My Scouts

By Stanley J. Weyman

Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature

Science and Arts

1876

W. & R. Chambers

London & Edinburgh

Fourth Series

Conducted by William and Robert Chambers

No 672, Saturday, November 11, 1876, Price 1 1/2d

My Scouts.

Much of the comfort and indeed, at times, of the success of an Oxford student, depends upon his scout or servant. Like other folks—I may say beyond other folks, they have their peculiarities, the chief of which is a leaning towards perquisites; and this, if not occasionally checked, may seriously tell upon the pockets of their masters. Almost all the scouts I have known were men of the greatest self-importance. In fact of a large class of scouts this may be known to be a distinguishing feature. Most of them lord-mayored it over us to a tremendous extent, and both in manner and person were well fitted for the great civic seat. The reason of this feeling of superiority to their kind is pretty obvious; a Freshman comes up to the University, helpless and in many cases perfectly ignorant of this new world and its ways. His scout therefore becomes for a time his guide, philosopher—I was going to say friend, but perhaps not quite that. His sway is naturally enough never entirely thrown off. It is said that men are never heroes to their valets-de-chambre; how much less heroic would they appear in their valets’ eyes if they had known all their boyish scrapes and all the incidents of their childhood! Gyps they call them at Cambridge, a word which signifies in the original Greek a vulture. Our scouts did not deserve quite so bad a title. As their name may signify, they were light-foragers rather than such ravenous harpies as the name in vogue at the sister university would imply.

Before proceeding to individual examples, let me promise once for all that, as a class, they were, and no doubt are, the very best servants in the world. They are quick (a virtue indeed) and invariably obliging. Above all, they never put off doing anything you bid, by saying that they will see about it, or will do it directly. How often does that phrase ‘to see about it’ bear the bitter fruit of disappointment, when uttered by others than servants! This readiness is the more remarkable, as scouts, having several masters, might make use of the orders of one as an excuse for omitting to perform those of another. I never heard of such an expedient being used. In my college we were eight on each staircase, and enjoyed the ministrations of two scouts; or, to speak technically, of one scout and one scout’s boy. Though called a boy, the latter was generally of mature age, say thirty, and had not infrequently a numerous family of young scouts. Buy young or old, he always paid the greatest respect to the scout proper. He always addressed him as ‘Sir,’ and was often severely and loudly reprimanded by him. Like the old Latin poet, I am fond of inquiring into the ‘causes of things;’ so I fancy that the original scout’s boy was in reality his son, at a period when fathers exacted that respectful form of address from their children.

The scout’s salary was high; besides fixed wages from the college, he enjoyed no end of perquisites by law or custom, among which was the right to everything which having primarily emanated from the college kitchen, was left on our Sybaritic tables. He was also liberally tipped at the end of every term by all the men on his staircase. In short, here would be a splendid opportunity of introducing a system of gentlemen-scouts. I am afraid it would not succeed, though; fancy a man’s feelings when scout on the very staircase on which he had once inhabited ‘drawing-rooms’ and dispensed a too free hospitality! Marius a fugitive, Belisarius a beggar, would be nothing to it. The emoluments, nevertheless, would make a man put up with much; and he could still keep up his boating and cricket, since the scouts have athletic clubs, principally supported by their masters. He could have his trip too in the summer, since many scouts take their families to the fashionable watering-places, where they act as extra waiters in the season. Considerably better pay on the whole than most schoolmasters and, sad to say, many clergymen get.

