 CHAPTER XVII The Curate had gone on his daily errand to Farrokhs, and was upstairs in Penn's study pretending to read with his people in the early part of that very afternoon, when Mrs. Portman, after transacting business with Mrs. Pibus, had found the weather so exceedingly fine that she pursued her walk as far as Farrokhs, in order to pay a visit to her dear friend there. In the course of their conversation, the rector's lady told Mrs. Penn Dennis and the major a very great secret about the curate, Mr. Smack, which was no less than that he had an attachment, a very old attachment, which he had long kept quite private. And on whom is it that Mr. Smack has bestowed his heart? asked Mrs. Penn Dennis with a superb air, but rather an inward alarm. Why, my dear, the other lady answered. When he first came and used to dine at the rectory, people said we wanted him for Myra, and we were forced to give up asking him. Then they used to say he was smitten in another quarter, but I always contradicted it for my part, and said the chew, that I cried Mrs. Penn Dennis. People are very impertinent, I am sure. Mr. Smack came here as Arthur's tutor, and I am surprised that anybody should dare to speak so. Upon my soul it is a little too much. The major said, laying down the newspaper in the double-eye glass, I have no patience with that Mrs. Pibus. Helen continued indignantly. I told her there was no truth in it, Mrs. Portman said. I always said so, my dear, and now it comes out that my dear gentleman has been engaged to a young lady, Miss Thompson of Clapham Common, ever so long. And I am delighted for my part, and on Myra's account too, for an unmarried curate is always objectionable about one's house, and of course it is strictly private, but I thought I would tell you, as it might remove unpleasantnesses. But mind, not one word, if you please, about the story. Miss Pendennis said with perfect sincerity that she was exceedingly glad to hear the news, and hoped Mr. Smack, who was a very kind and amiable man, would have a deserving wife. And when her visitor went away, Helen and her brother talked of the matter with great satisfaction, the kind lady rebuking herself for her haughty behaviour to Mr. Smack, whom she had avoided of late, instead of being grateful to him for his constant attention to Arthur. Gratitude to this kind of people, the major said, is very well, but familiarity is out of the question. This gentleman gives his lessons and receives his money, like any other master. You are too humble, my good soul. There must be distinctions in ranks, and that sort of thing. I told you before, you were too kind to Mr. Smack. But Helen did not think so, and now that Arthur was going away, and she but thought her how very polite Mr. Smack had been, how he had gone on messages for her, how he had brought books and copied music, how he had taught Laura so many things, and given her so many kind presents, her heart smote her on account of her ingratitude towards the curate. So much so that when he came down from study with Penn, and was hankering about the whole previous to his departure, she went out and shook hands with him, with rather a blushing face, and begged him to come into her drawing-room, where she said they now never saw him. And as there was to be rather a good dinner that day, she invited Mr. Smack to partake of it. And we may be sure that he was too happy to accept such a delightful summons. Eased by the above report of all her former doubts and mixed givings regarding the curate, Helen was exceedingly kind and gracious to Mr. Smack during dinner, redoubling her attentions perhaps because Major Pendennis was very high and reserved with his nephew's tutor. When Pendennis asked Smack to drink wine, he addressed him as if he were a sovereign speaking to a petty retainer, in a matter so condescending that even Penn laughed at it, although quite ready for his part to be as conceited as most young men are. But Smack did not care for the impertenences of the Major, so long as he had his hostess's kind behaviour, and he passed a delightful time by her side at table, exerting all his powers of conversation to please her, talking in a manner both clerical and worldly about the fancy bazaar and the great missionary meeting, about the last new novel, and the bishop's excellent sermon about the fashionable parties in London, an account of which he read in the newspapers, in fine he neglected no art, by which a college divine who has both sprightly and serious talents, a taste for their gentile, an irreproachable conduct, and a susceptible heart, will try and make himself agreeable to the person on whom he has fixed his affections. Major Pendennis came yawning out of the dining-room very soon after his sister and little Laura had left the apartment. What an insufferable bore that man is, and how he did talk, the Major said. He has been very good to Arthur, who is very fond of him. Mrs. Pendennis said, I wonder who this Miss Thompson is, whom he is going to marry. I always thought the fellow was looking in another direction, said the Major. And in what? Asked Mrs. Pendennis quite innocently, toward my apartment. Put towards Helen Pendennis, if you must know, answered her brother-in-law. Towards me! Impossible! Helen said, who knew perfectly well that such had been the case. His marriage will be a very happy thing. I hope Arthur will not take too much wine. Now Arthur flushed with a good deal of pride at the privilege of having the keys of the cellar, and remembering that a very few more dinners would probably take place which he and his dear friend Smirt could share, had brought up a liberal supply of claret for the company's drinking. And when the elders with little Laura left him, he and the curate began to pass the wine very freely. One bottle speedily yielded up the ghost. Another shed more than half its blood before the two toppers had been much more than half an hour together. Penn, with a hollow laugh and voice, had drunk off one bumper to the falsehood of women, and had said sardonyically that wine, at any rate, was a mistress who never deceived, and was sure to give a man a welcome. Smirt gently said that he knew for his part some women who were all truth and tenderness, and casting up his eyes towards the ceiling, and heaving as sigh as if evoking some being dear and unmentionable. He took up his glass and drained it, and the rosy liquor began to suffuse his face. Penn trolled over some verses he had been making that morning, in which he informed himself that the woman who had slighted his passion could not be worthy to win it. That he was waking from love's mad fever, and, of course, under these circumstances, proceeded to leave her and to quit a heartless deceiver. That a name which had one day been famous in the land might again be heard in it. And that though he never should be the happy and careless boy he was, but a few months since, or his heart be what it had been, ear passion had filled it, and grief had well nigh killed it. That though him personally death was as welcome as life, and that he would not hesitate to part with the latter, but for the love of one's kind being whose happiness depended on his own. Yet he hoped to show he was a man worthy of his race, and that one day the false one should be brought to know how great was the treasure, and noble the heart which she had flung away. Penn we say, who was a very excitable person, rolled out these verses in his rich sweet voice, which trembled with emotion whilst our young poet spoke. He had a trick of blushing when in this excited state, and his large and honest grey eyes also