and spent three or four weeks in the forest between the settled districts of Canada and Maine, poling their canoe up lonely streams, meeting no human face, but smoking their pipes in great contentment by their evening camp fire. They chased a bear, and lost him in a windfall; killed two moose, six deer, and trout without number; and underwent, with exemplary patience, a martyrdom of midges, black flies, and mosquitoes. And when, at last, they turned their faces homeward, they wiled the way with plans of longer journeyings—more bear, more moose, more deer, more trout, more midges, black flies, and mosquitoes.
CHAPTER V.
| Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.—Gray. |
It was a week before "class day,"—that eventful day which was virtually to close the college career of Morton and his contemporaries. The little janitor, commonly called Paddy O'Flinn, was ringing the evening prayer bell from the cupola of Harvard Hall—its tone was dull and muffled, some graceless sophomore having lately painted it white, inside and out—and the students were mustering at the summons. The sedate and the gay, the tender freshman and the venerable senior, the prosperous city beau and the awkward country bumpkin, one and all were filing from their respective quarters towards the chapel in University Hall. The bell ceased; the loiterers quickened their steps; the last belated freshman, with the dread of the proctor before his eyes, bounded frantically up the steps; and for a brief space all was silence and solitude. Then there was a murmuring, rushing sound, as of a coming tempest, and University Hall disgorged its contents, casting forth the freshmen and juniors at one door, and the sophomores and seniors at the other.
Of these last was Morton, who, with three or four of his class, walked across the college yard, towards the great gateway. By his side was a young man named Rosny, carelessly dressed, but with a lively, dare-devil face, and the look of a good-natured game cock.
"I shall be sorry to leave this place," said Morton; "I like it. I like the elms, and the gravel walks, and the scurvy old brick and mortar buildings."
"Then I am not of your mind," said Rosny; "gravel or mud, brickbats or paving stones, they are the same to me, the world over. Halloo, Wren," to a mustachioed youth who just then joined them; "we are bound to your room."
"That's as it should be. But where are the rest?"
"Coming—all in good time; here's one of them."
A dapper little person approached, with a shining beaver, yellow kid gloves, a switch cane, and a very stiff but somewhat dashing cravat, surmounted by a round and rubicund face.
"Ah, Chester!" exclaimed Wren; "the very man we were looking for. Come and take a glass of punch at my room."
"Punch, indeed!" replied Chester, whose face had changed from a prim expression to one of great hilarity the moment he saw his friends—"no, no, gentlemen, I renounce punch and all its works. The pure unmixed, the pure juice of the grape for me."
"But, Chester," urged Wren, "won't the pure mountain dew be a sufficient inducement?"
"The good company will be a sufficient inducement," said Chester, waving his hand—"the good company, gentlemen—and the good liquor. But what have we here? Meredith and Vinal walking side by side. Good Heavens, what a conjunction!"
The objects of Chester's astonishment, on a flattering invitation from Wren, joined the party, which, however, was weakened by the temporary secession of Rosny, who, pleading an errand in the village, left them with a promise to rejoin them soon. His place was in a few moments more than supplied by a new party of recruits, among whom was Stubb. Arrived at Wren's room, the desk and other appliances of study were banished from the table; bottles and glasses usurped their place, and the company composed themselves for conversation, most of them permitting their chairs to stand quietly on all fours, though one or two, like heathen Yankees from the backwoods, forced them to rear rampant on the hind legs, the occupant's feet resting on the ledge over the fireplace.
A few minutes passed, when a quick, firm step came up the stairs, and Rosny entered.
"How are you again, Dick?" said Meredith.
"Good evening, Mr. Rosny," echoed Stubb, who sat alone on the window seat.
"Eh? what's that?" demanded Rosny, turning sharp round upon the last speaker, with a face divided between indignation and laughter.
"I said, 'Good evening,'" replied Stubb, much disconcerted.
"And why didn't you say, 'Good morning,' yesterday, eh?—when I met you in Boston, eh? He gave me the cut direct," turning to the company. "Mr. Benjamin Stubb, here, gave me the cut direct! It was the pepper-and-salt coat and the thunder-and-lightning breeches that Stubb couldn't think of bowing to when he was walking in—— Street, with a lady. Look here, Stubb,"—again facing the victim—"what do you take me for? and what the devil do you take yourself for? I know your dirty family history. Your grandfather was a bricklayer, and the Lord knows who your great grandfather was. The best Huguenot blood of France runs in my veins! My ancestors were fighting at Ivry and Jarnac, while yours were peddling coal and potatoes about London streets, or digging mud in a ditch, for any thing you or I know to the contrary." Stubb gasped. "Your father has a crest painted on his carriage; but where did he get it? Why, Cribb, the engraver, stole it for him out of the British peerage."
Stubb, who was weak and timorous, here rose in great confusion, muttered something about conduct unbecoming to a gentleman, and meaning to require an explanation, and abruptly left the room.
"That job is finished," said Rosny, composedly seating himself. "His bill is settled for him."
"But, Dick," said Morton, who had been laughing in his sleeve during the scene, "do you want to be considered as a Frenchman or an American?"
"I'm an American," answered Rosny—"an American and a democrat, every inch."
Rosny had adopted democratic principles and habits partly out of spite against the class to which Stubb belonged, and which he was pleased to designate as the "codfish aristocracy," and partly because he thought that he could thus most effectually gain the ends of his impatient, hankering ambition. His ancestor, the head of an eminent Huguenot race, had been driven to America by the persecutions which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The family had lived ever since in poverty and obscurity; yet this fiery young democrat nourished an inordinate pride of birth, and never forgot that he was descended from a line of warlike nobles.
"No, no," said Rosny, as Morton pushed a glass towards him, "drinking is against my rule—Well, as it's about the last time,"—filling the glass—"here's to you all."
"The last time!" said Morton; "that's a dismal word. If my next four years are as pleasant as these last have been, I will never complain of them."
"I tell you, boys," said Meredith, who was tranquilly puffing at his cigar, "the cream of our lives is skimmed already. Rough and tumble, hurry and worry—that will be the story with most of us, more or less, to the end of our days."
"Rough and tumble!" exclaimed Rosny; "so much the better. 'Scots play best at the roughest game'—that's just my case. Who wants to be always paddling about on smooth water? Close reefed
