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

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My father, as before, urged King's College as a proper preparation for any profession.

My mother hinted that our name had shone in the navy, and cast a glance at a large portrait which hung in the dining-room. It represented George Lord Rodney, the castigator of the Spaniards, in a full bob-wig and white satin breeches, boarding the leading ship of the Caracca fleet, amid a whirlwind of torn rigging, smoke, and cannon-balls, forming a background by no means hilarious.

But my father pooh-poohed this. I was already far too old for the time at which the navy is entered—to wit, the mature years of thirteen.

Then my aunt Etty, who still curled her hair in the fashion of thirty years ago, recommended the army with a pensive air; for she had been engaged to a young sub, who was killed at—I must not say where, for it was a great many years ago, and Aunt Etty is unmarried still; but her views, though warmly seconded by sisters Dot and Sybil (who saw military balls and pic-nics in perspective), did not accord with mine, for I had spent two years or more in our Eton rifle corps, and the monotony of the drill—especially that boring curriculum of Hythe position (I went through the musketry class), worried me, as I wilfully deemed myself able to sight my weapon and bring down either a Frenchman or a pheasant without it.