"The large quadrangle into which you come first, is bigger than
ours at Rugby, and a much more solemn and sleepy sort of a place,
with its gables and old mullioned windows. One side is occupied
by the hall and chapel; the principal's house takes up half
another side; and the rest is divided into staircases, on each of
which are six or eight sets of rooms, inhabited by us
undergraduates, and here and there a tutor or fellow dropped down
amongst us (in the first-floor rooms, of course), not exactly to
keep order, but to act as a sort of ballast. This quadrangle is
the show part of the college, and is generally respectable and
quiet, which is a good deal more than can be said for the inner
quadrangle, which you get at through a passage leading out of the
other. The rooms ain't half so large or good in the inner quad;
and here's where all we freshmen live, besides a lot of the older
undergraduates who don't care to change their rooms. Only one
tutor has rooms here; and I should think, if he's a reading man,
it won't be long before he clears out; for all sorts of high
jinks go on on the grass-plot, and the row on the staircases is
often as bad, and not half so respectable, as it used to be in
the middle passage in the last week of the half-year.
"My rooms are what they call garrets, right up in the roof, with
a commanding view of the college tiles and chimney pots, and of
houses at the back. No end of cats, both college Toms and
strangers, haunt the neighbourhood, and I am rapidly learning
cat-talking from them; but I'm not going to stand it--I don't
want to know cat-talk. The college Toms are protected by the
statutes, I believe; but I'm going to buy an air-gun for the
benefit of the strangers. My rooms are pleasant enough, at the
top of the kitchen staircase, and separated from all mankind by a
great, iron-clamped, outer door, my oak, which I sport when I go
out or want to be quiet; sitting room eighteen by twelve, bedroom
twelve by eight, and a little cupboard for the scout.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account