Before the forfeits were well paid, supper was ready, and in spite of my ill-usage, Cousin David would be my cavalier again; he was a good-humoured young giant, very like his sister Mary, and I began to feel a little triumphant over him, in spite of his size, after my recent exploit, and when he talked, I talked again in my little way, except when I was listening to the healths being drunk, and thanks returned, after the country fashion at marriage festivities. Cousin Mary was in her place, with George Standish beside her, and I saw her give a little start and blush when “Mr. and Mrs. George Standish” were coupled together, but of all the fun to me old Mr. Jewson was now the greatest. He never raised his glass to his lips, which he did pretty frequently, without giving utterance to a sentiment: “May the man never grow fat who wears two faces under one hat!” or something of a similar character, and on the name of an individual, who was not popular in the district, being mentioned, he drunk again, prefacing it with, “Here’s a porcupine saddle and a high trotting horse to that fellow!” to which several responded with gruff “Amens!”
Supper did not last so long as tea, and when it was over, some one said Cousin Mary and George Standish were going home, and when most of us returned to the kitchen and parlour, they disappeared; Mary going upstairs with her mother, sister, and cousins to make ready. But we watched the start from one of the windows, where we had drawn the curtains back. The moon was up, and the wind had broken and scattered the clouds, so we saw them mount their horses, for they had three miles to ride, and David and Joseph were to set them part of the way. In the midst of a chorus of “good-byes,” and “God bless you, Marys,” they rode away, Mary never looking up, that I could see, from the moment her husband had lifted her into the saddle; but I don’t think she was crying. Her mother cried, though, but not long; the duties of hostess soon dried her tears, and she was busy trying to set us all dancing again, while Curly Dick marched up and down the room, trolling out a love-song in the mellowest voice I ever remember to have heard.
There were more dances, and more games, and then the cousins returned frosty-faced and livelier than ever to join us, and so we went on and on, the hours slipping by uncounted, until a message came from Long Tom that our time was up, and he was wanting to take his horses home.
So there was the re-swathing against the cold to be done, and then our grand team came creaking to the gate, and the dark figures poured out into the snow again; our hands were shaken, and the cousins all kissed in a cousinly way, as good-nights were said. Then Cousin Joseph lifted Sophy into the wagon, and somebody else, who had been very constant all night at Anne’s elbow, did the same kindness for her, and Cousin David, before I was aware, had hold of me.
“Now, Miss Poppy, you’re going to give me a kiss, I know,” said he persuasively, to which I responded, “No, I was not.” “Then I shan’t let you go without;” and immediately he took unfair advantage of his strength to the extortion of half-a-dozen, and then put me carefully into the wagon.
“Are you cross, Poppy? If you don’t like to keep Cousin David’s kisses, give him them back again,” said Sophy, and then foreman looked to see that all was right, Long Tom cracked his whip, and away we went through the dark and frosty morning. Three struck by Rookwood church clock just as we passed it.
After a little gossip over the events of the evening, we began to be drowsy, and dropt off, one by one, into the sound sleep of youth and health, waking no more until Mr. Preston’s jolly voice greeted us from his bedroom window, with “All safe and sound, lasses?” Then we were bundled in-doors, and set down to hot coffee, and an early breakfast by the kitchen fire, after which we pronounced ourselves as fresh as daisies; had a good ducking, re-dressed, and were ready to help in finishing off the great snow-man, when the boys came down. Ah! we can’t dance six hours on end now, take a nap in a wagon, and make a snow-man after it with unwearied zest! That trio under the tilt, that merry trio, will never in this world meet again. Lively Sophy is under the sod, and quiet Anne with father and mother, brothers, and husband, is far away over the seas, leading a new life in a new country; and, as for Miss Poppy, in recalling the merry days when she was young, she sees so many shadows amongst the living figures, that if the winter wedding in the wolds could come again, half the dancers on the floor would be only dim and doleful ghosts,—’Tis a dozen years ago!
Student Life in Scotland.
I fear that this paper will sadly resemble the well-known chapter on the snakes of Iceland. There are no snakes in that ill-at-ease island, and there is little student life in Scotland. It may smack of the emerald phraseology of our Irish friends to say, that in a country abounding in students, and not backward in study, there is little of student life; but that is because, in common parlance, life is used to signify one of the forms of life—society. It shows clearly enough how thoughts run, when the name of student life is not given to the solitary turning of pages and wasting of midnight oil—to the mastering of Greek particles and the working of the differential calculus, but to the amusements of young men when they have thrown aside their books, to the alliances which they form, to the conversations they start, to their hunting, to their boating, to their fencing, to their drinking, to their love-making,—in a word, to their social ways. Read any account of student life in England, in Ireland, or in Germany, and tell me whether the studies of the young fellows are not the least part of what is regarded in a university education. It is very sad to hear of a pluck; and a novelist is a cruel-hearted wretch who will introduce that incident, after showing us to our content how debts should be incurred, how foxes are run down, how wine-parties are conducted, how Julia loses her heart, and how the proctor loses his temper; but it is only in this way—it is only by introducing the academical guillotine upon the stage, that we discover the university, as it appears in a novel, to be the sacred haunts of the Muses. Shall we go to Germany? It is not the subjective and the objective—it is not the identity of the identical and the non-identical—it is not lexicons and commentaries that we hear of. The song of the Burschen is in our ears; we move in a world that is made up of but two elements—beer and smoke; duels are fought for our edification; riots are raised for the express purpose of amusing us; the girl at the beerhouse is of more account than Herr Professor; and, on the whole, it seems as if the university were a glorious institution, to teach young men the true art of merrymaking. Nor are the novelists altogether wrong in declaring that these doings are a fair sample of university life. What is it that draws men to the university? The chance of a fellowship, and the other prizes of a successful university career, will no doubt attract some men; but we know that independently of prizes and honours, a university education has a very high value in this country. And why? Is it because of the knowledge of books acquired? Is it because a young man cannot coach for his degree in Manchester, or in the Isle of Wight, or in the Isle of Dogs, as well as in Oxford or Cambridge? Is there no balm save in Gilead? Are mathematics confined to the reeds of Cam, and classics to the willows of Isis? May we not read but in Balliol or Trinity? Doubtless, the education provided in these ancient seminaries is of the very highest quality; but learning may be obtained elsewhere than at college. For that matter, indeed, most men are self-educated. What they acquire from a teacher is as nothing to what they acquire from their own researches. What a university or a great public school gives, that cannot be obtained elsewhere, is society—the society of equal minds. A boy is taken from under the parental wing, is sent to school and thrown upon his own resources. He can no longer sing out when he is worsted—“I’ll tell mamma;” he has to hold his own in a little world that is made up entirely of boys; he must learn independence; he must fight his way: he must study the arts of society before he has well laid aside his petticoats. So at college—it is in the clash of wit and the pulling of rival oars, it is in the public life and the social habit, it is in the free-and-easy measuring of man with man, that the chief value of a residence in the university lies. The system no doubt has its drawbacks. We must take the bad with the good; and no man who has had experience of it will deny that almost nothing in after life can make up for the want of that early discipline, which is to be obtained only in the rough usage of a school and the wild play of a university. Society, in these haunts, may exist chiefly in its barbaric elements, but they are elements that bring out the man; and the great glory of our universities is not so much that they make us scholars (though they have this also to boast of), as that they make us men.