The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 3, by Various

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Title: Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 3

Author: Various

Release Date: September 10, 2010 [EBook #33694]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TALES
FROM
"BLACKWOOD"

Contents of this Volume

_A Reading Party in the Long Vacation_

_Father Tom and the Pope_

_La Petite Madelaine. By Mrs Southey_

_Bob Burke's Duel with Ensign Brady. By the late
William Maginn, LL.D._

_The Headsman: A Tale of Doom_

_The Wearyful Woman. By John Galt_

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD."

A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION.

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1843.]

CHAPTER I.

Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of
certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned
university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty's dominions,
which (on the "_lucus a non lucendo_" principle) are called and known by
the name of Reading Parties. Some half-dozen undergraduates, in peril of
the coming examination, form themselves into a joint-stock cramming
company; take L30 or L40 shares in a private tutor; pitch their camp
in some Dan or Beersheba which has a reputation for dulness; and,
like other joint-stock companies, humbug the public, and sometimes
themselves, into the belief that they are "doing business." For these
classical bubbles, the long vacation is the usual season, and Wales one
of the favourite localities; and certainly, putting "Reading" out of
the question, three fine summer months might be worse spent, than in
climbing the mountains, and whipping the trout-streams, of that romantic
land. Many a quiet sea-side town, or picturesque fishing-village, might
be mentioned, which owes no little of its summer gaiety, and perhaps
something of its prosperity, to the annual visit of "the Oxonians:"
many a fair girl has been indebted for the most piquant flirtation
of