"When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had left off worriting him, I thought as his frame was much shattered and he was too weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better than become Clive's tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your handsome donation of 250 pounds for Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per year, so that, when the board of the two and Clive's clothing are taken into consideration, I think you will see that no great profit is left to Miss Martha Honeyman.

"Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of making me some grand allowance. The poor boy is very affectionate, and always building castles in the air, and of having Clive to live with him in London. Now this mustn't be, and I won't hear of it. Charles is too kind to be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the other day, after his return from his grandmamma's, regarding which I wrote you, per Burrampooter, the 23rd ult., that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcome and Charles too, and of both their spectacles, quite like. I put it away, but some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me and Hannah too. Mr. Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and says he is a wonder at drawing.

"Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London next month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clivey to Dr. Timpany's school, Marine Parade, of which I hear the best account, but I hope you will think of soon sending him to a great school. My father always said it was the best place for boys, and I have a brother to whom my poor mother spared the rod, and who, I fear, has turned out but a spoilt child.

"I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman."

"Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C. B."

VI. "My Dear Brother,—I hasten to inform you of a calamity which, though it might be looked for in the course of nature, has occasioned deep grief not only in our family but in this city. This morning, at half-past four o'clock, our beloved and respected mother, Sophia Alethea Newcome, expired, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. On the night of Tuesday-Wednesday, the 12-13th, having been engaged reading and writing in her library until a late hour, and having dismissed the servants, whom she never would allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and his wife, who always are in the habit of retiring early, Mrs. Newcome extinguished the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room, and must have fallen on the landing, where she was discovered by the maids, sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and endeavouring to staunch a wound in her forehead, which was bleeding profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the stair.

"When Mrs. Newcome was found she was speechless, but still sensible, and medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. Mr. Newcome and Lady Anne both hurried to her apartment, and she knew them, and took the hands of each, but paralysis had probably ensued in consequence of the shock of the fall; nor was her voice ever heard, except in inarticulate moanings, since the hour on the previous evening when she gave them her blessing and bade them good-night. Thus perished this good and excellent woman, the truest Christian, the most charitable friend to the poor and needful, the head of this great house of business, the best and most affectionate of mothers.

"The contents of her will have long been known to us, and that document was dated one month after our lamented father's death. Mr. Thomas Newcome's property being divided equally amongst his three sons, the property of his second wife naturally devolves upon her own issue, my brother Brian and myself. There are very heavy legacies to servants and to charitable and religious institutions, of which, in life, she was the munificent patroness; and I regret, my dear brother, that no memorial to you should have been left by my mother, because she often spoke of you latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on which she died, commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left unfinished on the library table. My brother said that on that same day, at breakfast, she pointed to a volume of Orme's Hindostan, the book, she said, which set poor dear Tom wild to go to India, I know you will be pleased to hear of these proofs of returning goodwill and affection in one who often spoke latterly of her early regard for you. I have no more time, under the weight of business which this present affliction entails, than to say that I am yours, dear brother, very sincerely, H. Newcome."

"Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, etc."



CHAPTER IV. In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance

If we are to narrate the youthful history not only of the hero of this tale, but of the hero's father, we shall never have done with nursery biography. A gentleman's grandmother may delight in fond recapitulation of her darling's boyish frolics and early genius; but shall we weary our kind readers by this infantile prattle, and set down the revered British public for an old woman? Only to two or three persons in all the world are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting: to the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him; to himself always and supremely—whatever may be his actual prosperity or ill-fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties, renown, or disappointments, the dawn of his life still shines brightly for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him ever faithful and dear. I shall ask leave to say, regarding the juvenile biography of Mr. Clive Newcome, of whose history I am the chronicler, only so much as is sufficient to account for some peculiarities of his character, and for his subsequent career in the world.

Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young Newcome at the seat of learning where we first met was very brief and casual. He had the advantage of being six years the junior of his present biographer, and such a difference of age between lads at a public school puts intimacy out of the question—a junior ensign being no more familiar with the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, or a barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench, than the newly breeched infant in the Petties with a senior boy in a tailed coat. As we "knew each other at home," as our school phrase was, and our families being somewhat acquainted, Newcome's maternal uncle, the Rev. Charles Honeyman (the highly gifted preacher, and incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, Denmark Street, Mayfair), when he brought the child, after the Christmas vacation of 182-, to the Grey Friars' school, recommended him in a neat complimentary speech to my superintendence and protection. My uncle, Major Pendennis, had for a while a seat in the chapel of this sweet and popular preacher, and professed, as a great number of persons of fashion did, a great admiration for him—an admiration which I shared in my early youth, but which has been modified by maturer judgment.

Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young nephew's father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most gallant and distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable East India Company;—and that his uncles, the Colonel's half-brothers, were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryanstone Square, and Marblehead, Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome and Park Lane, "whom to name," says Mr. Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he decorated the commonest circumstances of life, "is to designate two of the merchant princes of the wealthiest city the world has ever known; and one, if not two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round the throne of the most elegant and refined of European sovereigns." I promised Mr. Honeyman to do what I could for the boy; and he proceeded to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green purse, from which he extracted the sum of two-and-sixpence, which he presented to the child, who received the money with rather a queer twinkle in his blue eyes.

After that day's school, I met my little protege in the neighbourhood of the pastrycook's, regaling himself with raspberry-tarts. "You must not spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you," said I (having perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn), "in tarts and ginger-beer."

The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, "It don't matter, sir, for I've got lots more."

"How much?" says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation used to be, when a new boy came to the school, "What's your name? Who's your father? and how much money have you got?"

The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. "Uncle Hobson," says he, "gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me one—no, Aunt Hobson gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome gave me three pound; and Aunt Anne gave me one pound five; and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in a letter. And Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn't have it, you know; because Ethel's younger than me, and I have plenty."

"And who is Ethel?" asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless youth's confessions.

"Ethel is my cousin," replies little Newcome; "Aunt Anne's daughter. There's Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Anne wanted the baby to be called Boadicea, only uncle wouldn't; and there's Barnes and Egbert and little Alfred; only he don't count, he's quite a baby you know. Egbert and me was at school at Timpany's; he's going to Eton next half. He's older than me, but I can lick him."

"And how old is Egbert?" asks the smiling senior.

"Egbert's ten, and I'm nine, and Ethel's seven," replies the little chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers' pockets, and jingling all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let me be his banker; and, keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he handed over the others, on which he drew with great liberality till his whole stock was expended. The school hours of the upper and under boys were different at that time; the little fellows coming out of their hall half an hour before the Fifth and Sixth Forms; and many a time I used to find my little blue jacket in waiting, with his honest square face, and white hair, and bright blue eyes, and I knew that he was come to draw on his bank. Ere long one of the pretty blue eyes was shut up, and a fine black one substituted in its place. He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a giant of his own Form, whom he had worsted in the combat. "Didn't I pitch into him, that's all?" says he in the elation of victory; and when I asked whence the quarrel arose, he stoutly informed me that "Wolf minor, his opponent, had been bullying a little boy, and that he (the gigantic Newcome) wouldn't stand it."

So, being called away from the school, I said farewell and God bless you to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars, where his career and troubles had only just begun.

Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers in the Temple, when our rencontre took place in the manner already described.

Poor Costigan's outrageous behaviour had caused my meeting with my schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and unpleasantly, that I scarce expected to see Clive again, or at any rate to renew my acquaintance with the indignant East Indian warrior who had quitted our company in such a huff. Breakfast, however, was scarcely over in my chambers the next morning, when there came a knock at the outer door, and my clerk introduced "Colonel Newcome and Mr. Newcome."

Perhaps the (joint) occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court, Temple, felt a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the visitors; for, if the truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much as I had been occupied on the night previous, and was smoking a cigar over the Times newspaper. How many young men in the Temple smoke a cigar after breakfast as they read the Times? My friend and companion of those days, and all days, Mr. George Warrington, was employed with his short pipe, and was not in the least disconcerted at the appearance of the visitors, as he would not have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped in.

Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, while the Colonel shook me cordially by the hand. No traces of yesterday's wrath were visible on his face, but a friendly smile lighted his bronzed countenance, as he too looked round the old room with its dingy curtains and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof-sheets, blotted manuscripts, and books for review, empty soda-water bottles, cigar-boxes, and what not.

"I went off in a flame of fire last night," says the Colonel, "and being cooled this morning, thought it but my duty to call on Mr. Pendennis and apologise for my abrupt behaviour. The conduct of that tipsy old Captain—what is his name?—was so abominable, that I could not bear that Clive should be any longer in the same room with him, and I went off without saying a word of thanks or good-night to my son's old friend. I owe you a shake of the hand for last night, Mr. Pendennis." And, so saying, he was kind enough to give me his hand a second time.

"And this is the abode of the Muses, is it, sir?" our guest went on. "I know your writings very well. Clive here used to send me the Pall Mall Gazette every month."

"We took it at Smiffle, regular," says Clive. "Always patronise Grey Friars men." "Smiffle," it must be explained, is a fond abbreviation for Smithfield, near to which great mart of mutton and oxen our school is situated, and old Cistercians often playfully designate their place of education by the name of the neighbouring market.

"Clive sent me the Gazette every month; and I read your romance of Walter Lorraine in my boat as I was coming down the river to Calcutta."

"Have Pen's immortal productions made their appearance on board Bengalee budgerows; and are their leaves floating on the yellow banks of Jumna?" asks Warrington, that sceptic, who respects no work of modern genius.

"I gave your book to Mrs. Timmins, at Calcutta," says the Colonel simply. "I daresay you have heard of her. She is one of the most dashing women in all India. She was delighted with your work; and I can tell you it is not with every man's writing that Mrs. Timmins is pleased," he added, with a knowing air.

"It's capital," broke in Clive. "I say, that part, you know, where Walter runs away with Neaera, and the General can't pursue them, though he has got the postchaise at the door, because Tim O'Toole has hidden his wooden leg! By Jove, it's capital!—All the funny part—I don't like the sentimental stuff, and suicide, and that; and as for poetry, I hate poetry."

"Pen's is not first chop," says Warrington. "I am obliged to take the young man down from time to time, Colonel Newcome. Otherwise he would grow so conceited there would be no bearing him."

"I say," says Clive.

"What were you about to remark?" asks Mr. Warrington, with an air of great interest.

"I say, Pendennis," continued the artless youth, "I thought you were a great swell. When we used to read about the grand parties in the Pall Mall Gazette, the fellows used to say you were at every one of them, and you see, I thought you must have chambers in the Albany, and lots of horses to ride, and a valet and a groom, and a cab at the very least."

"Sir," says the Colonel, "I hope it is not your practice to measure and estimate gentlemen by such paltry standards as those. A man of letters follows the noblest calling which any man can pursue. I would rather be the author of a work of genius, than be Governor-General of India. I admire genius. I salute it wherever I meet it. I like my own profession better than any in the world, but then it is because I am suited to it. I couldn't write four lines in verse, no, not to save me from being shot. A man cannot have all the advantages of life. Who would not be poor if he could be sure of possessing genius, and winning fame and immortality, sir? Think of Dr. Johnson, what a genius he had, and where did he live? In apartments that, I daresay, were no better than these, which, I am sure, gentlemen, are most cheerful and pleasant," says the Colonel, thinking he had offended us. "One of the great pleasures and delights which I had proposed to myself on coming home was to be allowed to have the honour of meeting with men of learning and genius, with wits, poets, and historians, if I may be so fortunate; and of benefiting by their conversation. I left England too young to have that privilege. In my father's house money was thought of, I fear, rather than intellect; neither he nor I had the opportunities which I wish you to have; and I am surprised you should think of reflecting upon Mr. Pendennis's poverty, or of feeling any sentiment but respect and admiration when you enter the apartments of the poet and the literary man. I have never been in the rooms of a literary man before," the Colonel said, turning away from his son to us: "excuse me, is that—that paper really a proof-sheet?" We handed over to him that curiosity, smiling at the enthusiasm of the honest gentleman who could admire what to us was as unpalatable as a tart to a pastrycook.

Being with men of letters, he thought proper to make his conversation entirely literary; and in the course of my subsequent more intimate acquaintance with him, though I knew he had distinguished himself in twenty actions, he never could be brought to talk of his military feats or experience, but passed them by, as if they were subjects utterly unworthy of notice.

I found he believed Dr. Johnson to be the greatest of men: the Doctor's words were constantly in his mouth; and he never travelled without Boswell's Life. Besides these, he read Caesar and Tacitus, "with translations, sir, with translations—I'm thankful that I kept some of my Latin from Grey Friars;" and he quoted sentences from the Latin Grammar, apropos of a hundred events of common life, and with perfect simplicity and satisfaction to himself. Besides the above-named books, the Spectator, Don Quixote, and Sir Charles Grandison formed a part of his travelling library. "I read these, sir," he used to say, "because I like to be in the company of gentlemen; and Sir Roger de Coverley, and Sir Charles Grandison, and Don Quixote are the finest gentlemen in the world." And when we asked him his opinion of Fielding,—

"Tom Jones, sir; Joseph Andrews, sir!" he cried, twirling his mustachios. "I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad company, and did other low and disgraceful things, of which I'm ashamed now. Sir, in my father's library I happened to fall in with those books; and I read them in secret, just as I used to go in private and drink beer, and fight cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and Tom, the grooms in the stables. Mrs. Newcome found me, I recollect, with one of those books; and thinking it might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of that sort, for it was a grave-looking volume: and though I wouldn't lie about that or anything else—never did, sir; never, before heaven, have I told more than three lies in my life—I kept my own counsel; I say, she took it herself to read one evening; and read on gravely—for she had no more idea of a joke than I have of Hebrew—until she came to the part about Lady B—— and Joseph Andrews; and then she shut the book, sir; and you should have seen the look she gave me! I own I burst out a-laughing, for I was a wild young rebel, sir. But she was in the right, sir, and I was in the wrong. A book, sir, that tells the story of a parcel of servants, of a pack of footmen and ladies'-maids fuddling in alehouses! Do you suppose I want to know what my kitmutgars and cousomahs are doing? I am as little proud as any man in the world: but there must be distinction, sir; and as it is my lot and Clive's lot to be a gentleman, I won't sit in the kitchen and boose in the servants'-hall. As for that Tom Jones—that fellow that sells himself, sir—by heavens, my blood boils when I think of him! I wouldn't sit down in the same room with such a fellow, sir. If he came in at that door, I would say, 'How dare you, you hireling ruffian, to sully with your presence an apartment where my young friend and I are conversing together? where two gentlemen, I say, are taking their wine after dinner? How dare you, you degraded villain?' I don't mean you, sir. I—I—I beg your pardon."

The Colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, puffing his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow bandana; and it was by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his apostrophe to Tom Jones was interrupted; he, Larkins, taking care not to show his amazement, having been schooled not to show or feel surprise at anything he might see or hear in our chambers.

"What is it, Larkins?" said I. Larkins' other master had taken his leave some time before, having business which called him away, and leaving me with the honest Colonel, quite happy with his talk and cigar.

"It's Brett's man," says Larkins.

I confounded Brett's man, and told the boy to bid him call again. Young Larkins came grinning back in a moment, and said:

"Please, sir, he says his orders is not to go away without the money."

"Confound him again," I cried. "Tell him I have no money in the house. He must come to-morrow."

As I spoke, Clive was looking in wonder, and the Colonel's countenance assumed an appearance of the most dolorous sympathy. Nevertheless, as with a great effort, he fell to talking about Tom Jones again, and continued:

"No, sir, I have no words to express my indignation against such a fellow as Tom Jones. But I forgot that I need not speak. The great and good Dr. Johnson has settled that question. You remember what he said to Mr. Boswell about Fielding?"

