xt766t0gtt2c https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt766t0gtt2c/data/mets.xml Lawrence, George A. (George Alfred), 1827-1876. 1868  books b92-174-30417706 English Harper, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Guy Livingstone, or, "Thorough"  / George A. Lawrence. text Guy Livingstone, or, "Thorough"  / George A. Lawrence. 1868 2002 true xt766t0gtt2c section xt766t0gtt2c 





GUY LIVINGSTONE;



          OR,




    "THOROUGH."



    ICU hABE GELEBT UND GELLEBT.











       NEW YORK:
HARPER  BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
       FRANKLIN SQUARE.
           1 8 6 8.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

       GUY LIVINGSTONE.


                  CHAPTER I.
            "Neque imbellem feroces
            Progenerant aquilk columbam."
  IT is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty
eight hours at a large public school. I have known
strong-minded men of mature age confess that they
never thought of it without a shiver. I don't count
the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects serious-
ly the most innocent of dM6utants, but there are other
thousand and one little annoyances which make up a
great trouble. If there were nothing else, for instance,
the unceasing query, "What's your name" makes
you feel the possession of a cognomen at all a serious
burden and bar to advancement in life.
  A dull afternoon toward the end of October; the
sky a neutral tint of ashy gray; a bitter northeast
wind tearing down the yellow leaves from the old elms
that girdle the school-close of ; a foul, clinging
paste of mud and trampled grass-blades under foot,
that chilled you to the marrow; a mob of two hund-
red lower boys, vicious with cold and the enforcement
of keeping goal through the first football match of the
season-in the midst, I, who speak to you, feeling my-
self in an eminently false position-there's the mrie en
8cene.

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



  My small persecutors had surrounded me, but had
hardly time to settle well to their work, when one of
the players came by, and stopped for an instant to see
what was going on. The match had not yet begun.
  There was nothing which interested him much, ap-
parently, for he was passing on, when my despondent
answer to the everlasting question caught his ear. He
turned round then-
  " Any relation to Hammond of Holt "
  I replied, meekly but rather more cheerfully, that
he was my uncle.
  " I know him very well," the new-comer said.
"Don't bully him more than you can help, you fel-
lows; I'll wait for you after calling over, Hammond.
I should like to ask you about the squire."
  He had no time to say more, for just then the ball
was kicked off, and the battle began. I saw him aft-
erward often during that afternoon, always in the front
of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I saw,
too, more than one player limp out of his path discon-
solately, trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vi-
cious "hack."
   I'll try to sketch Guy Livingstone as he appeared
to me then, at our first meeting.
   He was about fifteen, but looked fully a year older,
not only from his height, but from a disproportionate
length of limb and development of muscle, which ripen-
ed later into the rarest union of activity and strength
that I have ever known. His features were very dark
and pale, too strongly marked to be called handsome;
about the lips and lower jaw especially there was a
set sternness that one seldom sees before the beard is



4

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



grown. The eyes were very dark gray, nearly black,
and so deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they
looked smaller than they really were; and I remem-
ber, even at that early age, their expression, when an-
gered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress
was well adapted for displaying his deep square chest
and sinewy arms-a close-fitting jersey, and white
trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the cap, orange
velvet, fronted with a silver Maltese cross.
  The few words he had spoken worked an immediate
change in my favor. I heard one of my tormentors
say, not without awe, "The Count knows his people
at home;" and they not only left me in peace, but, a
little later, some of them began to tell me of a recent
exploit of Guy's, which had raised him high in their
simple hero-worship, and which, I dare say, is still
enumerated among the feats of the brave days of old
by the fags over their evening small-beer.
  To appreciate it, you must understand that the high-
est form in the school-the sixth-were regarded by
the fags and other subordinate classes with an inex-
pressible reverence and terror. They were considered
as exempt from the common frailties of schoolboy na-
ture: no one ventured to fix a limit to their power.
Like the gods of the Lotus-eater, they lay beside their
nectar, rarely communing with ordinary mortals except
to give an order or set a punishmnent. On the form
immediately below them part of their glory was reflect-
ed; these were a sort of ipffleot, awaiting their trans-
lation into the higher Olympus of perfected omnipo-
tence.
  In this intermediate state flourished, at the time I