exhibited proofs of a sensibility so genuine, hearty and manly, that Miss Costigan, if she had a heart, must needs have softened towards him, and very likely she was, as he said, altogether unworthy of the affection which he lavished upon her. The sentimental smirk was caught by the emotion which agitated his young friend. He grasped Penn's hand over the dessert-dishes and wine-glasses. He said the verses were beautiful. That Penn was a poet, a great poet, and likely by Heaven's permission to run a great career in the world. Go on and prosper, dear Arthur, he cried. The wounds under which at present you suffer are only temporary, and the very grief you endure will cleanse and strengthen your heart. I have always prophesied the greatest and brightest things of you, as soon as you have corrected some failings and weaknesses of character which at present belong to you. But you will get over these, my boy. You will get over these, and when you are famous and celebrated, as I know you will be, will you remember your old tutor and the happy early days of your youth? Penn swore he would with another shake of the hand across the glasses and apricots. I shall never forget how kind you have been to me, smirk, he said. I don't know what I should have done without you. You are my best friend. Am I really Arthur? said smirk, looking through his spectacles, and his heart began to beat so that he thought Penn must also hear it throbbing. My best friend, my friend for ever, Penn said, God bless you, old boy. And he drank up the last glass of the second bottle of the famous wine which his father had laid in, which his uncle had bought, which Lord Levant had imported, and which now, like a slave indifferent, was ministering pleasure to its present owner, and giving its young master delectation. We'll have another bottle, old boy, Penn said. By Jove, we will. Claret goes for nothing. My uncle was telling me that he saw Sheridan drink five bottles at Brooks, besides a bottle of maraschino. This is some of the finest wine in England, he says. So it is, by Jove. There's nothing like it. Nunkvino, pellet, keras, crass, engines, itter, abimas, cake. Fill your glass, old Smirk. A hog's head of it won't do you any harm. And Mr. Penn began to sing the drinking song out of defrashoits. The dining-room windows were open, and his mother was softly pacing on the lawn outside, while little Laura was looking at the sunset. The fresh sweet notes of the boy's voice came to the widow. It cheered her kind heart to hear him sing. You, you are taking too much wine, Arthur, Mr. Smirk said softly. You are exciting yourself. No, Penn said. Women give headaches, but this don't. Fill your glass, old fellow, and let's drink, I say, Smirk, my boy. Let's drink to her. Your her, I mean, not mine, for whom I swear I'll care no more. No, not a penny. No, not a fig. No, not a glass of wine. Tell us about the lady, Smirk. I've often seen you sighing about her. Oh! said Smirk, and his beautiful cambrick shirt front and glistening studs heaved with the emotion which agitated his gentle and suffering bosom. Oh! what a sigh! Penn cried, growing very hilarious. Fill, my boy, and drink the toast. You can't refuse a toast. No gentleman refuses a toast. Here's her health, and good luck to you, and may she soon be Mrs. Smirk. Do you say so? Smirk said, all of a tremble. Do you really say so, Arthur? Say so, of course I say so. Come with it. Here's Mrs. Smirk's good health. Hip, hip, hooray! Smirk convulsively gulped down his glass of wine, and Penn waved his over his head, cheering so as to make his mother-in-law a wonder on the lawn, and his uncle, who was dozing over the paper in the drawing-room, start and say to himself, that boy's drinking too much. Smirk put down the glass. I accept the omen, gasped out the blushing curate. Oh, my dear Arthur, you know her. What? My reportman? I wish you joy. She's got a devilish, large waist, but I wish you joy, old fellow. Oh, Arthur, groaned the curate again, and nodded his head speechless. Beg your pardon. Sorry I offended you. But she has got a large waist, you know, devilish, large waist. Penn continued, the third bottle evidently beginning to act upon the young gentleman. It's not Miss Portman, the other said in a voice of agony. Is it anybody at Chatteros or at Clapham? Somebody here? No. It's an old Pibus. It can't be Miss Ralt at the factory. She's only fourteen. It's somebody rather older than I am, Penn. The curate cried, looking up at his friend, and then guiltily casting his eyes down into his plate. Penn burst out laughing. It's Madame Frubsby. By Jove, it's Madame Frubsby. Madame Frib. By the immortal gods. The curate could contain no more. Oh, Penn, he cried. How can you suppose that any of those, of those more than ordinary beings you have named, could have an influence upon this heart, when I have been daily in the habit of contemplating perfection? I may be insane. I may be madly ambitious. I may be presumptuous. But for two years my heart has been filled by one image, and has known no other idol. Haven't I loved you as a son, Arthur? Say, hasn't Charles Smerk loved you as a son? Yes, old boy. You've been very good to me, Penn said, whose liking, however, for his tutor was not by any means of the filial kind. My means, rushed on Smerk, are at present limited, I own, and my mother is not so liberal as might be desired, but what she has will be mine at her death. Were she to hear of my marrying a lady of rank in good fortune, my mother would be liberal. I am sure she would be liberal. Whatever I have, or subsequently inherit, and its five hundred a year at the very least, would be settled upon her, and and you at my death, that is. What deduce do you mean? And what have I to do with your money? cried out Penn in a puzzle. Arthur, Arthur, explained the other wildly. You say I am your dearest friend. Let me be more. Oh, can't you see that the angelic being I love, the purest, the best of women, is no other than your dear, dear angel of a mother? My mother, cried out Arthur, jumping up in sober in a minute. Oh, damn it, Smirk, you must be mad. She's seven or eight years older than you are. Did you find that any objection? cried Smirk piteously, and alluding, of course, to the elderly subject of Penn's own passion. The lad felt the hint, and blushed quite red. The cases are not similar, Smirk, he said, and the illusion might have been spared. A man may forget his own rank and elevate any woman to it, but allow me to say our positions are very different. How do you mean, dear Arthur? the curate interposed sadly, cowering as he felt that his sentence was about to be read. Mean, said Arthur, I mean what I say. My tutor, I say my tutor, has no right to ask a lady of my mother's rank of life to marry him. It's a breach of confidence. I say it's a liberty you take, Smirk. It's a liberty. Mean indeed. Oh, Arthur, the curate began to cry with clasped hands and a scared face. But Arthur gave another stamp with his foot and began to pull at the bell. Don't let's have any more of this. We'll have some coffee, if you please. He said with a majestic air. And the old butler entered at the summons. Arthur bade him to serve that refreshment. John said he had just carried coffee into the drawing room where his uncle was asking for Master Arthur. And the old man gave a glance of wonder at the three empty claret bottles. Smirk said he thought he'd rather not go into the drawing room, on which Arthur Hortley said, as you please, and called for Mr. Smirk's horse to be brought round. The poor fellow said he knew the way to the stable and would get his pony himself. And