"And yet Gibbon praises him, Colonel," said the Colonel's interlocutor, "and that is no small praise. He says that Mr. Fielding was of the family that drew its origin from the Counts of Hapsburg; but——"

"Gibbon! Gibbon was an infidel, and I would not give the end of this cigar for such a man's opinion. If Mr. Fielding was a gentleman by birth, he ought to have known better; and so much the worse for him that he did not. But what am I talking of, wasting your valuable time? No more smoke, thank you. I must away into the City, but would not pass the Temple without calling on you, and thanking my boy's old protector. You will have the kindness to come and dine with us—to-morrow, the next day, your own day? Your friend is going out of town? I hope, on his return, to have the pleasure of making his further acquaintance. Come, Clive."

Clive, who had been deep in a volume of Hogarth's engravings during the above discussion, or rather oration of his father's, started up and took leave, beseeching me, at the same time, to come soon and see his pony; and so, with renewed greetings, we parted.

I was scarcely returned to my newspaper again, when the knocker of our door was again agitated, and the Colonel ran back, looking very much agitated and confused.

"I beg pardon," says he; "I think I left my—my——" Larkins had quitted the room by this time, and then he began more unreservedly. "My dear young friend," says he, "a thousand pardons for what I am going to say, but, as Clive's friend, I know I may take that liberty. I have left the boy in the court. I know the fate of men of letters and genius: when we were here just now, there came a single knock—a demand—that, that you did not seem to be momentarily able to meet. Now do, do pardon the liberty, and let me be your banker. You said you were engaged in a new work: it will be a masterpiece, I am sure, if it's like the last. Put me down for twenty copies, and allow me to settle with you in advance. I may be off, you know. I'm a bird of passage—a restless old soldier."

"My dear Colonel," said I, quite touched and pleased by this extreme kindness, "my dun was but the washerwoman's boy, and Mrs. Brett is in my debt, if I am not mistaken. Besides, I already have a banker in your family."

"In my family, my dear Sir?"

"Messrs. Newcome, in Threadneedle Street, are good enough to keep my money for me when I have any, and I am happy to say they have some of mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I am not in want, in order that I might have the pleasure of receiving a kindness from you." And we shook hands for the fourth time that morning, and the kind gentleman left me to rejoin his son.



CHAPTER V. Clive's Uncles

The dinner so hospitably offered by the Colonel was gladly accepted, and followed by many more entertainments at the cost of that good-natured friend. He and an Indian chum of his lived at this time at Nerot's Hotel, in Clifford Street, where Mr. Clive, too, found the good cheer a great deal more to his taste than the homely, though plentiful, fare at Grey Friars, at which, of course, when boys, we all turned up our noses, though many a poor fellow, in the struggles of after-life, has looked back with regret very likely to that well-spread youthful table. Thus my intimacy with the father and the son grew to be considerable, and a great deal more to my liking than my relations with Clive's City uncles, which have been mentioned in the last chapter, and which were, in truth, exceedingly distant and awful.

If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were like mine, where would have been Newcome Hall and Park Lane, Marblehead and Bryanstone Square? I used, by strong efforts of self-denial, to maintain a balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so that my account might still remain open; and fancied the clerks and cashiers grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that awful counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein behind the glazed partition I could see the bald heads of Newcome Brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper, I would as soon have thought of walking into the Doctor's own library at Grey Friars, or of volunteering to take an armchair in a dentist's studio, and have a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct. My good uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept naturally but a very small account with Hobsons', would walk into the parlour and salute the two magnates who governed there with the ease and gravity of a Rothschild. "My good fellow," the kind old gentleman would say to his nephew and pupil, "il faut se faire valoir. I tell you, sir, your bankers like to keep every gentleman's account. And it's a mistake to suppose they are only civil to their great moneyed clients. Look at me. I go in to them and talk to them whenever I am in the City. I hear the news of 'Change, and carry it to our end of the town. It looks well, sir, to be well with your banker; and at our end of London, perhaps, I can do a good turn for the Newcomes."

It is certain that in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. James's my revered uncle was at least the bankers' equal. On my coming to London, he was kind enough to procure me invitations to some of Lady Anne Newcome's evening parties in Park Lane, as likewise to Mrs. Newcome's entertainments in Bryanstone Square; though, I confess, of these latter, after a while, I was a lax and negligent attendant. "Between ourselves, my good fellow," the shrewd old Mentor of those days would say, "Mrs. Newcome's parties are not altogether select; nor is she a lady of the very highest breeding; but it gives a man a good air to be seen at his banker's house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes whenever you are asked." And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I always fancied, rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcome's manner to me, that she knew I had but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once and again, in two or three years, Mr. Hobson Newcome would meet me, and ask me to fill a vacant place that day or the next evening at his table; which invitation I might accept or otherwise. But one does not eat a man's salt, as it were, at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London hospitality. Your white waistcoat fills a gap in a man's table, and retires filled for its service of the evening. "Gad," the dear old Major used to say, "if we were not to talk freely of those we dine with, how mum London would be! Some of the pleasantest evenings I have ever spent have been when we have sate after a great dinner, en petit comite, and abused the people who are gone. You have your turn, mon cher; but why not? Do you suppose I fancy my friends haven't found out my little faults and peculiarities? And as I can't help it, I let myself be executed, and offer up my oddities de bonne grace. Entre nous, Brother Hobson Newcome is a good fellow, but a vulgar fellow; and his wife—his wife exactly suits him."

Once a year Lady Anne Newcome (about whom my Mentor was much more circumspect; for I somehow used to remark that as the rank of persons grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them with more caution and respect)—once or twice in a year Lady Anne Newcome opened her saloons for a concert and a ball, at both of which the whole street was crowded with carriages, and all the great world, and some of the small, were present. Mrs. Newcome had her ball too, and her concert of English music, in opposition to the Italian singers of her sister-in-law. The music of her country, Mrs. N. said, was good enough for her.

The truth must be told, that there was no love lost between the two ladies. Bryanstone Square could not forget the superiority of Park Lane's rank; and the catalogue of grandees at dear Anne's parties filled dear Maria's heart with envy. There are people upon whom rank and worldly goods make such an impression, that they naturally fall down on their knees and worship the owners; there are others to whom the sight of Prosperity is offensive, and who never see Dives' chariot but to growl and hoot at it. Mrs. Newcome, as far as my humble experience would lead me to suppose, is not only envious, but proud of her envy. She mistakes it for honesty and public spirit. She will not bow down to kiss the hand of a haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant's wife and an attorney's daughter. There is no pride about her. Her brother-in-law, poor dear Brian—considering everybody knows everything in London, was there ever such a delusion as his?—was welcome, after banking-hours, to forsake his own friends for his wife's fine relations, and to dangle after lords and ladies in Mayfair. She had no such absurd vanity—not she. She imparted these opinions pretty liberally to all her acquaintances in almost all her conversations. It was clear that the two ladies were best apart. There are some folks who will see insolence in persons of rank, as there are others who will insist; that all clergymen are hypocrites, all reformers villains, all placemen plunderers, and so forth; and Mrs. Newcome never, I am sure, imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she was other than an honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the ladies had command over their husbands, who were of soft natures easily led by woman, as, in truth, are all the males of this family. Accordingly, when Sir Brian Newcome voted for the Tory candidate in the City, Mr. Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in the House of Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson unmasked traitors and thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the Marylebone Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady Anne, her husband, and her flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High Church doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the progress of Popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where she had a pew, because the clergyman there, for a very brief season, appeared to preach in a surplice.

Poor bewildered Honeyman! it was a sad day for you, when you appeared in your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-handkerchief (and your sermon likewise all millefleurs), in a trim, prim, freshly mangled surplice, which you thought became you! How did you look aghast, and pass your jewelled hand through your curls, as you saw Mrs. Newcome, who had been as good as five-and-twenty pounds a year to you, look up from her pew, seize hold of Mr. Newcome, fling open the pew-door, drive out with her parasol her little flock of children, bewildered but not ill-pleased to get away from the sermon, and summon John from the back seats to bring away the bag of prayer-books! Many a good dinner did Charles Honeyman lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the high-priest of his diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to view him afterwards, and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had they been going to tear him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he could scarcely have looked more meek, or resigned himself more pathetically to the persecutors. But I am advancing matters. At this early time of which I write, a period not twenty years since, surplices were not even thought of in conjunction with sermons: clerical gentlemen have appeared in them, and under the heavy hand of persecution have sunk down in their pulpits again, as Jack pops back into his box. Charles Honeyman's elegant discourses were at this time preached in a rich silk Master of Arts' gown, presented to him, along with a teapot full of sovereigns, by his affectionate congregation at Leatherhead.