v

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



speak of, one Joseph Baines, a fat, small-eyed youth,
with immense pendent pallid cheeks, rejoicing in the
8olriquet of "Buttons," his father being eminent in
that line in the Midland Metropolis. The son was
Brummagem to the back-bone. He was intensely
stupid; but, having been a fixture at    beyond
the memory of the oldest inhabitant, he had slowly
gravitated on into his present position, on the old Ring
principle, "weight must tell. "  I believe he had been
bullied continuously for many years, and now, with a
dull, pertinacious malignity, was biding his time, in-
tending, on his accession to power, to inflict full re-
prisals on those below him; or, in his own expressive
language, "to take it out of 'em, like smoke."  He
was keeping his hand in by the perpetration of small
tyrannies on all whom he was not afraid to meddle
with; but hitherto, from a lingering suspicion, per-
haps, that it was not quite safe, he had never annoyed
Livingstone.
  It was on a Saturday night, the hebdomadal Satur-
nalia, when the week's work was over, and no one had
any thing to do; the heart of Joseph was jocund with
pork chops and mulled beer, and, his evil genius tempt-
ing him, he proposed to three of his intimates "to go
and give the Count a turn." Nearly every one had a
nickname, and this had been given to Guy, partly, I
think, from his haughty demeanor, partly from a prev-
alent idea that this German dignity was dormant some-
where in his family. When the quartette entered,
Guy knew perfectly what they came for, but he sat
quite still and silent, while two of them held him down
by the arms in his chair.



6

 

GUY LIVINGSTONE.



  -I think you'd look very well with a cross on,
Count," Baines said, " so keep steady while we deco-
rate you."
  As he spoke he was mixing up a paste with tallow
and candle-snuff, and, when it was ready, came near to
daub the cross on Livingstone's forehead.
  The two who held him had been quite deceived by
his unexpected tranquillity, and had somewhat relax-
ed their gripe as they leaned forward to witness the
operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all at
once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set
so ominously, that the words were in his mouth,
"Hold him fast !" when Guy, exerting the full force
of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a brass-
candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner
straight between the eyes. The effort of freeing him-
self to some extent broke the force of the blow, or the
great Baines dynasty might have ended there and
then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling
once over on his face, lay there bleeding and motion-
less.
  While the assistants were too much astounded to
detain him, Guy walked out without a glance at his
prostrate enemy; and going straight to the head of
the house, told him what had happened. The charac-
ter of the aggressor was so well known, that, when
they found he was not seriously hurt, they let Guy off
easy with "two books of the Iliad to write out in
Greek." Buttons kept the sick-room for ten days,
and came out looking more pasty than ever, with his
pleasant propensities decidedly checked for the time.
  In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of



7

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



marble weighing him down, the old button-maker
sleeps with his father (to pluralize his ancestors would
be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in
his stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-
people the same ingenuity of torture which in old
times nearly drove the fags to rebellion. He is a De-
mosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at the
Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad
face, marring the platitude of its smooth-shaven re-
spectability, still burns angrily a dark red scar-Guy's
sign-manual-which he will carry to his grave.
  The exultation of the lower school over this exploit
was boundless. Fifty energetic admirers contended
for the honor of writing out the punishment inflicted
on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in Herod-
otus, preserved the fatal candlestick as an inestimable
relic, wreathing its stem with laurel and myrtle, in
imitation of the honors paid by Athens to the sword
that slew the Pisistratid.



8


 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



                  CHAPTER H.
              "My only books
              Were woman's looks,
                 And folly all they taught me."
  THE Count bore his honors very calmly, though
every week some fresh feat of bodily strength or dar-
ing kept adding to his popularity. It was no slight
temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said
truly, no successful adventurer in after-life ever wins
such undivided admiration and hearty partisans as a
school hero.  Thepre-t8ge of the liberator among the
Irish peasantry comes nearest to it, I think; or the
feeling of a clan, a hundred years ago, toward their
chief. It must be very pleasant to be quoted so in-
cessantly and believed in so implicitly, and to know
that your decisions are so absolutely without appeal.
From that first day when lie interfered in my favor,
Guy never ceased to accord me the aegis of his protec-
tion, and it served me well; for, then as now, I was
strong neither in body nor nerve. Yet our tastes,
save in one respect, were as dissimilar as can be im-
agined. The solitary conformity was, that we were
both, in a desultory way, fond of reading, and our fa-
vorite books were the same. Neither would do more
school-work than was absolutely necessary, but at
light literature of a certain class we read hard.
  I don't think Guy's was what is usually galled a
poetical temperament, for his taste in this line was
                        A 2



9

 