My acquaintance with scout Number One came about in this wise. When I went up to enter on residence, I had never been in Oxford before, having passed my matriculation at school, as was possible in some cases; so I was set down in a helpless state at the door of St Boniface. I asked for my rooms, and was comforted at finding that some had been assigned to me. That at anyrate was a sort of welcome. Off I set, escorted by a one-armed man. You may see him to-day hanging about the gate of a certain college, of which he is one remarkable feature. Men employ him to do little jobs such as going errands; you may often see them tossing him as to whether he is to get a shilling—or not. As you may guess, he always gets it sooner or later; sooner generally, as we used to say at college. For my part I gave him a shilling every term; and all he ever did for it was to sedulously touch his hat whenever I passed through the gates, which might be twenty times a day. With this guide stumping along beside me, I ascended the staircase he indicated, up, up to the very top where Freshmen lie. Then at length I saw a figure, which was destined to become even more familiar to me than that of my guide; a man above the middle height, and decidedly inclined to stoutness, his face somewhat flushed with the good things of this life. His eyes always afterwards appeared to me to express a sort of latent contempt, but at this time they seemed to say; ‘Ah, ah! A Freshman; we’ll take care of him!’ He was clad in a sort of sleeved waistcoat and black trousers; his gold chain was very conspicuous, and so was his black velvet skull-cap, without which I seldom saw him. He was very bald, so whether he used it for warmth or for adornment I can’t say; that old staircase was very cold and draughty at the best of times. He was about fifty years old, I should say; and his manners always called up Pecksniff to my mind. He had an oily, insinuating way of his own, and was above all a very incarnation of respectability. ‘One-arm’ introduced me. The scout made me a very low bow, which was at the same time patronizing; ‘Mr. Brown; yes, sir; these are your rooms, sir; view rather circumscribed, sir I well, it is, sir; but these rooms are always given to Freshmen, sir; I hope I shall make you comfortable.’ I was quite abashed by the grandeur of his manner. He never ceased rubbing his hands while speaking; he was always washing them, as the saying is, with invisible soap. From that day I seldom disputed the wishes of Morris. He made me very comfortable, and I am afraid he also made his market of me. Freshmen, as I have observed, have seldom spirit enough to oppose their scout at first, and in this sort of thing the first blow is everything.

What a very respectable man Morris was! I think he was a churchwarden, and this is the reason why. On the day of the Derby, Morris was absent; and in answer to my inquiries, Sam, the scout’s boy, informed me—with what I took for a meaning grin—that he was away on business. I of course drew my own conclusions. As I was going down the stairs that evening about nine o’clock, I met Morris coming up. ‘What sort of a Derby was it, Morris!’ ‘Derby, sir?’ answered Morris, as if he had just remembered it. ‘Oh, Bluegown won it, sir. I don’t know by how much sir; I’ve been on vestry business all the afternoon. Was I mistaken, or did the light of the candle reveal a curious twinkle in his cunning little eyes? Vestry business! I’m not sure whether he was a churchwarden; or it might have been a christening that day. Perhaps he meant that by a vestry business. I’m afraid he rather managed me; my glass and china were found exceedingly scanty when I removed to new rooms; but taking everything into consideration, he served me well, and perhaps I broke it myself—we were not very careful. His ideas, however, were rather too luxurious for my purse. I remember his silent scorn when, on having some guests of the fair sex to lunch, I proposed, when discussing the ways and means, to have some claret cup. It was only my second term, and I bent before his glance, and hastily ordered champagne instead. The man who succeeded me in those rooms was a friend of mine, so that I often saw Morris afterwards. His behaviour to me was full of such respectful tact, that he drew an extra tip from me in a moment of weakness. Of course I repented it afterwards; but I was always weak.

I moved into better rooms; but my scout improved even more than my rooms. His name was Mann; and a man he was every inch of him; with quite a high reputation in the college. As I look back on the time I spent on his staircase, I would that a monument might be set up to him, pour encourager les autres. May the sod lie lightly on him. Still, he had his little oddities, but they were pleasant ones on the whole. Amusing ones, at least. About six-feet-one in height, florid complexion, black eyes, and black hair and whiskers. He always wore a frock-coat on Sunday. A frank-looking man; one of the handsomest I ever saw. He always dressed well, but on Sunday quite elegantly.

As far as keeping up your spirits went, Mann was invaluable. When I was ‘reading’ just before examination week, whenever he entered the room he would remark; ‘Keep up your pluck, sir, and go in as bold as brass! There is nothing like brass; it will carry you over a deal of broken ground, sir. Why, Mr Robinson just over you, sir, he went in last term, and hardly read a word, sir; he got a third. He was a cool gentleman, and no mistake.’ As in the above, Mann was apt to become rather horsey in his metaphors—I suppose through intercourse with the racing set who inhabited two or three of his rooms. I did get through by a close shave, and have, I don’t doubt, been held up as an encouragement to future generations. One virtue, and that a cardinal one at Oxford, Mann possessed in perfection, that of concocting drinks of all kinds; his mulled claret, in particular, was perfection. Another quality, also in high esteem there, he possessed, a chronic enmity to duns. Just after I got the rooms, a man came with intent to dun my predecessor. Mann intercepted him, and sent him away with, to use one of his favourite metaphors, a flea in his ear. I quite shook with delight as I heard the altercation outside my half-open door, and mentally determined on giving Mann an extra half-sovereign when convenient. He would have been a treasure to Mr. Mantalini. One of his faults was over-curiosity. He was also rather fond of taking my arm-chair and a novel when I was out. I caught him at it once, and I don’t know who was the more confused, scout or master.