he went into the hall and sadly put on his coat and hat. Penn followed him out uncovered. Helen was still walking up and down the soft lawn as the sun was setting. And the curate took off his hat and bowed by way of farewell, and passed on to the door leading to the stable court, by which the pair disappeared. Smirk knew the way to the stable, as he said well enough. He fumbled at the girths of the saddle, which Penn fastened for him, and put on the bridle and led the pony into the yard. The boy was touched by the grief which appeared on the other's face as he mounted. Penn held out his hand, and Smirk rung it silently. I say, Smirk, he said in an agitated voice, forgive me if I have said anything harsh. For you have always been very, very kind to me. But it can't be, old fellow. It can't be. Be a man. God bless you. Smirk nodded his head silently and rode out of the lodge gate. And Penn looked after him for a couple of minutes until he disappeared down the road, and the clatter of the pony's hoofs died away. Helen was still lingering on the lawn, waiting until the boy came back. She put his hair off his forehead and kissed it fondly. She was afraid he had been drinking too much wine. Why had Mr. Smirk gone away without any tea? He looked at her with a kind humour beaming in his eyes. Smirk is unwell, he said, with a laugh. For a long while Helen had not seen the boy looking so cheerful. He put his arm round her waist and walked her up and down the walk in front of the house. Laura began to drop on the drawing-room window and nod and laugh from it. Come along, you two people, cried on Major Penn Dennis. Your coffee is getting quite cold. When Laura was gone to bed, Penn, who was big with his secret, burst out with it, and described the dismal but ludicrous scene which had occurred. Helen heard of it with many blushes, which became her pale face very well, and a perplexity which Arthur Rogishly enjoyed. Confound the fellow's impudence, Major Penn Dennis said as he took his candle. Where will the assurance of these people stop? Penn and his mother had a long talk that night, full of love, confidence, and laughter, and the boy somehow slept more soundly and woke up more easily than he had done for many months before. Before the great Mr. Dolphin quitted Chatteris, he not only made an advantageous engagement with Miss Fatheringay, but he liberally left with her a sum of money to pay off any debts which the little family might have contracted during their stay in the place, and which mainly through the lady's own economy and management were not considerable. The small account with the spirit merchant, which Major Penn Dennis had settled, was the chief of Captain Costigan's debts, and though the captain at one time talked about repaying every fathering of the money, it never appears that he executed his menace, nor did the laws of honour in the least call upon him to accomplish that threat. When Miss Costigan had seen all the outstanding bills paid to the uttermost shilling, she handed over the balance to her father, who broke out into hospitalities to all his friends, gave the little creeds more apples in gingerbread than he had ever bestowed upon them, so that the widow-creed ever after held the memory of her lodger in veneration, and the young one swept bitterly when he went away, and in a word managed the money so cleverly that it was entirely expended before many days, and that he was compelled to draw upon Mr. Dolphin for a sum to pay for travel expenses when the time for their departure arrived. There was held in and in at that county town a weekly meeting of a festive, almost a riotous character, of a society of gentlemen who called themselves the Buccaneers. Some of the choice-spirits of Chatteros belonged to this cheerful club, Graves the Apocry, than whom a better fellow never put a pipe in his mouth and smoked it, smart, the talented and humorous portrait painter of High Street, Crocker an excellent auctioneer, and the uncompromising Hicks, the able editor for twenty-three years of the county Chronicle and Chatteros champion, were amongst the crew of the Buccaneers, whom also Bingley, the manager, liked to join of a Saturday evening whenever he received permission from his lady. Costigan had also been an occasional Buccaneer, but a want of punctuality of payments had of late somewhat excluded him from the society, where he was subject to disagreeable remarks from the landlord, who said that a Buccaneer who didn't pay his shot was utterly unworthy to be a marine bandit. But when it became known to the ears, as the clubbers called themselves familiarly, that Miss Fatheringay had made a splendid engagement, a great revolution of feeling took place in the club regarding Captain Costigan. Soli, my host of the grapes, and I need not say as worthy a fellow as ever stood behind a bar, told the gents in the Buccaneers' room one night how noble the captain had behaved, having been round and paid off all his ticks in Chatteros, including his score of three pound fourteen here, and pronounced that cost was a good fellow, a gentleman at bottom, and he, Soli, had always said so, and finally worked upon the feelings of the Buccaneers to give the captain a dinner. The banquet took place on the last night of Costigan's stay at Chatteros, and was served in Soli's accustomed manner, as good a plain dinner of old English fare as ever smoked on a table was prepared by Mrs. Soli, and about eighteen gentlemen sat down to the festive board. Mr. Jabber, the imminent draper of High Street, was in the chair, having the distinguished guest of the club on his right. The able and consistent hicks officiated as croupier on the occasion. Most of the gentlemen of the club were present, and H. Fokker Esquire and Spavin Esquire, friends of Captain Costigan, were also participators in the entertainment. The cloth having been drawn, the chairman said, Costigan, here is wine, if you like, let the captain preferring punch that liquor was voted by acclamation, and non-nobus having been sung in admirable style by messes Bingley, Hicks, and Balby of the Cathedral Choir, than whom a more jovial spirit ne'er tossed off a bumper or emptied a ball. The chairman gave the health of the king, which was drunk with the loyalty of Chatteros men, and then without further circumucution proposed their friend Captain Costigan. After the enthusiastic cheering which rang through old Chatteros subsided, Captain Costigan rose in reply, and made a speech of twenty minutes, in which he was repeatedly overcome by his emotions. The gallant captain said he must be pardoned for incoherence, if his heart was too full to speak. He was quitting a city celebrated for its antiquity, its hospitality, the beauty of its women, the manly fidelity, generosity, and joviality of its men. Cheers! He was going from that ancient and venerable city, of which while memory held her sate, he should never think without the fondest emotion, to a metropolis where the talents of his daughter were about to have full play, and where he would watch over her like a guardian angel. He should never forget that it was at Chatteros she had acquired the skill which she was about to exercise in another sphere, and in her name and his own, Jack Costigan thanked and blessed them. The gallant officer's speech was received with tremendous cheers. Mr. Hicks, croupier, in a brilliant and energetic manner, embraced Mith's father in gay's health. Captain Costigan returned thanks in a speech full of feeling and eloquence. Mr. Jabba proposed the drama and the Chatteros theatre, and Mr. Bingley was about to rise, but was prevented by Captain