But that I may not be accused of prejudice in describing Mrs. Newcome and her family, and lest the reader should suppose that some slight offered to the writer by this wealthy and virtuous banker's lady was the secret reason for this unfavourable sketch of her character, let me be allowed to report, as accurately as I can remember them, the words of a kinsman of her own, —— Giles, Esquire, whom I had the honour of meeting at her table, and who, as we walked away from Bryanstone Square, was kind enough to discourse very freely about the relatives whom he had just left.

"That was a good dinner, sir," said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar which I offered to him, and disposed to be very social and communicative. "Hobson Newcome's table is about as good a one as any I ever put my legs under. You didn't have twice of turtle, sir, I remarked that—I always do, at that house especially, for I know where Newcome gets it. We belong to the same livery in the City, Hobson and I, the Oystermongers' Company, sir, and we like our turtle good, I can tell you—good, and a great deal of it, you say. Hay, hay, not so bad!

"I suppose you're a young barrister, sucking lawyer, or that sort of thing. Because you was put at the end of the table and nobody took notice of you. That's my place too; I'm a relative and Newcome asks me if he has got a place to spare. He met me in the City to-day, and says, 'Tom,' says he, 'there's some dinner in the Square at half-past seven: I wish you would go and fetch Louisa, whom we haven't seen this ever so long.' Louisa is my wife, sir—Maria's sister—Newcome married that gal from my house. 'No, no,' says I, 'Hobson; Louisa's engaged nursing number eight'—that's our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me, sir, my missis won't come any more at no price. She can't stand it; Mrs. Newcome's dam patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody. 'Well, Hobson, my boy,' says I, 'a good dinner's a good dinner; and I'll come though Louisa won't, that is, can't.'"

While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that dinner which Mrs. Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued talking—"I'm an old stager, I am. I don't mind the rows between the women. I believe Mrs. Newcome and Lady Newcome's just as bad too; I know Maria is always driving at her one way or the other, and calling her proud and aristocratic, and that; and yet my wife says Maria, who pretends to be such a Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and his lady. 'And why should she, Loo, my dear?' says I. 'I don't want to meet Lady Newcome, nor Lord Kew, nor any of 'em.' Lord Kew, ain't it an odd name? Tearing young swell, that Lord Kew: tremendous wild fellow."

"I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man; I was there in the old woman's time, and Mr. Newcome's—the father of these young men—as good a man as ever stood on 'Change." And then Mr. Giles, warming with his subject, enters at large into the history of the house. "You see, sir," says he, "the banking-house of Hobson Brothers, or Newcome Brothers, as the partners of the firm really are, is not one of the leading banking firms of the City of London, but a most respectable house of many years' standing, and doing a most respectable business, especially in the Dissenting connection." After the business came into the hands of the Newcome Brothers, Hobson Newcome, Esq., and Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., M.P., Mr. Giles shows how a considerable West End connection was likewise established, chiefly through the aristocratic friends and connections of the above-named Bart.

But the best man of business, according to Mr. Giles, whom the firm of Hobson Brothers ever knew, better than her father and uncle, better than her husband Sir T. Newcome, better than her sons and successors above mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea Hobson, afterwards Newcome—of whom might be said what Frederick the Great said of his sister, that she was sexu foemina, vir ingenio—in sex a woman, and in mind a man. Nor was she, my informant told me, without even manly personal characteristics: she had a very deep and gruff voice, and in her old age a beard which many a young man might envy; and as she came into the bank out of her carriage from Clapham, in her dark green pelisse with fur trimmings, in her grey beaver hat, beaver gloves, and great gold spectacles, not a clerk in that house did not tremble before her, and it was said she only wanted a pipe in her mouth considerably to resemble the late Field-Marshal Prince Blucher.

Her funeral was one of the most imposing sights ever witnessed in Clapham. There was such a crowd you might have thought it was a Derby-day. The carriages of some of the greatest City firms, and the wealthiest Dissenting houses; several coaches full of ministers of all denominations, including the Established Church; the carriage of the Right Honourable the Earl of Kew, and that of his daughter, Lady Anne Newcome, attended that revered lady's remains to their final resting-place. No less than nine sermons were preached at various places of public worship regarding her end. She fell upstairs at a very advanced age, going from the library to the bedroom, after all the household was gone to rest, and was found by the maids in the morning, inarticulate, but still alive, her head being cut frightfully with the bedroom candle with which she was retiring to her apartment. "And," said Mr. Giles with great energy, "besides the empty carriages at that funeral, and the parson in black, and the mutes and feathers and that, there were hundreds and hundreds of people who wore no black, and who weren't present; and who wept for their benefactress, I can tell you. She had her faults, and many of 'em; but the amount of that woman's charities are unheard of, sir—unheard of,—and they are put to the credit side of her account up yonder.

"The old lady had a will of her own," my companion continued. "She would try and know about everybody's business out of business hours: got to know from the young clerks what chapels they went to, and from the clergymen whether they attended regular; kept her sons, years after they were grown men, as if they were boys at school—and what was the consequence? They had a quarrel with Sir Thomas Newcome's own son, a harum-scarum lad, who ran away, and then was sent to India; and, between ourselves, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Brian both, the present Baronet, though at home they were as mum as Quakers at a meeting, used to go out on the sly, sir, and be off to the play, sir, and sowed their wild oats like any other young men, sir, like any other young men. Law bless me, once, as I was going away from the Haymarket, if I didn't see Mr. Hobson coming out of the Opera, in tights and an opera-hat, sir, like 'Froggy would wooing go,' of a Saturday-night, too, when his ma thought him safe in bed in the City! I warrant he hadn't his opera-hat on when he went to chapel with her ladyship the next morning—that very morning, as sure as my name's John Giles.

"When the old lady was gone, Mr. Hobson had no need of any more humbugging, but took his pleasure freely. Fighting, tandems, four-in-hand, anything. He and his brother—his elder brother by a quarter of an hour—were always very good friends; but after Mr. Brian married, and there was only court-cards at his table, Mr. Hobson couldn't stand it. They weren't of his suit, he said; and for some time he said he wasn't a marrying man—quite the contrary; but we all come to our fate, you know, and his time came as mine did. You know we married sisters? It was thought a fine match for Polly Smith, when she married the great Mr. Newcome; but I doubt whether my old woman at home hasn't had the best of it, after all; and if ever you come Bernard Street way on a Sunday, about six o'clock, and would like a slice of beef and a glass of port, I hope you'll come and see us."

Do not let us be too angry with Colonel Newcome's two most respectable brothers, if for some years they neglected their Indian relative, or held him in slight esteem. Their mother never pardoned him, or at least by any actual words admitted his restoration to favour. For many years, as far as they knew, poor Tom was an unrepentant prodigal, wallowing in bad company, and cut off from all respectable sympathy. Their father had never had the courage to acquaint them with his more true, and kind, and charitable version of Tom's story. So he passed at home for no better than a black sheep; his marriage with a penniless young lady did not tend to raise him in the esteem of his relatives at Clapham; it was not until he was a widower, until he had been mentioned several times in the Gazette for distinguished military service, until they began to speak very well of him in Leadenhall Street, where the representatives of Hobson Brothers were of course East India proprietors, and until he remitted considerable sums of money to England, that the bankers his brethren began to be reconciled to him.

