Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/41

Rh House? And would his aunt, Miss Virginia Verdant, be able to comprehend the darkness of the case when she was told the startling intelligence that her nephew had "joined in a sweep"?

Alas, that sweep! it was an atra cura to Mr. Verdant Green—a black care that rode behind the horseman and crouched astern the jockey on the crupper of "The Knight." He began to feel that he was indeed beginning to run that fearful mucker of which Mr. Bouncer had spoken; and he knew that such a race would be one that would be all downhill in facile descent to Avernus, and to a precipice of danger and disgrace. Who should tell to what conclusion his book on the Derby would lead, and what would be its Finis? Could he look with pleasure to the last page of its third volume, or anticipate its end with satisfaction? Better to shut up its pages, and to fling the book into the fire, lest his own fingers and pockets should be burnt!

As such reflections coursed through his mind, he felt as miserable as he did when, not many weeks before, he had sat by his window, after his father had left him, while the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," from a German band playing just outside the college gates, were borne to his ears, and reduced him to a melting mood; so that, when Mr. Robert Filcher came into the room, he found his new master busily engaged in wiping his spectacles. Although it could not be affirmed on the present occasion that when the scout returned to take away the breakfast things, he discovered Mr. Verdant Green in the act of removing tears from his glasses, yet