Costigan, who, as long connected with the Chatteros theatre and on behalf of his daughter, thanked the company. He informed them that he had been in garrison, at Gibraltar, and at Malta, and had been at the taking of Flushing. The Duke of York was a patron of the drama. He had the honour of dining with his royal highness in the Duke of Kent many times, and the former had justly been named to the friend of the soldier. Cheers! The army was then proposed, and Captain Costigan returned thanks. In the course of the night he sang his well-known songs, The Deserter, The Shanban Vote, The Little Pig Under the Bed, and The Veil of Avaca. The evening was a great triumph for him. It ended. All triumphs and all evenings end, and the next day missed Costigan having taken leave of all her friends, having been reconciled to Miss Rounsey, to whom she left a necklace and a white satin gown. The next day he and Miss Costigan had places in the competitor coach, rolling by the gates of Faroaks Lodge, and Penn Dennis never saw them. Tom Smith, the coachman, pointed out Faroaks to Mr. Costigan, who sat on the box smelling of rum and water. And the captain said it was a poor place, and added, You should see Castle Costigan, county may owe me, boy. Which Tom said he should like very much to see. They were gone, and Penn had never seen them. He only knew of their departure by its announcement in the county paper the next day, and straight galloped over to Chatteros to hear the truth of this news. They were gone indeed. A card of lodging's to-let was placed in the dear little familiar window. He rushed up into the room and viewed it over. He sat ever so long in the old window-seat, looking into the dean's garden, whence he and Emily had so often looked out together. He walked, with a sort of terror, into her little empty bedroom. It was swept out and prepared for newcomers. The glass which had reflected her fair face was shining ready for her successor. The curtains lay square folded on the little bed. He flung himself down and buried his head on the vacant pillow. Laura had netted a purse into which his mother had put some sovereigns, and Penn had found it on his dressing-table that very morning. He gave one to the little servant who had been used to wait upon the costigans, and another to the children, because they said they were very fond of her. It was but a few months back, but what years ago it seemed, since he had first entered that room. He felt that it was all done. The very missing her at the coach had something fatal in it. Blank, weary, utterly wretched and lonely the poor lad felt. His mother saw she was gone by his look when he came home. He was eager to fly, too, now, as were other folks around about Chatteris. Poor Smirk wanted to go away from the sight of the siren widow. Fokker began to think he had had enough of beymouth, and that a few supper-parties at St Boniface would not be unpleasant, and Major Pendennis longed to be off, and have a little pheasant shooting at Stillbrook, and get rid of all annoyances and tracasseries of the village. The widow and Laura nervously set about the preparation for Penn's kit, and filled the trunks with his books in linen. Penn wrote cards with the name of Arthur Pendennis Esquire, which were duly nailed to the boxes, and at which both she and Laura looked with tearful, wistful eyes. It was not until long, long after he was gone, that Penn remembered how constant and tender the affection of these women had been, and how selfish his own conduct was. A night soon comes when the male, with echoing horn and blazing lamps, stops at the lodge-gate of Farroaks, and Penn's trunks and his uncles, are placed on the roof of the carriage, into which the pair presently afterwards entered. Helen and Laura are standing by the evergreens of the chubbery. Their figures lighted up by the coach-lamps. The guard cries all right. In another instant the carriage whirls onward. The lights disappear, and Helen's heart and prayers go with them. Her sainted benedictions follow the departing boy. He has left the home nest, in which he has been chafing, and with her, after his very first flight, he returned bleeding and wounded. He is eager to go forth again, and try at his restless wings. How lonely the house looks without him! The corded trunks and book-boxes are there in his empty study. Laura asks Sleeve to come and sleep in Helen's room, and when she has cried herself to sleep there, the mother goes softly into Penn's vacant chamber, and kneels down by the bed on which the moon was shining, and there prays for her boy, his mother's only know how to plead. He knows that her pure blessings are following him, as he is carried miles away. CHAPTER XVIII ALMA MARTA Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academical career, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old university comrades and days. The young man's life is just beginning. The boy's leading strings are cut, and he has all the novel delights and dignities of freedom. He has no idea of cares yet, or of bad health, or of roguery, or poverty, or tomorrow's disappointment. The play has not been acted so often as to make him tired. Though the after-drink, as we mechanically go on repeating it, is stale and bitter, how pure and brilliant was that first sparkling draft of pleasure, how the boy rushes at the cup, and with what a wild eagerness he drains it. The old epicures, who are cut off from the delights of the table, and are restricted to a poached egg and a glass of water, like to see people with good appetites, and, as the next best thing to being amused at a pantomime oneself, is to see one's children enjoy it, I hope there may be no degree of age or experience to which mortal may attain, when he shall become such a glum philosopher, as not to be pleased by the sight of happy youth. Coming back a few weeks since, from a brief visit to the old University of Oxbridge, where my friend Mr Arthur Penn Dennis passed some period of his life, I made the journey in the railroad by the side of a young fellow at present a student at St Boniface. He had got an ex-yat somehow, and was bent on a day's lark in London. He never stopped rattling and talking, from the commencement of the journey until its close, which was a great deal too soon for me, for I never was tired of listening to the honest young fellow's jokes and cheery laughter. And when we arrived at the terminus, nothing would satisfy him but a handsome cab, so that he might get into town the quicker, and plunge into the pleasures awaiting him there. Away the young lad went whirling, with joy lighting up his honest face. And as for the reader's humble servant, having but a small carpet-bag, I got up on the outside of the omnibus, and sate there very contentedly, between a Jew-peddler smoking bad cigars, and a gentleman's servant taking care of a poodle-dog. Until we got our fated complement of passengers and boxes, when the coachman drove leisurely away. We weren't in a hurry to get to town. Neither one of us was particularly eager about rushing into that near-smoking Babylon, or thought of dining at the club that night, or dancing at the casino. Yet a few years more, and my young friend of the railroad, will be not a wit more eager. There were no railroads made when Arthur Pendennis went to the famous University of Oxbridge, but he drove thither in a well-appointed coach, filled inside and out, with dons, gownsmen, young freshmen about to enter, and their guardians, who were conducting them to the university. A fat old gentleman in grey stockings, from the city, who sate by major Pendennis inside the coach, having