I say, do not let us be hard upon them. No people are so ready to give a man a bad name as his own kinsfolk; and having made him that present, they are ever most unwilling to take it back again. If they give him nothing else in the days of his difficulty, he may be sure of their pity, and that he is held up as an example to his young cousins to avoid. If he loses his money they call him poor fellow, and point morals out of him. If he falls among thieves, the respectable Pharisees of his race turn their heads aside and leave him penniless and bleeding. They clap him on the back kindly enough when he returns, after shipwreck, with money in his pocket. How naturally Joseph's brothers made salaams to him, and admired him, and did him honour, when they found the poor outcast a prime minister, and worth ever so much money! Surely human nature is not much altered since the days of those primeval Jews. We would not thrust brother Joseph down a well and sell him bodily, but—but if he has scrambled out of a well of his own digging, and got out of his early bondage into renown and credit, at least we applaud him and respect him, and are proud of Joseph as a member of the family.

Little Clive was the innocent and lucky object upon whom the increasing affection of the Newcomes for their Indian brother was exhibited. When he was first brought home a sickly child, consigned to his maternal aunt, the kind old maiden lady at Brighton, Hobson Brothers scarce took any notice of the little man, but left him to the entire superintendence of his own family. Then there came a large remittance from his father, and the child was asked by Uncle Newcome at Christmas. Then his father's name was mentioned in general orders, and Uncle Hobson asked little Clive at Midsummer. Then Lord H., a late Governor-General, coming home, and meeting the brothers at a grand dinner at the Albion, given by the Court of Directors to his late Excellency, spoke to the bankers about that most distinguished officer their relative; and Mrs. Hobson drove over to see his aunt, where the boy was; gave him a sovereign out of her purse, and advised strongly that he should be sent to Timpany's along wit her own boy. Then Clive went from one uncle's house to another; and was liked at both; and much preferred ponies to ride, going out after rabbits with the keeper, money in his pocket (charge to the debit of Lieut.-Col. T. Newcome), and clothes from the London tailor, to the homely quarters and conversation of poor kind old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton. Clive's uncles were not unkind; they liked each other; their wives, who hated each other, united in liking Clive when they knew him, and petting the wayward handsome boy: they were only pursuing the way of the world, which huzzas all prosperity, and turns away from misfortune as from some contagious disease. Indeed, how can we see a man's brilliant qualities if he is what we call in the shade?

The gentlemen, Clive's uncles, who had their affairs to mind during the day, society and the family to occupy them of evenings and holidays, treated their young kinsman, the Indian Colonel's son, as other wealthy British uncles treat other young kinsmen. They received him in his vacations kindly enough. They tipped him when he went to school; when he had the hooping-cough, a confidential young clerk went round by way of Grey Friars Square to ask after him; the sea being recommended to him, Mrs. Newcome gave him change of air in Sussex, and transferred him to his maternal aunt at Brighton. Then it was bonjour. As the lodge-gates closed upon him, Mrs. Newcome's heart shut up too and confined itself within the firs, laurels, and palings which bound the home precincts. Had not she her own children and affairs? her brood of fowls, her Sunday-school, her melon-beds, her rose-garden, her quarrel with the parson, etc., to attend to? Mr. Newcome, arriving on a Saturday night; hears he is gone, says "Oh!" and begins to ask about the new gravel-walk along the cliff, and whether it is completed, and if the China pig fattens kindly upon the new feed.

Clive, in the avuncular gig, is driven over the downs to Brighton to his maternal aunt there; and there he is a king. He has the best bedroom, Uncle Honeyman turning out for him sweetbreads for dinner; no end of jam for breakfast; excuses from church on the plea of delicate health; his aunt's maid to see him to bed; his aunt to come smiling in when he rings his bell of a morning. He is made much of, and coaxed, and dandled and fondled, as if he were a young duke. So he is to Miss Honeyman. He is the son of Colonel Newcome, C.B., who sends her shawls, ivory chessmen, scented sandalwood workboxes and kincob scarfs; who, as she tells Martha the maid, has fifty servants in India; at which Martha constantly exclaims, "Lor', mum, what can he do with 'em, mum?" who, when in consequence of her misfortunes she resolved on taking a house at Brighton, and letting part of the same furnished, sent her an order for a hundred pounds towards the expenses thereof; who gave Mr. Honeyman, her brother, a much larger sum of money at the period of his calamity. Is it gratitude for past favours? is it desire for more? is it vanity of relationship? is it love for the dead sister—or tender regard for her offspring which makes Mrs. Martha Honeyman so fond of her nephew? I never could count how many causes went to produce any given effect or action in a person's life, and have been for my own part many a time quite misled in my own case, fancying some grand, some magnanimous, some virtuous reason, for an act of which I was proud, when lo! some pert little satirical monitor springs up inwardly, upsetting the fond humbug which I was cherishing—the peacock's tail wherein my absurd vanity had clad itself—and says, "Away with this boasting! I am the cause of your virtue, my lad. You are pleased that yesterday at dinner you refrained from the dry champagne? My name is Worldly Prudence, not Self-denial, and I caused you to refrain. You are pleased because you gave a guinea to Diddler? I am Laziness, not Generosity, which inspired you. You hug yourself because you resisted other temptation? Coward! it was because you dared not run the risk of the wrong. Out with your peacock's plumage! walk off in the feathers which Nature gave you, and thank Heaven they are not altogether black." In a word, Aunt Honeyman was a kind soul, and such was the splendour of Clive's father, of his gifts, his generosity, his military services, and companionship of the battles, that the lad did really appear a young duke to her. And Mrs. Newcome was not unkind: and if Clive had been really a young duke, I am sure he would have had the best bedroom at Marble Hill, and not one of the far-off little rooms in the boys' wing; I am sure he would have had jellies and Charlottes Russes, instead of mere broth, chicken, and batter-pudding, as fell to his lot; and when he was gone (in the carriage, mind you, not in the gig driven by a groom), I am sure Mrs. Newcome would have written a letter that night to Her Grace the Duchess Dowager his mamma, full of praise of the dear child, his graciousness, his beauty, and his wit, and declaring that she must love him henceforth and for ever after as a son of her own. You toss down the page with scorn, and say, "It is not true. Human nature is not so bad as this cynic would have it to be. You would make no difference between the rich and the poor." Be it so. You would not. But own that your next-door neighbour would. Nor is this, dear madam, addressed to you; no, no, we are not so rude as to talk about you to your face; but if we may not speak of the lady who has just left the room, what is to become of conversation and society?

We forbear to describe the meeting between the Colonel and his son—the pretty boy from whom he had parted more than seven years before with such pangs of heart; and of whom he had thought ever since with such a constant longing affection. Half an hour after the father left the boy, and in his grief and loneliness was rowing back to shore, Clive was at play with a dozen of other children on the sunny deck of the ship. When two bells rang for their dinner, they were all hurrying to the cuddy table, and busy over their meal. What a sad repast their parents had that day! How their hearts followed the careless young ones home across the great ocean! Mothers' prayers go with them. Strong men, alone on their knees, with streaming eyes and broken accents, implore Heaven for those little ones, who were prattling at their sides but a few hours since. Long after they are gone, careless and happy, recollections of the sweet past rise up and smite those who remain: the flowers they had planted in their little gardens, the toys they played with, the little vacant cribs they slept in as fathers' eyes looked blessings down on them. Most of us who have passed a couple of score of years in the world, have had such sights as these to move us. And those who have will think none the worse of my worthy Colonel for his tender and faithful heart.

With that fidelity which was an instinct of his nature, this brave man thought ever of his absent child, and longed after him. He never forsook the native servants and nurses who had had charge of the child, but endowed them with money sufficient (and indeed little was wanted by people of that frugal race) to make all their future lives comfortable. No friends went to Europe, nor ship departed, but Newcome sent presents and remembrances to the boy, and costly tokens of his love and thanks to all who were kind to his son. What a strange pathos seems to me to accompany all our Indian story! Besides that official history which fills Gazettes, and embroiders banners with names of victory; which gives moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine; and enables patriots to boast of invincible British valour—besides the splendour and conquest, the wealth and glory, the crowned ambition, the conquered danger, the vast prize, and the blood freely shed in winning it—should not one remember the tears, too? Besides the lives of myriads of British men, conquering on a hundred fields, from Plassey to Meanee, and bathing them cruore nostro: think of the women, and the tribute which they perforce must pay to those victorious achievements. Scarce a soldier goes to yonder shores but leaves a home and grief in it behind him. The lords of the subject province find wives there; but their children cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their children to the shore, and part from them. The family must be broken up—keep the flowers of your home beyond a certain time, and the sickening buds wither and die. In America it is from the breast of a poor slave that a child is taken. In India it is from the wife, and from under the palace, of a splendid proconsul.