GUY LIVINGSTONE



quite one-sided. He was no admirer of the pictur-
esque, certainly. I have heard him say that his idea
of a country to live in was where there was no hill
steep enough to wind a horse in good condition, and
no wood that hounds could not run through in fifteen
minutes; therein following the fancy of that eminent
French philosopher, who, being invited to climb Ben
Lomond to enjoy the most magnificent of views, re-
sponded meekly, "AimeZ-vous 1e8 beaute8 de la Na-
ture  Pour moije les abhorre." Can you not fancy
the strident emphasis on the last syllable, revealing
how often the poor materialist had been victimized be-
fore he made a stand at last
  All through Livingstone's life the real was to pre-
dominate over the ideal; and so it was at this period
of it. HIe had a great dislike to purely sentimental
or descriptive poetry, preferring to all others those bat-
tle-ballads, like the -Lay8 of Rone, which stir the blood
like a trumpet, or those love-songs which heat it like
rough strong wine.
  He was very fond of Homer, too. He liked the di-
apason of those sonorous hexameters, that roll on, sink-
ing and swelling with the ebb and flow of a stormy
sea. I hear his voice-deep-toned and powerful even
at that early age-finishing the story of Poseidon and
his beautiful prize-their bridal-bed laid in the hollow
of a curling wave-
        "Ilopopeov 4 upa Ky/Ia 7repLartif, obpef loov,
        KvprwfOv, Kpifev  Oev Ovwirirv Te ymabca."
  And yet they say that the glorious old Sciote was
a myth, and the Odyssey a magazine worked out
by clever contributors. They might as well assert



10

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



that all his marshals would have made up one Na-
poleon.
  I remember how we used to pass in review the beau-
ties of old time, for whom "many drew swords and
died," whose charms convulsed kingdoms and ruined
cities, who called the stars after their own names.
  Ah! Gyneth and Ida, peerless queens of beauty, it
was exciting, doubtless, to gaze down from your vel-
veted gallery on the mad tilting below, to see ever and
anon through the yellow dust a kind, handsome face
looking up at you, pale but scarcely reproachful, just
before the horse-hoofs trod it down; ah! fairest Ni-
nons and Dianas-prizes that, like the Whip at New-
market, were always to be challenged for-you were
proud when your reckless lover came to woo, with the
blood of last night's favorite not dry on his blade; but
what were your fatal honors compared to those of a
reigning toast in the rough, ancient days  The demi-
gods and heroes that were suitors did not stand upon
trifles, and the contest often ended in the extermina-
tion of all the lady's male relatives to the third and
fourth generation. People then took it quite as a mat-
ter of course-rather a credit to the family than oth-
erwise.
  Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative
merits of Evadne the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra,
and a hundred others, just as, on the steps of White's,
or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare
the points of the debutantes of the season.
  His knowledge of feminine psychology-it must
have been theoretical, for he was not seventeen-im-
plied a study and depth of research that was quite



11

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate
of the strength of character and principle inherent in
the weaker sex was any thing but high; nearly, in-
deed, identical with that formed by the learned lady
who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of
any single one of her sisterhood impregnable " replied
"1C'e8t selon." He often used to astonish my weak
mind by his observations on this head. I did not
know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the
Bassompierre of his day, came for the Christmas
pheasant-shooting every year into Guy's neighborhood,
and that he had already imbibed lessons of question-
able morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil
Gamaliel.
  He spoke of and to women of every class readily
whenever he got the chance, always with perfect
aplomb and self-possession; and I have heard older
men remark since, that in him it did not appear the pre-
cocity of "1 the rising generation," but rather the confi-
dence of one who knew his subject well. Perhaps the
fact of his father having died when he was an infant,
and his having always been suzerain among his women
at home, may have had something to do with this.
An absurd instance of what I have been saying hap-
pened just before Guy left.
  By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth
were invited every week to dine with the head master.
They were not, strictly speaking, convivial, those sol-
emn banquets; where the host was condescendingly
affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under pro-
test; resembling somewhat the entertainments in the
captain's cabin, where the chief is unpopular.



12

 

GUY LIVINGSTONE.



  Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest
man, albeit, by virtue of his office, somewhat strict
and stern. You could read the Categories in the
wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested passages
of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The
everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had
worn away all he might once have had of imagination;
he translated with precisely the same intonations the
Tusculan Disputations and-'Epw dviKai-, e dxav.
  He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by
a score of years. The academic atmosphere had not
had time then to freeze her into the dignity befitting
her position; when I met her ten years later, she was
steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the
wife of Grotius.
  Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the
first course was over a decided flirtation was estab-
lished. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a doctor
and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquet-
tish element in her composition, and a very slight
spark was sufficient to relight the veteris vestigia
Gfammce.
  For some time her husband did not seem to realize
the position; but gradually his sentences grew rare
and curt; he opened his mouth, no longer to let fall
the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory
meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat,
looking wrathfully but helplessly on the proceedings
at the other end of the table-a lamentable instance
of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, how-
ever, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the
party, a meek, cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents



13

 

GUY LVINGSTONE.



lived in the town, and who was wont to regard the
head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil and
sacerdotal-I am not sure he did not include military
as well. I caught him looking several times at the
door and the ceiling with a pale, guilty face, as if he
expected some immediate visitation to punish the sac-
rilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the
feast of Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed
us to finish our dinner in peace. During the interval
when we sat alone over his claret, our host revived a
little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where
things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over
the fair Penelope (such was her classical and not inap-
propriate name) while she was singing, and over her
sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legit-
imate proprietor for the time, and regarding the hus-
band, as he hovered round them, in the light of an
unauthorized intruder. The latter would have given
any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure;
but, apart from the extreme ridicule of the thing, he
was in his own house, and as hospitable as Saladin.
  It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy
the camellia that she wore at her breast; the doctor
gasped thrice convulsively and said no word; but I
wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and
blush which answered some whispered thanks There
are certain limits that even the historian dares not
transgress; a veil falls between the profane and the
thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had
a hard time of it that night, the poor little woman!
Let us hope, in charity, that she held her own.
  When the Count was questioned as to the conver-



14

 

                GUY LIVINGSTONE.               15
sation that had passed, he declined to give any partic-
ulars, merely remarking that "lie had to thank Dr.
- for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped every
one had enjoyed themselves very much"-which was
philanthropic, to say the least of it.
  I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fan-
cied that when the head master called up Livingstone
in form after this, he did so with an air of grave defi-
ance, such as a duelist of the Old Regime may have
worn when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his ad-
versary, "En garde I"
  There was little time to make observations, for
shortly afterward Guy went up to Oxford, whither,
six months later, I followed him.


 

GUY LIVINGSTONE.



                 CHAPTER III.
         'Through many an hour of summer suns,
            By many pleasant ways,
          Like Hezekiah's, backward runs
            The shadow of my days."
  WHEN I came up, I found Guy quite established
and at home. He was a general favorite with all the
men he knew at college, though intimate with but very
few. There was but one individual who hated him
thoroughly, and I think the feeling was mutual-the
senior tutor, a flaccid being, with a hand that felt like
a fish two days out of water, a large nose, and a per-
petual cold in his head. He consistently and impar-
tially disbelieved every one on their word, requiring
material proof of each assertion; an original mode of
acquiring the confidence of his pupils, and precluding
any thing like an attempt at deception on their part.
I remember well a discussion on his merits that took
place in the porter's lodge one night just after twelve.
When several had given their opinions more or less
strongly, some one asked the gate - ward what he
thought of the individual in question, to which that
eminent functionary thus replied: "Why, you see,
sir, I'm only a servant, and, as such, can't speak freely,
but I wish he was dead, I do."
  As I have said, Livingstone disliked Selkirk heart-
ily, and did not take the trouble to conceal it. He
used to look at him sometimes with a curious expres-
sion in his eyes, which made the tutor twirl and writhe



16

 
GUY LIVINGSTONE.



uncomfortably in his chair. The latter annoyed him
as much as he possibly could, but Guy held on the
even tenor of his way, seldom contravening the stat-
utes except in hunting three days a week, which he
persisted in doing, all lectures and regulations not-
withstanding.  He rode little under fourteen stone
even then; but the three horses lhe kept were well up
to his weight, and he stood A 1 in Jem Hill's estima-
tion as "1 the best heavy-weight that had come out of
Oxford for many a day ;" for lie not only went straight
as a die, but rode to hounds instead of over them. I
suppose this latter practice is inherent in University
sportsmen. I know, in my time, the way in which
they pressed on hounds, for the first two fields out of
cover or after a check, used to make the gray hairs,
which were the brave old huntsman's crown of glory,
stand on end with indignation and terror, so that
he prayed devoutly for a big fence which, like the
broken bridge at Leipsic, might prove a stopper to the
pursuing army. There was the making of a good
rider in many of them, too; they only wanted ballast,
for they knew no more of fear than Nelson did, and
would grind over the Vale of the Evenlode and the
Marsh Gibbon double timber as gayly and undaunt-
edly as over the accommodating Bullingdon hurdles.
And what screws they rode! ancient animals bearing
as many scars as a vie u  de la vieille, that were con-
sidered short of work if they did not come out five
days a fortnight. This was Guy's favorite pursuit;
but he threw off the superfluity of his animal energies
in all sorts of athletics: in sparring especially he at-
tained a rare excellence; so well-known was it, in-