his pale-faced son opposite, was frightened beyond measure, when he heard that the coach had been driven for a couple of stages by young Mr. Foker of St. Boniface College, who was the friend of all men, including coachmen, and could drive as well as Tom Hicks himself. Pen sate on the roof, examining coach, passengers, from country, with great delight and curiosity. His heart jumped with pleasure as the famous university came in view, and the magnificent prospect of venerable towers and pinnacles, tall elms, and shining river, spread before him. Pen had passed a few days with his uncle at the Major s lodgings, in Berry Street, before they set out for Oxbridge. Major Pendennis thought that the lads wardrobe wanted renewal, and Arthur was by no means averse to any plan, which was to bring him new coats and waistcoats. There was no end to the sacrifices which the self-denying uncle made in the youth s behalf. London was awfully lonely. The pal-mal pavement was deserted. The very red jackets had gone out of town. There was scarce a face to be seen in the bow windows of the clubs. The Major conducted his nephew into one or two of those desert mansions, and wrote down the lads name on the candidate list of one of them. And Arthur s pleasure at this compliment on his guardian s part was excessive. He read in the parchment volume his name and titles as Arthur Pendennis Esquire, of Fair Oaks Lodge, Blankshire, and St Boniface College, Oxbridge, proposed by Major Pendennis, and seconded by Viscount Colchicum, with a thrill of intense gratification. You will come in for ballot in about three years, by which time you will have taken your degree, the Guardian said. Penn longed for the three years to be over and surveyed the stucco halls and vast libraries and drawing rooms as already his own property. The Major laughed slyly to see the pompous heirs of the simple young fellow as he strutted out of the building. He and Foker drove down in the latter's cab one day to the Greyfriars, and renewed acquaintance with some of their old comrades there. The boys came crowding up to the cab as it stood by the Greyfriars gates, where they were entering, and admired the chestnut horse, and the tights and livery and gravity of stupid the tiger. The bell for afternoon school rang as they were swaggering about the playground, talking to their old cronies. The awful doctor passed into school with his grammar in his hand. Foker slunk away uneasily at his presence. But Penn went up blushing and shook the dignitary by the hand. He laughed as he thought that well remembered Latin grammar had boxed his ears many a time. He was generous, good-natured, and in a word perfectly conceited and satisfied with himself. Then they drove to the parental brew house. Folk's entire is composed in an enormous pile of buildings, not far from the Greyfriars, and the name of that well-known firm is gilded upon innumerable public house signs, tenanted by its vassals in the neighborhood. And the venerable junior partner and manager did honor to the young lord of the vats and his friend, and served them with silver flagons of brown stout. So strong that you would have thought not only the young men, but the very horse Mr. Harry Foker drove was affected by the potency of the drink, for he rushed home to the west end of the town at a rapid pace, which endangered the pie stalls and the women on the crossings, and brought the cab steps into collision with the posts at the street corners, and caused stupid to swing fearfully on his board behind. The major was quite pleased when Penn was with his young acquaintance, listened to Mr. Foker's artless stories with the greatest interest, gave the two boys a fine dinner at a Covent Garden coffee house, whence they proceeded to the play. But was above all happy when Mr. and Lady Agnes Foker, who happened to be in London, requested the pleasure of Major Pendennis and Mr. Arthur Pendennis's company at dinner in Grovener Street. Having obtained the entree into Lady Agnes Foker's house, he said to Penn, with an affectionate solemnity, which befitted the importance of the occasion, it behoves you, my dear boy, to keep it. You must mind and never neglect to call in Grovener Street when you come to London. I recommend you to read up carefully in DeBrette, the alliances and genealogy of the Earls of Rocheville, and if you can, to make some trifling allusions to the family, something historical, neat, and complementary, and that sort of thing, which you, who have a poetic fancy, can do pretty well. Mr. Foker himself is a worthy man, though not of high extraction, or indeed much education. He always makes a point of having some of the family porter served round after dinner, which you will on no account refuse, and which I shall drink myself, though all beer disagrees with me confoundedly. And the heroic martyr did actually sacrifice himself, as he said he would, on the day when the dinner took place, and old Mr. Foker, at the head of his table, made his usual joke about Foker's entire. We should all of us, I am sure, have liked to see the mages grin when the worthy old gentleman made his time on a joke. Lady Agnes, who, wrapped up in Harry, was the fondest of mothers, and one of the most good-natured, though not the wisest of women, received her son's friend with great cordiality, an astonished pen by accounts of the severe course of studies which her darling boy was pursuing, and which she feared might injure his dear health. Foker the elder burst into a horse laugh at some of these speeches, and the air of the house winked his eye very knowingly at his friend. And Lady Agnes, then going through her son's history from the earliest times, and recounting his miraculous sufferings in the measles and whooping cough, his escape from drowning, the shocking tyranny's practised upon him at that horrid school, wither Mr. Foker would send him, because he had been brought up there himself, and she never would forgive that disagreeable doctor, no never. Lady Agnes, we say, having prattled away for an hour incessantly about her son, voted the two M. Pendenis most agreeable men, and when pheasants came with the second course, which the Major praised as the very finest birds he ever saw, her ladyship said they came from logwood, as the Major knew perfectly well, and hoped that they would both pay her a visit there, at Christmas, or when the year Harry was at home for the vacations. God bless you, my dear boy! Pendenis said to Arthur, as they were lighting their candles in Berry Street afterwards to go to bed. You made that little allusion to Agincourt, where one of the Rochevilles distinguished himself, very neatly and well, although Lady Agnes did not quite understand it. But it was exceedingly well for a beginner, though you oughtn't to blush so, by the way, and I beseech you, my dear Arthur, to remember through life that with an entree, with a good entree, mind, it is just as easy for you to have good society as bad, and that it costs a man, when properly introduced, no more trouble or swain, to keep a good footing in the best houses in London, than to dine with a lawyer in Bedford Square. Mind this when you were at Oxbridge pursuing your studies, and for heaven's sake be very particular in the acquaintances which you make. The Premier Parr in life is the most important of all. Did you write to your mother today? No? Well, do, before you go, and call and ask Mr. Foker for a frank. They like it. Good night. God bless you. Penn wrote a droll account of his doings in London, and the play, and the visit to the Old Friars, and the brewery, and the party at Mr. Foker's, to his