The experience of this grief made Newcome's naturally kind heart only the more tender, and hence he had a weakness for children which made him the laughing-stock of old maids, old bachelors, and sensible persons; but the darling of all nurseries, to whose little inhabitants he was uniformly kind: were they the collectors' progeny in their palanquins, or the sergeants' children tumbling about the cantonment, or the dusky little heathens in the huts of his servants round his gate.

It is known that there is no part of the world where ladies are more fascinating than in British India. Perhaps the warmth of the sun kindles flames in the hearts of both sexes, which would probably beat quite coolly in their native air: else why should Miss Brown be engaged ten days after her landing at Calcutta? or why should Miss Smith have half a dozen proposals before she has been a week at the station? And it is not only bachelors on whom the young ladies confer their affections; they will take widowers without any difficulty; and a man so generally liked as Major Newcome, with such a good character, with a private fortune of his own, so chivalrous, generous, good-looking, eligible in a word, you may be sure would have found a wife easily enough, had he any mind for replacing the late Mrs. Casey.

The Colonel, as has been stated, had an Indian chum or companion, with whom he shared his lodgings; and from many jocular remarks of this latter gentleman (who loved good jokes, and uttered not a few) I could gather that the honest widower Colonel Newcome had been often tempted to alter his condition, and that the Indian ladies had tried numberless attacks upon his bereaved heart, and devised endless schemes of carrying it by assault, treason, or other mode of capture. Mrs. Casey (his defunct wife) had overcome it by sheer pity and helplessness. He had found her so friendless, that he took her into the vacant place, and installed her there as he would have received a traveller into his bungalow. He divided his meal with her, and made her welcome to his best. "I believe Tom Newcome married her," sly Mr. Binnie used to say, "in order that he might have permission to pay her milliner's bills;" and in this way he was amply gratified until the day of her death. A feeble miniature of the lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, hung over the mantelpiece of the Colonel's bedchamber, where I have often seen that work of art; and subsequently, when he and Mr. Binnie took a house, there was hung up in the spare bedroom a companion portrait to the miniature—that of the Colonel's predecessor, Jack Casey, who in life used to fling plates at his Emma's head, and who perished from a fatal attachment to the bottle. I am inclined to think that Colonel Newcome was not much cast down by the loss of his wife, and that they lived but indifferently together. Clive used to say in his artless way that his father scarcely ever mentioned his mother's name; and no doubt the union was not happy, although Newcome continued piously to acknowledge it, long after death had brought it to a termination, by constant benefactions and remembrances to the departed lady's kindred.

Those widows or virgins who endeavoured to fill Emma's place found the door of Newcombe's heart fast and barred, and assailed it in vain. Miss Billing sat down before it with her piano, and, as the Colonel was a practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life one harmonious duet with him; but she played her most brilliant sonatas and variations in vain; and, as everybody knows, subsequently carried her grand piano to Lieutenant and Adjutant Hodgkin's house, whose name she now bears. The lovely widow Wilkins, with two darling little children, stopped at Newcome's hospitable house, on her way to Calcutta; and it was thought she might never leave it; but her kind host, as was his wont, crammed her children with presents and good things, consoled and entertained the fair widow, and one morning, after she had remained three months at the station, the Colonel's palanquins and bearers made their appearance, and Elvira Wilkins went away weeping as a widow should. Why did she abuse Newcome ever after at Calcutta, Bath, Cheltenham, and wherever she went, calling him selfish, pompous, Quixotic, and a Bahawder? I could mention half a dozen other names of ladies of most respectable families connected with Leadenhall Street, who, according to Colonel Newcome's chum—that wicked Mr. Binnie—had all conspired more or less to give Clive Newcome a stepmother.

But he had had an unlucky experience in his own case; and thought within himself, "No, I won't give Clive a stepmother. As Heaven has taken his own mother from him, why, I must try to be father and mother too to the lad." He kept the child as long as ever the climate would allow of his remaining, and then sent him home. Then his aim was to save money for the youngster. He was of a nature so uncontrollably generous, that to be sure he spent five rupees where another would save them, and make a fine show besides; but it is not a man's gifts or hospitalities that generally injure his fortune. It is on themselves that prodigals spend most. And as Newcome had no personal extravagances, and the smallest selfish wants; could live almost as frugally as a Hindoo; kept his horses not to race but to ride; wore his old clothes and uniforms until they were the laughter of his regiment; did not care for show, and had no longer an extravagant wife; he managed to lay by considerably out of his liberal allowances, and to find himself and Clive growing richer every year.

"When Clive has had five or six years at school"—that was his scheme—"he will be a fine scholar, and have at least as much classical learning as a gentleman in the world need possess. Then I will go to England, and we will pass three or four years together, in which he will learn to be intimate with me, and, I hope, to like me. I shall be his pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make up for lost time. I know there is nothing like a knowledge of the classics to give a man good breeding—Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollunt mores, nec sinuisse feros. I shall be able to help him with my knowledge of the world, and to keep him out of the way of sharpers and a pack of rogues who commonly infest young men. I will make myself his companion, and pretend to no superiority; for, indeed, isn't he my superior? Of course he is, with his advantages. He hasn't been an idle young scamp as I was. And we will travel together, first through England, Scotland, and Ireland, for every man should know his own country, and then we will make the grand tour. Then, by the time he is eighteen, he will be able to choose his profession. He can go into the army, and emulate the glorious man after whom I named him; or if he prefers the church, or the law, they are open to him; and when he goes to the university, by which time I shall be in all probability a major-general, I can come back to India for a few years, and return by the time he has a wife and a home for his old father; or if I die I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left with the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing of his old father."

Such were the plans of our kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them, how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of travels and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, "Rome, sir, glorious Rome; it won't be very long, Major, before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and kiss the Pope's toe. We shall go up the Rhine to Switzerland, and over the Simplon, the work of the great Napoleon. By Jove, sir, think of the Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing eighty thousand of 'em off the face of the earth! How my boy will rejoice in the picture-galleries there, and in Prince Eugene's prints! You know, I suppose, that Prince Eugene, one of the greatest generals in the world, was also one of the greatest lovers of the fine arts. Ingenuas didicisse, hey, Doctor! you know the rest,—emollunt mores nec——"

"Emollunt mores! Colonel," says Doctor McTaggart, who perhaps was too canny to correct the commanding officer's Latin. "Don't ye noo that Prence Eugene was about as savage a Turrk as iver was? Have ye niver rad the mimores of the Prants de Leen?"

"Well, he was a great cavalry officer," answers the Colonel, "and he left a great collection of prints—that you know. How Clive will delight in them! The boy's talent for drawing is wonderful, sir, wonderful. He sent me a picture of our old school—the very actual thing, sir; the cloisters, the school, the head gown-boy going in with the rods, and the Doctor himself. It would make you die of laughing!"

He regaled the ladies of the regiment with Clive's letters, and those of Miss Honeyman, which contained an account of the boy. He even bored some of his bearers with this prattle; and sporting young men would give or take odds that the Colonel would mention Clive's name, once before five minutes, three times in ten minutes, twenty-five times in the course of dinner, and so on. But they who laughed at the Colonel laughed very kindly; and everybody who knew him, loved him; everybody, that is, who loved modesty, and generosity, and honour.

At last the happy time came for which the kind father had been longing more passionately than any prisoner for liberty, or schoolboy for holiday. Colonel Newcome has taken leave of his regiment, leaving Major Tomkinson, nothing loth, in command. He has travelled to Calcutta; and the Commander-in-Chief, in general orders, has announced that in giving to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., of the Bengal Cavalry, leave for the first time, after no less than thirty-four years' absence from home, "he (Sir George Hustler) cannot refrain from expressing his sense of the great and meritorious services of this most distinguished officer, who has left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline and efficiency." And now the ship has sailed, the voyage is over, and once more, after so many long years, the honest soldier's foot is on his native shore.



