Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy онлайн

2 страница из 52

That my temperament was, and is still, something of this nature, I must confess; and the reading of my leisure hours—books of wild adventure by field and flood (I have devoured them all from the volumes of dear old Daniel Defoe, to those of the Railway Library), filled my mind with vague longings and airy fancies, for greater achievements than our periodical regatta, or the ranks of our Eton Rifle Volunteer Corps were likely to afford, although I deemed myself by no means an undistinguished member of the latter.

I had been for the usual time an "oppidan" at Eton; but, though standing high in favor of the Reverend M. A. with whom I was boarded, of the Vice Provost, and other functionaries, I had, unfortunately and unwisely, spent too much of my time with the boxing gloves and fencing foils; at cricket in the playing fields; in rowing on the river—that old traditional amusement of our Etonians; in training for the great 4th of June, the College Regatta day; and in erratic excursions to Windsor and elsewhere—to hope for transference to Cambridge.