dearest mother, who was saying her prayers at home in the lonely house at Fair Oaks, her heart full of love and tenderness, unutterable for the boy. And she and Laura read that letter, and those which followed, many, many times, and brooded over them as women do. It was the first step in life that Penn was making. Ah, what a dangerous journey it is, and how the bravest may stumble and the strongest fail. Brother Wayfarer, may you have a kind arm to support yours on the path, and a friendly hand to succor those who fall beside you. May truth guide, mercy forgive at the end, and love accompany always. Without that lamp, how blind the traveller would be, and how black and cheerless the journey. So the coach drove up to that ancient and comfortable inn, the Trencher, which stands in Main Street, Oxbridge, and Penn with delight and eagerness remarked, for the first time, gownsmen going about, chapel bells clinking, bells in Oxbridge are ringing from morning tide till even song. Towers and pinnacles rising calm and stately over the gables and antique house roofs of the homely, busy city. Previous communications had taken place between Dr. Portman on Penn's part, and Mr. Buck, tutor of Bonner Face, on whose side Penn was entered. And as soon as Major Penn Dennis had arranged his personal appearance, so that it should make a satisfactory impression upon Penn's tutor, the pair walked down Main Street and passed the Great Gate and Belfry Tower of St. George's College, and so came, as they were directed, to St. Bonner Face, where again Penn's heart began to beat as they entered at the wicket of the venerable, ivy-mantled gate of the college. It is surmounted with an ancient dome, almost covered with creepers, and adorned with the effigy of the saint from whom the house takes its name, and many coats of arms of its royal and noble benefactors. The porter pointed out a queer old tower at the corner of the quadrangle, by which Mr. Buck's rooms were approached, and the two gentlemen walked across the square, the main features of which were at once and forever stamped in Penn's mind. The pretty fountain playing in the centre of the fair grass-plats, the tall chapel windows and buttresses rising to the right, the hall with its tapering lantern, an aural window, the lodge from the doors of which the master issued with rustling silks, the lines of the surrounding rooms, pleasantly broken by carved chimneys, gray turrets, and quaint gables. All these Mr. Penn's eyes drank in with an eagerness which belongs to first impressions, and Major Pendennis surveyed with that calmness which belongs to a gentleman who does not care for the picturesque, and whose eyes have been somewhat dimmed by the constant glare of the pavement of Palmao. St. George's is the great college of the University of Oxbridge, with its four vast quadrangles, and its beautiful hall and gardens, and the Georgians, as the men are called, wear gowns of a peculiar cut, and give themselves no small heirs of superiority over all other young men. Little St. Boniface is but a petty hermitage in comparison of the huge consecrated pile alongside of which it lies. But considering its size, it has always kept an excellent name in the University. Its tongue is very good. The best families of certain counties have time out of mind, sent up their young men to St. Boniface. The college livings are remarkably good. The fellowship's easy. The Boniface men had had more than their fair share of University honours. Their boat was third upon the river, their chapel choir is not inferior to St. George's itself, and the Boniface ale, the best in Oxbridge. In the comfortable, old, wainscotted college hall, and round about Rubiliac's statue of St. Boniface, who stands in an attitude of seraphic benediction over the uncommonly good cheer of the fellow's table, there are portraits of many most eminent Bonifacians. There is the learned Dr. Griddle, who suffered in Henry VIII's time, and Archbishop Bush, who roasted him. There is Lord Chief Justice Hicks, the Duke of St. David's KG, Chancellor of the University, and member of this college. Sprott the poet, of whose fame the college is justly proud. Dr. Blog, the late master and friend of Dr. Johnson, who visited him at St. Boniface, and other lawyers, scholars, and divines, whose portraitures look from the walls, or whose coats of arms shine in Emerald and Ruby, gold and azure, in the tall windows of the refectory. The venerable Cook of the College is one of the best artists in Oxbridge. His son took the highest honors in the other University of Camford, and the wine in the fellow's room has long been famed for its excellence and abundance. Into this certainly not the least snuggly sheltered arbor amongst the groves of Academe, Penn now found his way, leaning on his uncle's arm, and they speedily reached Mr. Buck's rooms, and were conducted into the apartment of that courteous gentleman. He had received previous information from Dr. Portman regarding Penn, with respect to whose family, fortune, and personal merits the honest doctor had spoken with no small enthusiasm. Indeed Portman had described Arthur to the tutor as, a young gentleman of some fortune, and landed estate, of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, and possessing such a character and genius as were sure, under the proper guidance, to make him a credit to the College and the University. Under such recommendations the tutor was, of course, most cordial to the young freshman and his guardian, invited the latter to dine in Hall, where he would have the satisfaction of seeing his nephew, wear his gown, and eat his dinner for the first time, and requested the pair to take wine at his rooms after Hall, and in consequence of the highly favorable report he had received, and Mr. Arthur Penn Dennis said, he should be happy to give him the best set of rooms to be had in College, a gentleman pensioner's set indeed, which were just luckily vacant. So they parted until dinner time, which was very near at hand, and Major Penn Dennis pronounced Mr. Buck to be uncommonly civil indeed. Indeed, when a college magnate takes the trouble to be polite, there is no man more splendidly courteous. Immersed in their books, and excluded from the world by the gravity of their occupations, these reverent men assume a solemn magnificence of compliment, in which they rustle and swell, as in their grand robes of state. Those silks and brocades are not put on for all comers, or every day. When the two gentlemen had taken leave of the tutor in his study, and had returned to Mr. Buck's anti-room, or lecture room, a very handsome apartment, turkey carpeted, and hung with excellent prints and richly framed pictures, they found the tutor's servant already in waiting there, accompanied by a man with a bag full of caps and a number of gowns, from which Penn might select a cap and gown for himself, and the servant, no doubt, would get a commission proportionable to the service done by him. Mr. Penn was all in a tremor of pleasure, as the bustling tailor tried on a gown, and pronounced that it was an excellent fit. Then he put the pretty college cap on, in rather a dandified manner, and somewhat on one side, as he had seen Fidicum, the youngest master at Greyfriars, wear it, and he inspected the entire costume, with a great deal of satisfaction, in one of the great guilt mirrors which ornamented Mr. Buck's lecture room. For some of these college divines are no more above-looking glasses than a lady is, and look to the set of their gowns and caps, quite as anxiously as folks do of their lovelier sex. The major smiled as he saw the boy