Mann looked after my welfare and cared for my interests in a way that no scout did before or after him. I was once very poorly for a week, and he then attended on me in a way which made me really grateful to him. But he would make my arrow-root with water, and to every complaint answered, that he had lived with an invalid for ten years and always made it so.

Sorry was I to part with Mann, but I wished to take my degree, and the rooms were in too noisy a situation to allow of much serious reading. So I got a new scout, whose name was Walker. (By-the-bye, all scouts were addressed by their surnames, all scouts’ boys by their Christian names. It had a very peculiar effect, the shouting out such a name as Mann on the staircase as loud as you could; we had no bells.) Alas! I had got, not out of the frying-pan, but out of the brook itself at one leap, into the fire. His appearance was unsatisfactory, a striking contrast to the majestic Mann; he was a short thick man, of sallow complexion, lit up by a flaming scarlet nose of Roman pattern. I don’t think his nose belied him. His dress too was generally untidy, and his habits not scrupulously clean. He must have become a scout by mistake, for Nature evidently intended him for a kitchen-boy. Nevertheless some of the qualities of a scout he possessed, and especially an idea that my purse was endless. I needed a coal-scuttle; those used at Oxford are generally very plain; but he provided me with one that much exceeded a guinea in price. I thought it rather dear, since I had given about half-a-crown for the one in my last rooms; but that was a broken one certainly, and purchased from my scout. As a rule, however, Walker had none of the patronizing airs of his class. He could not make iced cup. Think of that! He was the only scout I ever heard of who could not. I was obliged to ask Mann to come over when I wanted any, or else have it from a confectioner; the latter plan being a very dear one. One day the old fellow being away, I asked the reason, and the scout’s boy informed me that he had been seized by a sort of fit to which he was subject. Meeting one of my neighbours, I mentioned it. ‘Sort of fit!’ shouted he, going himself into fits of laughter. ‘Subject to it! So he is, by Jove!—They’ve regularly taken you in. Why, man, he got intoxicated last night, you may bet a pound. He’s always doing it; that’s his fit.’ And he was right, no doubt, for the fits were of frequent recurrence. I did not part with him with feelings of any great regret.

My ‘boys’ were less amusing than the scouts; they were made more in a mould. My first was named Will. He was tall, dark, and handsome; pulled ‘three,’ I believe, in the scouts’ boat. He had a curious habit of blushing if he made a mistake in waiting at table or knocked a book down. A funny friend of mine used to tell funny stories on purpose to upset Will’s gravity, and generally succeeded. If he did so, Will always had it out in a cupboard, where my plates were kept, plunging in his head like an ostrich, while his coattails betrayed his enjoyment. His retreat to this refuge amused us as much as our tales amused him. He also invariably quarreled with the laundress, and they would carry on an altercation all across the quad. Charles, my next ‘boy,’ had no peculiarity except his taste in dress and his well-fitting clothes.

Well, those scouts were part of my surroundings during, most likely, the happiest years of my life. They served me—well, they served me well, no matter with what object. No one does anything for nothing. And I parted with my scouts with as much regret as Cooper parted with his Hawk-eye, or that Last of the Mohicans with the unpronounceable name.

During all the time I had to do with them, not one of them ever addressed to me an uncivil word. I always found them ready, if properly requested, to do anything which did not lie quite within the pale of their duties. Mann was especially good in this way; though I have many pleasant recollections also of Morris. Of Walker I can’t say much that is good. He was a decidedly shady scout; perhaps he seemed worse after Mann’s assiduous attendance. I shall go down some day and see if the last-mentioned is still in the old staircase; we shall have a good deal in common, my old scout and I, more than many people of apparently more congenial positions. When he goes where scouts are scouts no more, may earth lie lightly on his ashes!