17

 

GUY LIVINGSTONE.



deed, that lie passed his first year without striking a
blow in anger, through default of an antagonist, except
a chance one or two exchanged in the melee which is
imperative on the 5th of November.
  I did not hunt much myself, for my health was far
from strong, and, I confess, my University recollections
are not lively.
  After the first flush of novelty had worn off, they
bored one intensely-those large wines and suppers
where, night by night, a score of Nephelkgereta3 sat
shrouded in smoke, chanting the same equivocal dit-
ties, drinking the same fiery liquors miscalled the juice
of the grape, villainous enough to make the patriarch
that planted the vine stir remorsefully in his grave
under Ararat-each man all the while talking "shop,"
a l'outrance. The skeleton of ennui sat at these dreary
feasts; and it was not even crowned with roses. I
often used to wonder what the majority of my contem-
poraries conversed about, when in the bosom of their
families, during the "long."  They couldn't always
have been inflicting Oxford on their miserable rela-
tives; the weakest of human natures would have re-
volted against such tyranny; and yet the horizon of
their ideas seemed as utterly bounded by Bagley and
Headington Hill as if the great ocean-stream had flow-
ed outside those limits. Some adventurous spirits, it
is true, stretched away as far as Woodstock and Ab-
ingdon, but I doubt if tbey returned much improved
by the grand tour.
  One of their most remarkable characteristics was
the invincible terror and repugnance that they appear-
ed to entertain to the society of women of their own



18

 

GUY LIVINGSTONE.



class. When the visitation was inevitable, it is im-
possible to describe the great horror that fell on these
unfortunate boys. The feeling of Zanoni's pupil, as
the Watcher on the Threshold came floating and creep-
ing toward him, was nothing to it.
  For example, at Commemoration-to which festival
"lions" from all quarters of the earth resorted in vast
droves-when one of this class was hard hit by the
charms of some fair stranger, lie never thought of ex-
pressing his admiration otherwise than by piteous
looks, directed at her from an immense distance, out
of shot for an opera-glass; when in her immediate
vicinity his motto was that of the Breton baron-
7wourir 2nuet. Claret-cup flowed and Champagne
sparkled, powerless to raise him to the audacity of an
avowal. Under the woods of Nuneham, in the gar-
dens of Blenheim, amid the crowd of the Commemo-
ration ball, the same deep river of diffidence flowed
between him and his happiness. My own idea is
that, after all was over, the silent ones, like Jacques'
stricken deer, used to "go weep" over chances lost
and opportunities neglected. With waitresses at way-
side inns, et id genus omne, they were tolerably self-
possessed and reliant; though even there " a thousand
might well be stopped by three," and I would have
backed an intelligent barmaid against the field at
odds; indeed, I think I have seen a security nearly
allied to contempt on the fine features of a certain
"lone star" as she parried-so easily !-the compli-
ments and repartees of a dozen assailants at once, ac-
counted, in their own quadrangles, Millamours of the
darkest dye.



19

 

GUY LIVINGSTONE.



  Guy accounted for this unfortunate peculiarity by
saying that a cigar in the mouth was the normal state
of many of these men; so that, when circumstances
debarred them from the Havana courage, they lost all
presence of mind, and, being unable to retreat under
cover of the smoke, lapsed instantly into a sullen de-
spair, suffering themselves to be shot down unresist-
ingly. Perhaps some future philosopher will favor us
with a better solution to this important problem in
physics; I know of none.
  After all, the reading men did best, though we did
not think so then, when we saw them creeping into
morning chapel jaded and heavy-eyed, after a debauch
over Herodotus or the Stagyrite. They had a pur-
pose in view, at all events, and, I believe, were placid-
ly content during the progress of its attainment-in
the seventh heaven when their hopes were crowned
by a First, or even a Second. True; the pace was
too good for some of the half-bred ones, and such as
could not stand the training, who departed, to fade
away rapidly in the old house at home, or to pine,
slowly, but very surely, in remote curacies.
  Some of these, I fancy, must have sympathized with
Madame de Stahl's consumptive niece, who answered
to the question, "Why she was weeping all alone "
"Je me regrette." When, resting in their daily walk,
shortened till it became a toil to reach the shady seat
under the elms at the garden's end, they watched the
stalwart plowmen and drovers go striding by, with-
out a trouble behind their tanned foreheads except the
thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was
there no envy, I wonder, as they looked down on the



