Life of John Coleridge Patteson, Missionary Bishop the Melanesian Islands | Page 7

driven in an open carriage to Salt Hill and bestow her
Royal contribution.
In the throng little Patteson was pressed up so close to the Royal

carriage that he became entangled in the wheel, and was on the point of
being dragged under it, when the Queen, with ready presence of mind,
held out her hand: he grasped it, and was able to regain his feet in
safety, but did not recover his perceptions enough to make any sign of
gratitude before the carriage passed on. He had all a boy's shyness
about the adventure; but perhaps it served to quicken the personal
loyalty which is an unfailing characteristic of 'Eton fellows.'
The Royal custom of the Sunday afternoon parade on the terrace of
Windsor Castle for the benefit of the gazing public afforded a fine
opportunity for cultivating this sentiment, and Coley sends an
amusingly minute description of her Majesty's dress, evidently studied
for his mother's benefit, even to the pink tips of her four long ostrich
feathers, and calling to mind Chalon's water-colours of the Queen in
her early youth. He finishes the description with a quaint little bit of
moralising. 'It certainly is very beautiful with two bands playing on a
calm, blessed Sunday evening, with the Queen of England and all her
retinue walking about. It gives you an idea of the Majesty of God, who
could in one short second turn it all into confusion. There is nothing to
me more beautiful than the raising one's eyes to Heaven, and thinking
with adoration who made this scene, and who could unmake it again.'
A few days later the record is of a very different scene, namely,
Windsor Fair, when the Eton boys used to imagine they had a
prescriptive right to make a riot and revel in the charms of misrule.
'On the second day the Eton fellows always make an immense row. So
at the signal, when a thing was acting, the boys rushed in and pulled
down the curtain, and commenced the row. I am happy to say I was not
there. There were a great many soldiers there, and they all took our part.
The alarm was given, and the police came. Then there was such a rush
at the police. Some of them tumbled over, and the rest were
half-knocked down. At last they took in custody three of our boys,
upon which every boy that was there (amounting to about 450) was
summoned. They burst open the door, knocked down the police, and
rescued our boys. Meantime the boys kept on shying rotten eggs and
crackers, and there was nothing but righting and rushing.'

A startling description! But this was nothing to the wild pranks that
lived in the traditions of the elder generation; and in a few years more
the boys were debarred from the mischievous licence of the fair.
Coley had now been nearly a year at Eton, and had proceeded through
the lower and middle removes of the fourth form, when, on November
23, he achieved the success of which he thus writes:--
'Rejoice! I was sent up for good yesterday at eleven o'clock school. I do
not know what copy of verses for yet, but directly I do, I will send you
a copy.... Goodford, when I took my ticket to be signed (for I was
obliged to get Goodford, Abraham, and my tutor to sign it), said, "I will
sign it most willingly," and then kept on stroking my hand, and said, "I
congratulate you most heartily, and am very glad of it." I am the only
one who is sent up; which is a good thing for me, as it will give me
forty or fifty good marks in trials. I am so splitting with joy you cannot
think, because now I have given you some proof that I have been lately
sapping and doing pretty well. Do not, think that I am praising myself,
for I am pretty nearly beside myself, you may suppose.'
One of his cousins adds, on the same sheet: 'I must tell you it is very
difficult to be sent up in the upper fourth form, and still more so in the
middle remove.'
The subject of the Latin verses which obtained this distinction was a
wreath or garland, and there must have been something remarkable in
them, for Mr. Abraham preserved a copy of them for many years. There
was something in the sweetness and docility of the boy, and in the
expression of his calm, gentle face, that always greatly interested the
masters and made them rejoice in his success; and among his comrades
he was a universal favourite. His brother joined him at Eton during the
ensuing year, when the Queen's wedding afforded the boys another
glimpse of