CHAPTER VI. Newcome Brothers

Besides his own boy, whom he worshipped, this kind Colonel had a score, at least, of adopted children, to whom he chose to stand in the light of a father. He was for ever whirling away in postchaises to this school and that, to see Jack Brown's boys, of the Cavalry; or Mrs. Smith's girls, of the Civil Service; or poor Tom Hicks's orphan, who had nobody to look after him now that the cholera had carried off Tom, and his wife too. On board the ship in which he returned from Calcutta were a dozen of little children, of both sexes, some of whom he actually escorted to their friends before he visited his own; and though his heart was longing for his boy at Grey Friars. The children at the schools seen, and largely rewarded out of his bounty (his loose white trousers had great pockets, always heavy with gold and silver, which he jingled when he was not pulling his mustachios—to see the way in which he tipped children made one almost long to be a boy again); and when he had visited Miss Pinkerton's establishment, or Doctor Ramshorn's adjoining academy at Chiswick, and seen little Tom Davis or little Fanny Holmes the honest fellow would come home and write off straightway a long letter to Tom's or Fanny's parents, far away in the Indian country, whose hearts he made happy by his accounts of their children, as he had delighted the children themselves by his affection and bounty. All the apple- and orange-women (especially such as had babies as well as lollipops at their stalls), all the street-sweepers on the road between Nerot's and the Oriental, knew him, and were his pensioners. His brothers in Threadneedle Street cast up their eyes at the cheques which he drew.

One of the little people of whom the kind Newcome had taken charge luckily dwelt near Portsmouth; and when the faithful Colonel consigned Miss Fipps to her grandmother, Mrs. Admiral Fipps, at Southampton, Miss Fipps clung to her guardian, and with tears and howls was torn away from him. Not until her maiden aunts had consoled her with strawberries, which she never before had tasted, was the little Indian comforted for the departure of her dear Colonel. Master Cox, Tom Cox's boy, of the Native Infantry, had to be carried asleep from the "George" to the mail that night. Master Cox woke up at the dawn wondering, as the coach passed through the pleasant green roads of Bromley. The good gentleman consigned the little chap to his uncle, Dr. Cox, Bloomsbury Square, before he went to his own quarters, and then on the errand on which his fond heart was bent.

He had written to his brothers from Portsmouth, announcing his arrival, and three words to Clive, conveying the same intelligence. The letter was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and one buttered roll, of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore other boys, boarders of the same house with our young friend. How the lad's face must have flushed, and his eyes brightened, when he read the news! When the master of the house, the Rev. Mr. Popkinson, came into the long-room, with a good-natured face, and said, "Newcome, you're wanted," he knows who is come. He does not heed that notorious bruiser, Old Hodge, who roars out, "Confound you, Newcome: I'll give it you for upsetting your tea over my new trousers." He runs to the room where the stranger is waiting for him. We will shut the door, if you please, upon that scene.

If Clive had not been as fine and handsome a young lad as any in that school or country, no doubt his fond father would have been just as well pleased, and endowed him with a hundred fanciful graces; but in truth, in looks and manners he was every thing which his parent could desire; and I hope the artist who illustrates this work will take care to do justice to his portrait. Mr. Clive himself, let that painter be assured, will not be too well pleased if his countenance and figure do not receive proper attention. He is not yet endowed with those splendid mustachios and whiskers which he has himself subsequently depicted, but he is the picture of health, strength, activity, and good-humour. He has a good forehead, shaded with a quantity of waving light hair; a complexion which ladies might envy; a mouth which seems accustomed to laughing; and a pair of blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence and frank kindness. No wonder the pleased father cannot refrain from looking at him. He is, in a word, just such a youth as has a right to be the hero of a novel.

The bell rings for second school, and Mr. Popkinson, arrayed in cap and gown, comes in to shake Colonel Newcome by the hand, and to say he supposes it's to be a holiday for Newcome that day. He does not say a word about Clive's scrape of the day before, and that awful row in the bedrooms, where the lad and three others were discovered making a supper off a pork-pie and two bottles of prime old port from the Red Cow public-house in Grey Friars Lane. When the bell has done ringing, and all these busy little bees have swarmed into their hive, there is a solitude in the place. The Colonel and his son walked the playground together, that gravelly flat, as destitute of herbage as the Arabian desert, but, nevertheless, in the language of the place called the green. They walk the green, and they pace the cloisters, and Clive shows his father his own name of Thomas Newcome carved upon one of the arches forty years ago. As they talk, the boy gives sidelong glances at his new friend, and wonders at the Colonel's loose trousers, long mustachios, and yellow face. He looks very odd, Clive thinks, very odd and very kind, and he looks like a gentleman, every inch of him:—not like Martin's father, who came to see his son lately in high-lows, and a shocking bad hat, and actually flung coppers amongst the boys for a scramble. He bursts out a-laughing at the exquisitely ludicrous idea of a gentleman of his fashion scrambling for coppers.

And now, enjoining the boy to be ready against his return (and you may be sure Mr. Clive was on the look-out long before his sire appeared), the Colonel whirled away in his cab to the City to shake hands with his brothers, whom he had not seen since they were demure little men in blue jackets, under charge of a serious tutor.

He rushed through the clerks and the banking-house, he broke into the parlour where the lords of the establishment were seated. He astonished those trim quiet gentlemen by the warmth of his greeting, by the vigour of his hand-shake, and the loud high tones of his voice, which penetrated the glass walls of the parlour, and might actually be heard by the busy clerks in the hall without. He knew Brian from Hobson at once—that unlucky little accident in the go-cart having left its mark for ever on the nose of Sir Brian Newcome, the elder of the twins. Sir Brian had a bald head and light hair, a short whisker cut to his cheek, a buff waistcoat, very neat boots and hands. He looked like the "Portrait of a Gentleman" at the Exhibition, as the worthy is represented: dignified in attitude, bland, smiling, and statesmanlike, sitting at a table unsealing letters, with a despatch-box and a silver inkstand before him, a column and a scarlet curtain behind, and a park in the distance, with a great thunderstorm lowering in the sky. Such a portrait, in fact, hangs over the great sideboard at Newcome to this day, and above the three great silver waiters, which the gratitude of as many Companies has presented to their respected director and chairman.

In face, Hobson Newcome, Esq., was like his elder brother, but was more portly in person. He allowed his red whiskers to grow wherever nature had planted them, on his cheeks and under his chin. He wore thick shoes with nails in them, or natty round-toed boots, with tight trousers and a single strap. He affected the country gentleman in his appearance. His hat had a broad brim, and the ample pockets of his cut-away coat were never destitute of agricultural produce, samples of beans or corn, which he used to bite and chew even on 'Change, or a whip-lash, or balls for horses: in fine, he was a good old country gentleman. If it was fine in Threadneedle Street, he would say it was good weather for the hay; if it rained, the country wanted rain; if it was frosty, "No hunting to-day, Tomkins, my boy," and so forth. As he rode from Bryanstone Square to the City you would take him—and he was pleased to be so taken—for a jolly country squire. He was a better man of business than his more solemn and stately brother, at whom he laughed in his jocular way; and he said rightly, that a gentleman must get up very early in the morning who wanted to take him in.

The Colonel breaks into the sanctum of these worthy gentlemen; and each receives him in a manner consonant with his peculiar nature. Sir Brian regretted that Lady Anne was away from London, being at Brighton with the children, who were all ill of the measles. Hobson said, "Maria can't treat you to such good company as my lady could give you, but when will you take a day and come and dine with us? Let's see, to-day's Wednesday; to-morrow we've a party. No, we're engaged." He meant that his table was full, and that he did not care to crowd it; but there was no use in imparting this circumstance to the Colonel. "Friday, we dine at Judge Budge's—queer name, Judge Budge, ain't it? Saturday, I'm going down to Marblehead, to look after the hay. Come on Monday, Tom, and I'll introduce you to the missus and the young 'uns."

