At length the grand night arrived. By nine o’clock the theatre in Savile’s rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any degree of comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and bedroom, which, being on opposite sides, served admirably for dressing-rooms behind the scenes, the usual bustle of preparation was going on. As is common in such cases, some essential properties had been forgotten until the last moment. No bonnet had been provided for Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks abroad in; and when the little hair-dresser, who had been retained to give a finishing touch to some of the coiffures, returned with one belonging to his “missis,” which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the rising of the curtain—thinking, very excusably, that it was quite unjustifiable to keep all the fun to ourselves.
After some little trial of our “public’s” patience, the play began in good earnest, and was most favourably received. Indeed, as the only price of admission exacted was a promise of civil behaviour, and there were two servants busily employed in handing about punch and “bishop,” it would have been rather hard if we did not succeed in propitiating their good-humour. With the exception of two gentlemen who had been dining out, and were rather noisy in consequence, and evinced a strong inclination occasionally to take a part in the dialogue, all behaved wonderfully well, greeting each performer, as he made his first entrance, with a due amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the best scenes; laughing (whether at the raciness of the acting, or the grotesque metamorphoses of the actors, made no great difference), and filling up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage, in spite of the prompter, with vociferous encouragement to the “sticket” actor. With an audience so disposed, each successive scene went off better and better. One deserves to be particularised. It was the second in the first act of the comedy; the stage directions for it are as follows: “Scene—An alehouse room—Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco; Tony at the head of the table, &c., discovered.” Never, perhaps, in any previous representation, was the mise en scène so perfect; it drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal compliment to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking “shabby fellows” as sat round the table at which our Tony presided, were never furnished by the supernumeraries of Drury or Covent Garden. They were as classical, in their way, as Macready’s Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe puffing of empty pipes, and fictitious drinking of small-beer for punch; every nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song, with its stentorian chorus, was honoured with, gave all the parties engaged time to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It was quite a pity, as was unanimously agreed, when the entrance of Marlow and Hastings, as in duty bound, interrupted so jovial a society. But “all that’s bright must fade”—and so the Three Pigeons’ scene, and the play too, came to an end in due course. The curtain fell amidst universal applause, modified only by the urgent request, which, as manager, I had more than once to repeat, that gentlemen would be kind enough to restrain their feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house resolved itself into its component elements—all went their ways,—the reading men probably to a Greek play, by way of afterpiece; sleepy ones to bed, and idle ones to their various inventions; and the actors, after the fatigues of the night, to a supper, which was to be the “finish.” It was to take place in one of the men’s rooms which happened to be on the same staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties, who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right merry party we were, all sitting down in character—Mrs Hardcastle at the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom, with the “young ladies” on each side. It was the best tableau of the evening; pity there was neither artist to sketch, nor spectators to admire it! But, like many other merry meetings, there are faithful portraits of it—proof impressions—in the memories of many who were present, not yet obliterated, hardly even dimmed, by time; laid by, like other valuables, which, in the turmoil of life, we find no time to look at, but not thrown aside or forgotten, and brought out sometimes, in holidays and quiet hours, for us to look at once more, and enjoy their beauty, and feel, after all, how much what we have changed is “cœlum non animum.” I am now—no matter what. Of my companions at that well-remembered supper, one is a staid and orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a third a respectable country gentleman, justice of the peace, “and quorum;” a fourth, they tell me, a semi-Papist: but set us all down together in that same room, draw the champagne corks, and let some Lethe (the said champagne, if you please) wash out all that has passed over us in the last few years, and my word on it, three out of four of us are but boys still; and though much shaving, pearl powder, and carmine, might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more delicate class than Meg Merrilies, I have no doubt we could all of us once more smoke a pipe in character at “The Three Pigeons.”
Merrily the evening passed off, and merrily the little hours came on, and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in the way of the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy encumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double-rap at the outer door.
“Who’s there?” said one of the most self-possessed of the company.
“I wish to speak to Mr Challoner,” was the quiet reply.
The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more outré costume than that of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig, and buttoned his coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat, looked tolerably like himself as he proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I rather hoped than otherwise that the gentleman, whoever he was, would walk in, when, if he intended to astonish us, he was very likely to find the tables turned. However, even college dons recognise the principle that every man’s house is his castle, and never violate the sanctity of even an undergraduate’s rooms. The object of this present visit, however, was rather friendly than otherwise. One of the fellows, deservedly popular, had been with the dean, and had left him in a state of some excitement from the increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the quadrangle from our party. He had called, therefore, to advise Challoner either to keep his friends quiet, or to get rid of them, if he wished to keep out of the dean’s jurisdiction. As it was towards three in the morning, we thought it prudent to take this advice as it was meant, and in a few minutes began to wend our respective ways homewards. Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in the same direction, were steering along, very soberly, under a bright moonlight, when something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to break out, at the top of their voices, into a stanza of that immortal ditty, “We won’t go home till morning.” Instantly we could hear a window, which we well knew to be the dean’s, open above us, and as the unmelodious chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual strain—“Who is making that disturbance?”
No one volunteering an explanation, he went on.
“Who are those in the quadrangle?”
Leicester and I walked somewhat faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not condescend to run, as we heard steps coming down from No. 5, at a pace that evidently portended a chase, and remembered for the first time the remarkable costume which, to common observers, would indicate that there was a visitor of an unusual character enjoying the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we reached the “thoroughfare,” the passage from the inner to the outer quadrangle, we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after us, and Leicester’s rooms were the nearest, we both made good our retreat thither, and sported oak.
The porter’s lodge was in the next number; and hearing a knocking in that quarter, Leicester gently opened the window, and we could catch the following dialogue:—