dandifying himself in the glass. The old gentleman was not displeased with the appearance of the cumbly lad. Then Davis, the skip or attendant, led the way, keys in hand, across the quadrangle, the major and Penn following him, the latter blushing, and pleased with his new academical habiliments, across the quadrangle to the rooms which were destined for the freshman, and which were vacated by the retreat of the gentleman-pensioner, Mr. Spicer. The rooms were very comfortable, with large cross-beams, high wane-scots, and small windows in deep embrasures. Mr. Spicer's furniture was there, and to be sold at evaluation. And Major Penn Dennis agreed on his nephew's behalf to take the available part of it, laughingly however declining, as indeed Penn did for his own part, six sporting prints, and four groups of opera dancers, with Gores draperies, which formed the late occupant's pictorial collection. Then they went to Hall, where Penn sat down and et his commons with his brother freshman, and the major took his place at the high table, along with the college dignitaries, and other fathers, or guardians of youth, who had come up with their sons to Oxbridge. And after Hall they went to Mr. Buck's to take wine, and after wine to Chapel, where the major sat with great gravity in the upper place, having a fine view of the master in his carved throne or stall under the organ loft, where that gentleman, the learned Dr. Dunn, sat magnificent with his great prayer book before him, an image of statuesque piety and rigid devotion. All the young freshmen behaved with gravity and decorum, but Penn was shocked to see that atrocious little foca, who came in very late, and half a dozen of his comrades in the gentleman pensioner's seats, giggling and talking, as if they had been in so many stalls at the opera. But these circumstances, it must be remembered, took place some years back, when William IV was king. Young men are much better behaved now, and besides, St. Boniface was rather a fast college. Penn could hardly sleep at night in his bedroom at the trencher, so anxious was he to begin his college life and to get into his own apartments. What did he think about as he lay tossing and awake? Was it about his mother at home? The pious soul whose life was bound up in his? Yes, let us hope, he thought of her a little. Was it about Miss Fathering Gay and his eternal passion, which had kept him awake so many nights, and created such wretchedness and such longing? He had a trick of blushing, and if you had been in the room, and the candle had not been out, you might have seen the youth's countenance redden more than once, as he broke out into passionate, incoherent exclamations regarding that luckless event of his life. His uncle's lessons had not been thrown away upon him, the mist of passion had passed from his eyes now, and he saw her as she was. To think that he, Penn Dennis, had been enslaved by such a woman, and then jilted by her, that he should have stooped so low to be trampled on the mire, that there was a time in his life, and that but a few months back, when he was willing to take Costigan for his father-in-law. Poor old Smirk, Penn presently laughed out, well, I'll write and try and console the poor old boy, he won't dive his passion. The Major, had he been awake, might have heard a score of such ejaculations uttered by Penn, as he lay awake and restless through the first night of his residence at Orksbridge. It would perhaps have been better for a youth, the battle of whose life was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in a different sort of vigil. But the world had got hold of Penn in the shape of his selfish old mentor, and those who have any interest in his character must have perceived ere now, that this lad was very weak as well as very impetuous, very vain as well as very frank, and if of a generous disposition, not a little selfish in the midst of his profuseness, and also rather fickle, as all eager pursuers of self-gratification are. The six months passion had aged him very considerably. There was an immense gulf between Penn the victim of love, and Penn the innocent boy of eighteen, sighing after it, and so Arthur Penn Dennis had all the experience and superiority, besides that command which afterwards conceit an imperiousness of disposition gave him over the young men with whom he now began to live. He and his uncle passed the morning with great satisfaction in making purchases for the better comfort of the apartments which the lad was about to occupy. Mr. Spice's china and glass was in a dreadfully dismantle condition. His lamps smashed, and his bookcases by no means so spacious as those shells which would be requisite to receive the contents of the boxes which were lying in the hall at Fair Oaks, and which were addressed to Arthur in the hand of poor Helen. The boxes arrived in a few days that his mother had packed with so much care. Penn was touched as he read the superscriptions in the dear, well-known hand, and he arranged in their proper places all the books, his old friends, and all the linen and tablecloths which Helen had selected from the family stock, and all the jam pots which little Laura had bound in straw, and the hundred simple gifts of home. Penn had another Alma Mater now, but it is not all children who take to her kindly. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 of the History of Penn Dennis This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jennifer Painter The History of Penn Dennis by William Makepeace Thackeray Chapter 19 Penn Dennis of Boniface Our friend Penn was not sorry when his mentor took leave of the young gentleman on the second day after the arrival of the pair in Oxbridge, and we may be sure that the major on his part was very glad to have discharged his duty and to have the duty over. More than three months of precious time had that martyr of a major given up to his nephew. Was ever selfish man called upon to make a greater sacrifice? Do you know many men or majors who would do as much? A man will lay down his head or peril his life for his honour, but let us be shy how we ask him to give up his ease or his heart's desire. Very few of us can bear that trial. Say, worthy reader, if thou hadst per adventure a beard, wouldst thou do as much? I will not say that a woman will not. They are used to it. We take care to accustom them to sacrifices, but my good sir, the amount of self-denial which you have probably exerted through life when put down to your account elsewhere will not probably swell the balance on the credit side much. Well, well, there is no use in speaking of such ugly matters, and you are too polite to use a vulgar to coquie. But I wish to state once for all that I greatly admire the major for his conduct during the past quarter, and think that he has quite a right to be pleased at getting a holiday. Fokker and Penn saw him off in the coach, and the former young gentleman gave particular orders to the coachman to take care of that gentleman inside. It pleased the elder Pendennis to have his nephew in the company of a young fellow who would introduce him to the best set of the university. The major rushed off to London, and thence to Cheltenham, from which watering-place he descended upon some neighbouring great houses, whereof the families were not gone abroad, and where good shooting and company was to be had. A quarter of the space which Custom has awarded to work's style that Serial Nature has been assigned to the account of one passage in Penn's career, and it is manifest that the whole of his benches cannot be treated at a similar length, unless some descendant