Oxford Days

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Frederic Edward Weatherly. Oxford Days

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. GONE TO OXFORD

CHAPTER II. AN OXFORD SUNDAY

CHAPTER III. THE FRESHMAN’S TERM

CHAPTER IV. THE EIGHTS

CHAPTER V. THE LONG VACATION

CHAPTER VI “THE FLYING TERMS.”

CHAPTER VII. A READING PARTY

CHAPTER VIII. IN THE THICK OF IT

CHAPTER IX. THE CLOSE

CHAPTER X. GOWN AT LAST

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There was a long discussion between the Vicar of Porchester and Mr. Ross, the lawyer, as they walked together after evening service to the vicarage. Frank Ross was just eighteen, the eldest of six brothers. He was still at school, but it was time for him to go to the University. Oxford had been chosen—not from any notion of superiority to Cambridge, but simply because of school and home associations. The difficulty was the choice of a college. The vicar—a well-to-do bachelor—an old Eton and Christ-Church man, advised his own college. But Mr. Ross was frightened. “Christ-Church” to him had ever been a terror, and meant waste of time and money, in the shape of cards, drink, and horse-flesh; and all the vicar’s eloquence could not shake his unfounded prejudice. The result of the discussion was that Mr. Ross decided to write to a friend at Oxford, settled there as a “coach;” and also to Mr. Rickards, a country doctor, with a family larger even than his own. The doctor’s answer was as follows:—

The vicar explained that a “close” scholarship was, like other scholarships, a sum of money paid annually for four or five years as a prize, but differed from them in being confined to competition among boys from certain schools; and that the value of them varied from 45l. to 80l. per annum, part being paid in money, and part made up in allowances in the way of diminished fees. The letter from the “coach” was more valuable:—

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“Can you mention any of our Lord’s parables which teach the duty of watchfulness?” and so forth.

Then came the pleasant dismissal,—

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