trip was off, up the steps, and had rung the bell before S—— could gasp an apology.
This, with most men, would have been a settler, but S——’s vanity was water and bullet-proof both. He dispatched the whole affair, to his own satisfaction, in a sonnet; and the next day, at two, strode past the school with the step of a conqueror, the mark of a score of quizzing-glasses and laughing faces. S—— bore the infliction this once with a nerve that would have taken any man to the cannon’s mouth. But he grew fiery and retaliatory under its repetition. “I will settle this business with a twenty-four pounder,” said he; and he did. The next day S—— begged the spy-glass of an old pilot, and walking calmly down with his dexter-eye on the enemy, surprised his forces by a cool, steady, deliberate gaze through his blunderbuss with glasses. The mistress ended the flirtation and supposed conquest by a threat, delicately conveyed, that “any future conduct of the kind would be intimated to the police.”
S—— determined to “die game,” and marched by with his Spanish mantle on each particular cold day, with the step of a grenadier; but fate, jealous of his valor, tripped him up one exceedingly wintry afternoon, when boys were experimenting with skates upon the side-walk. Poor S——, who had given his cloak an extra turn over his shoulders, fell at full length exactly opposite the window of the boarding-school, and floundered in his vain attempts to extricate himself, like a salmon thrown upon the land, his “Oakford” most ruinously crushed by a passing omnibus; and to crown his confusion, in the midst of a dozen windows suddenly thrown up, an Irish cabman hastened to his rescue, and having unrolled him and placed him on his feet, considerately asked, within hearing of two score of ears, “whether he had been long there?” The glory of the conqueror was gone!
“So fades, so languishes, grows dim, and dies,
All that this world is proud of.”
The bright faces, laughing eyes, and happy hearts of our youth, with its early friendships, have been replaced with sadder views of life, and you and I, Jeremy, are older—the world would say, wiser—but are we happier, Jeremy, think you?
G. R. G.