"I will bring Clive," says Colonel Newcome, rather disturbed at this reception. "After his illness my sister-in-law was very kind to him."

"No, hang it, don't bring boys; there's no good in boys; they stop the talk downstairs, and the ladies don't want 'em in the drawing-room. Send him to dine with the children on Sunday, if you like, and come along down with me to Marblehead, and I'll show you such a crop of hay as will make your eyes open. Are you fond of farming?"

"I have not seen my boy for years," says the Colonel; "I had rather pass Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will go to Marblehead together."

"Well, an offer's an offer. I don't know any pleasanter thing than getting out of this confounded City and smelling the hedges, and looking at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in quiet." And his own tastes being thus agricultural, the honest gentleman thought that everybody else must delight in the same recreation.

"In the winter, I hope we shall see you at Newcome," says the elder brother, blandly smiling. "I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle," and he laughed very gently at this mild sally.

The Colonel gave him a queer look. "I shall be at Newcome before the winter. I shall be there, please God, before many days are over."

"Indeed!" says the Baronet, with an air of great surprise. "You are going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe the Newcomes were there before the Conqueror. It was but a village in our grandfather's time, and it is an immense flourishing town now, for which I hope to get—I expect to get—a charter."

"Do you?" says the Colonel. "I am going down there to see a relation."

"A relation! What relatives have we there?" cries the Baronet. "My children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, this is your uncle Colonel Thomas Newcome. I have great pleasure, brother, in introducing you to my eldest son."

A fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed in the very height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture in the parlour, and returned Colonel Newcome's greeting with a smiling acknowledgment of his own. "Very happy to see you, I'm sure," said the young man. "You find London very much changed since you were here? Very good time to come—the very full of the season."

Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by this strange reception. Here was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was a beardless young sprig, who patronised him, and vouchsafed to ask him whether he found London was changed.

"I don't know whether it's changed," says the Colonel, biting his nails; "I know it's not what I expected to find it."

"To-day it's really as hot as I should thing it must be in India," says young Mr. Barnes Newcome.

"Hot!" says the Colonel, with a grin. "It seems to me you are all cool enough here."

"Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir," says Barnes, turning round to his father. "Don't you remember when he came home from Bombay? I recollect his saying, at Lady Featherstone's, one dooced hot night, as it seemed to us; I recklect his saying that he felt quite cold. Did you know him in India, Colonel Newcome? He's liked at the Horse Guards, but he's hated in his regiment."

Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of Sir Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realised by that distinguished cavalry officer.

"My brother says he's going to Newcome, Barnes, next week," said the Baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting to the newly arrived Colonel. "He was saying so just when you came in, and I was asking him what took him there?"

"Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason?" says the Colonel.

"Really, I never did," the Baronet answered.

"Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don't think I ever did, said the young man.

"Well, that's a pity too," the Colonel said, with a sneer. "Mrs. Mason is a relation of yours—at least by marriage. She is my aunt or cousin—I used to call her aunt, and she and my father and mother all worked in the same mill at Newcome together."

"I remember—God bless my soul—I remember now!" cried the Baronet. "We pay her forty pound a year on your account—don't you know, brother? Look to Colonel Newcome's account—I recollect the name quite well. But I thought she had been your nurse, and—and an old servant of my father's."

"So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father's," answered the Colonel. "But she was my mother's cousin too and very lucky was my mother to have such a servant, or to have a servant at all. There is not in the whole world a more faithful creature or a better woman."

Mr. Hobson rather enjoyed his brother's perplexity, and to see when the Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down sometimes, "I am sure it does you very great credit," gasped the courtly head of the firm, "to remember a—a humble friend and connexion of our father's so well."

"I think, brother, you might have recollected her too," the Colonel growled out. His face was blushing; he was quite angry and hurt at what seemed to him Sir Brian's hardness of heart.

"Pardon me if I don't see the necessity," said Sir Brian. "I have no relationship with Mrs. Mason, and do not remember ever having seen her. Can I do anything for you, brother? Can I be useful to you in any way? Pray command me and Barnes here, who after City hours will be delighted if he can be serviceable to you—I am nailed to this counter all the morning, and to the House of Commons all night;—I will be with you in one moment, Mr. Quilter. Good-bye, my dear Colonel. How well India has agreed with you! how young you look! the hot winds are nothing to what we endure in Parliament.—Hobson," in a low voice, "you saw about that h'm, that power of attorney—and h'm and h'm will call here at twelve about that h'm.—I am sorry I must say good-bye—it seems so hard after not meeting for so many years."

"Very," says the Colonel.

"Mind and send for me whenever you want me, now."

"Oh, of course," said the elder brother, and thought when will that ever be!

"Lady Anne will be too delighted at hearing of your arrival. Give my love to Clive—a remarkable fine boy, Clive—good morning:" and the Baronet was gone, and his bald head might presently be seen alongside of Mr. Quilter's confidential grey poll, both of their faces turned into an immense ledger.

Mr. Hobson accompanied the Colonel to the door, and shook him cordially by the hand as he got into his cab. The man asked whither he should drive? and poor Newcome hardly knew where he was or whither he should go. "Drive! a—oh—ah—damme, drive me anywhere away from this place!" was all he could say; and very likely the cabman thought he was a disappointed debtor who had asked in vain to renew a bill. In fact, Thomas Newcome had overdrawn his little account. There was no such balance of affection in that bank of his brothers, as the simple creature had expected to find there.

When he was gone, Sir Brian went back to his parlour, where sate young Barnes perusing the paper. "My revered uncle seems to have brought back a quantity of cayenne pepper from India, sir," he said to his father.

"He seems a very kind-hearted simple man," the Baronet said "eccentric, but he has been more than thirty years away from home. Of course you will call upon him to-morrow morning. Do everything you can to make him comfortable. Whom would he like to meet at dinner? I will ask some of the Direction. Ask him, Barnes, for next Wednesday or Saturday—no; Saturday I dine with the Speaker. But see that every attention is paid him."

"Does he intend to have our relation up to town, sir? I should like to meet Mrs. Mason of all things. A venerable washerwoman, I daresay, or perhaps keeps a public-house," simpered out young Barnes.

"Silence, Barnes; you jest at everything, you young men do—you do. Colonel Newcome's affection for his old nurse does him the greatest honour," said the Baronet, who really meant what he said.

"And I hope my mother will have her to stay a good deal at Newcome. I'm sure she must have been a washerwoman, and mangled my uncle in early life. His costume struck me with respectful astonishment. He disdains the use of straps to his trousers, and is seemingly unacquainted with gloves. If he had died in India, would my late aunt have had to perish on a funeral pile?" Here Mr. Quilter, entering with a heap of bills, put an end to these sarcastic remarks, and young Newcome, applying himself to his business (of which he was a perfect master), forgot about his uncle till after City hours, when he entertained some young gentlemen of Bays's Club with an account of his newly arrived relative.

Towards the City, whither he wended his way whatever had been the ball or the dissipation of the night before, young Barnes Newcome might be seen walking every morning, resolutely and swiftly, with his neat umbrella. As he passed Charing Cross on his way westwards, his little boots trailed slowly over the pavement, his head hung languid (bending lower still, and smiling with faded sweetness as he doffed his hat and saluted a passing carriage), his umbrella trailed after him. Not a dandy on all the Pall Mall pavement seemed to have less to do than he.

Heavyside, a large young officer of the household troops—old Sir Thomas de Boots—and Horace Fogey, whom every one knows—are in the window of Bays's, yawning as widely as that window itself. Horses under the charge of men in red jackets are pacing up and down St. James's Street. Cabmen on the stand are regaling with beer. Gentlemen with grooms behind them pass towards the Park. Great dowager barouches roll along emblazoned with coronets, and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs. Wistful provincials gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and show their teeth, and look at the ladies in the carriages, and smoke and spit refreshingly round about. Policeman X slouches along the pavement. It is five o'clock, the noon in Pall Mall.