20

 

GUY LVINGSTONE.



wan hands lying so listless across their knees Would
they not have given their First, and their fellowship
in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite
of Tom Chauntrell, the horse-breaker, after twelve
pipes overnight, with gin and water to match, or to
have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper,
to breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never
a sob or a painful breath Did they never murmur
while thinking how brightly the blade might have
flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless
scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-
day, the word was given, "Draw swords" Some
felt this, doubtless ; but the most part, I imagine,
were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their
short life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so,
to a certain extent, they had their reward. At any
rate, their ending was to the full as glorious as that
of some other friends of ours, who crawl away from
the battle-ground of the Viveurs to die, or to linger
on helpless hypochondriacs.
  If I have spoken depreciatingly or unfairly of the
mass of my college coevals (and it may well be so), I
do full justice, in thought at least, to some brilliant
exceptions. I founded friendships there which, I trust,
will outlive me.
  I do not forget Warrenne, too good for the men he
lived with, a David in our camp of Kedar-aiways go-
ing on straight in the path he thought right-though
ever and anon his hot Irish blood would chafe fiercely
under the curb self-imposed-and laboring incessant-
ly, with all gentleness, to induce others to follow; a
Launcelot in his devotion to womankind; a Galahad



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GUY LIVINGSTONE.



in purity of thought and purpose. I have never known
a man of the world so single-hearted, or a saint with
so much savoir vivre.
  I see before me now Lovell, with his frank look and
cheery laugh, the model of a stalwart English squire-
hood; and Petre, equal to either fortune; in reverse
or success calm and impassible as Athos the mousque-
taire; regarding money simply as a circulating medi-
um, with the profoundest contempt for its actual value
-se ruinant en prince. He edified us greatly, on
one occasion, by meeting his justly offended father
with a stern politeness, declining to hold any commu-
nication with him by word or letter till he (the sire)
"6 could express himself in a more Christian spirit."
  Then there was Barlowe, the pearl of gentlemen
riders, the very apple of Charles Symond's eye; un-
spoiled by a hundred triumphs, and never degenera-
ting into the professional, though I believe his idea of
earthly felicity was
  A match for pound;50, 10 st. 7 lb. each. Owners up.
Over 4 miles of a fair hunting country.
  I see him, too, with his pleasant face, round, rosy,
and beardless as a child-cherub of Rubens, tempting
pale men with splitting heads to throw boots at him
in the bitterness of their envy as he entered their rooms
on the morning after a heavy drink, his eyes so clear
and guileless that you would never guess how sharp
they could be at times when a dangerous horse was
coming up on his quarter. A strange compound his
character was of cool calculation and sentimental sim-
plicity. The most astute of trainers never got the
better of him in making a match; and I am sure, to



22

 

,GUY LIVINSTONE.



this day, he believes in 's poetry, and in the im-
mutability of feminine affection.
  How agreeable he was about the small hours, chirp-
ing over his grog; alternating between reminiscences
of "1 My tutor's daughter" and recitals of choice mor-
sels in verse and prose; misquoting, to the utter an-
nihilation of rhythm and sense, but all with perfect
gravity, good faith, and satisfaction!
  Ngec te, memorande, relinquam-true Tom Lynton!
not clever, not even high-bred, but loved by every one
for the honestest and kindest heart that ever was the
kernel of a rough rind.
  Do we not remember that supper where the Fathers
of England were being discussed Every one, drawn
on by the current, had a stone to throw at his reliev-
ing officer, the complaint, of course, being a general
tightness in the supplies. At last, Tom, who, though
his own sire was an austere man, could not bear to
hear the absent run down, broke in, gravely remon-
strating,
  " Well, gentlemen," he said, " remember they're our
fellow-creature8, at all events."
  They drank "Lynton and the Governors" with a
compound multiplication of cheers.
  I might mention more; but a face rises just now
before me which makes me close the muster-roll-the
face of one who united in himself many, very many of
the best qualities of the others; of one whom I shrink
from naming here, lest it should seem that I do so
lightly-a face that I saw six hours before its features
became set forever.



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GUY LIVINGSTONE.