"Long chamber" is long enough to contain nearly the whole of the collegers, or boys on the foundation, whose complement I conjecture to be about seventy. This is a region of which I can give but an uncertain description, for few "Oppidans" cared to venture in. When I did, it was to be tossed in a blanket, so that, though elevated, my survey was hasty and superficial; but I suspect that the entire furniture to which a colleger lays claim, is his bed and bureau, tables and chairs being here as much out of keeping (if they could be kept at all) as at Stonehenge. _En passant_--this tossing was a pastime replete with the sublime and awful. That their efforts might be simultaneous, those who held the blanket, and they were legion, made use of the following neat hexameter:
"Ibis ab excusso, missus ab astra, sago."
And you go with a vengeance. "You shall fly from the quivering blanket, despatched to the stars." The suspense was fearful while awaiting the utterance of the ultimate syllable--how perfectly and permanently have I acquired this pithy verse!
The floor is polished once a year on Election Friday, by "rug-riding." This is accomplished by rolling a fellow up in a counterpane, here properly called a rug. To either end of him is attached a rope, to which five or six boys are harnessed. The floor is now well smeared with tallow-grease, over which the warm mummy, rendered still hotter by friction, is now drawn with delightful velocity. The polish thus obtained is admirable, and but the slightest flavour of grease lingers until the ensuing election.
The suburbs form a small town, composed of a few large and indispensable shops, together with the houses of the masters and dames, at whose houses the boys, not on the foundation, and who are denominated "oppidans," board and lodge.
"The playing-fields" are very extensive, and subdivided into the playing-fields, "upper-shooting-fields," and "lower-shooting-fields." The two latter are separated from the former by "poet's-walk," a lovely little peninsula, with an avenue of lime-trees running through its entire length.
The shooting-fields are appropriated solely to cricket, and in winter are "out of bounds." The playing-fields are open for foot-ball in the winter, and for fighting all the year round. The whole is most beautifully situated on the banks of the Thames, with the Little Park and Windsor Castle on the opposite side. In addition, it is lined and studded with the stateliest and most gigantic elms in England.