This little adventure (for a time at least) checked Mr. Verdant Green's aspirations to distinguish himself on the river; and he therefore renounced the sweets of the Isis, and contented himself by practising with a punt on the Cherwell. There, after repeatedly overbalancing himself in the most suicidal manner, he at length peacefully settled down into the lounging blissfulness of a "Cherwell water-lily;" and on the hot days, [AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 103] among those gentlemen who had moored their punts underneath the overhanging boughs of the willows and limes, and <VG103.JPG> beneath their cool shade were lying, in ~dolce far niente~ fashion, with their legs up and a weed in their mouth, reading the last new novel, or some less immaculate work, - among these gentlemen might haply have been discerned the form and spectacles of Mr. Verdant Green. CHAPTER XI. MR. VERDANT GREEN'S SPORTS AND PASTIMES. ARCHERY was all the fashion at Brazenface. They had as fine a lawn for it as the Trinity men had; and all day long there was somebody to be seen making holes in the targets, and endeavouring to realize the ~pose~ of the Apollo Belvidere; - rather a difficult thing to do, when you come to wear plaid trousers and shaggy coats. As Mr. Verdant Green felt desirous not only to uphold all the institutions of the University, but also to make himself acquainted with the sports and pastimes of the place, he forthwith joined the Archery and Cricket Clubs. He at once inspected the manufactures of Muir and Buchanan; and after selecting from their stores a fancy-wood bow, with arrows, belt, quiver, guard, tips, tassels, and grease-pot, he felt himself to be duly prepared to [104 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN] represent the Toxophilite character. But the sustaining it was a more difficult thing than he had conceived; for although he thought that it would be next to impossible to miss a shot <VG104-1.JPG> when the target was so large, and the arrow went so easily from the bow, yet our hero soon discovered that even in the first steps of archery there was something to be learnt, and that the mere stringing of his bow was a performance attended with considerable difficulty. It was always slipping from his instep, or twisting the wrong way, or threatening to snap in sunder, or refusing to allow his fingers to slip the knot, or doing something that was dreadfully uncomfortable, <VG104-2.JPG> and productive of perspiration; and two or three times he was reduced to the abject necessity of asking his friends to string his bow for him.