of the chronicler of Penn's history should take up the Penn at his decease. And continue the narrative for the successors of the present generation of readers. We are not about to go through the young fellow's academic career with, by any means, a similar minuteness. Alas, the life of such boys does not bear telling altogether. I wish it did. I ask you, does yours? As long as what we call our honour is clear, I suppose your mind is pretty easy. Women are pure, but not men. Women are unselfish, but not men. And I would not wish to say of poor Arthur Penn Dennis that he was worse than his neighbours, only that his neighbours are bad for the most part. Let us have the candle to own as much at least. Can you point out ten spotless men of your acquaintance? Mine is pretty large, but I can't find ten saints in the list. During the first term of Mr Penn's academic life, he attended classical and mathematical lectures with tolerable aciduity, but discovering before very long time that he had little taste or genius for the pursuing of the exact sciences, and being perhaps rather annoyed that one or two very vulgar young men, who did not even use straps to their trousers, so as to cover the abominably thick and coarse shoes and stockings which they wore, beat him completely in the lecture room. He gave up his attendance at that course, and announced to his fond parent that he proposed to devote himself exclusively to the cultivation of Greek and Roman literature. Mrs Penn Dennis was, for her part, quite satisfied that her darling boy should pursue that branch of learning for which he had the greatest inclination, and only besought him not to ruin his health by too much study, for she had heard the most melancholy stories of young students who, by over fatigue, had brought on brain fevers and perished untimely in the midst of their university career. And Penn's health, which was always delicate, was to be regarded, as she justly said, beyond all considerations or vain honours. Penn, although not aware of any lurking disease which was likely to end his life, yet kindly promised his mamma not to sit up reading too late of nights, and stuck to his word in this respect with a great deal more tenacity of resolution than he exhibited upon some other occasions when perhaps he was a little remiss. Presently he began, too, to find that he learned little good in the classical lecture. His fellow students there were too dull, as in mathematics they were too learned for him. Mr Buck, the tutor, was no better a scholar than many a fifth form boy at Greyfriars, might have some stupid humdrum notions about the meter and grammatical construction of a passage of Aeschylus or Aristophanes, but had no more notion of the poetry than Mrs Binge, his bedmaker. And Penn grew weary of hearing the dull students and tutor blunder through a few lines of a play which he could read in a tenth part of the time which they gave to it. After all, private reading, as he began to perceive, was the only study which was really profitable to a man, and he announced to his mamma that he should read by himself a great deal more, and in public a great deal less. That excellent woman knew no more about Homer than she did about algebra, but she was quite contented with Penn's arrangements regarding his course of studies and felt perfectly confident that her dear boy would get the place which he merited. Penn did not come home until after Christmas, a little to the fond mother's disappointment, and Laura's, who was longing for him to make a fine snow fortification such as he had made three winters before. But he was invited to logwood, Lady Agnes Fokers, where there were private theatricals, and a gay Christmas party of very fine folks, some of them, whom Major Pendinus would on no account have his nephew neglect. However, he stayed at home for the last three weeks of the vacation, and Laura had the opportunity of remarking what a quantity of fine new clothes he brought with him, and his mother admired his improved appearance, and manly and decided tone. He did not come home at Easter, but when he arrived for the long vacation, he brought more smart clothes, appearing in the morning in wonderful shooting jackets with remarkable buttons, and in the evening in gorgeous velvet waistcoats, with richly embroidered cravats, and curious linen. And as she pried about his room, she saw, oh, such a beautiful dressing-case, with silver mountings, and a quantity of lovely rings and jewellery. And he had a new French watch and gold chain, in place of the big old chronometer, with its bunch of jingling seals, which had hung from the fob of John Pendinus, and by the second hand of which the defunct doctor had felt many a patient's pulse in his time. It was but a few months back, Penn had longed for this watch, which he thought the most splendid and august timepiece in the world. And just before he went to college, Helen had taken it out of her drink-it box, where it had remained unwound since the death of her husband, and given it to Penn with a solemn and appropriate little speech, respecting his father's virtues and the proper use of time. This portly and valuable chronometer Penn now pronounced to be out of date and, indeed, made some comparison between it and a warming pan, which Laura thought disrespectful. And he left the watch in a drawer, in the company of soiled primrose gloves, cravats which had gone out of favour, and of that other school watch which has once before been mentioned in this history. Our old friend Rebecca, Penn pronounced to be no long up to his weight, and swapped her away for another and more powerful horse, for which he had to pay rather a heavy figure. Mr. Penn Dennis gave the boy the money for the new horse, and Laura cried when Rebecca was fetched away. Also Penn brought a large box of cigars, branded Colorado's, a Frenchisado's, Telescopius, Fudson Oxford Street, or by some such strange titles, and began to consume these, not only about the stables and greenhouses, where they were very good for Helen's plants, but in his own study, of which practice his mother did not at first approve. But he was at work upon a prized poem, he said, and could not compose without his cigar, and quoted the late lamented Lord Byron's lines in favour of the custom of smoking. As he was smoking to such good purpose, his mother could not, of course, refuse permission. In fact, the good soul coming into the room one day, in the midst of Penn's labours, he was consulting a novel which had recently appeared, for the cultivation of the light literature of his own country, as well as of foreign nations, became every student. Helen, we say, coming into the room, and finding Penn on the sofa at this work, rather than disturb him, went for a light box in his cigar case to his bedroom, which was adjacent, and actually put the cigar into his mouth, and lighted the match at which he kindled it. Penn laughed, and kissed his mother's hand as it hung fondly over the back of the sofa. Dear old mother, he said, if I were to tell you to burn the house down, I think you would do it. And it is very likely that Mr Penn was right, and that the foolish woman would have done almost as much for him as he said. Beside the works of English light literature, which this diligent student devoured, he brought down boxes of the light literature of the neighbouring country of France, into the leaves of which, when Helen dipped, she read such things as caused her to open her eyes with wonder. But Penn showed her that it was not he who made the books, though it was absolutely necessary that he should keep up his French by an acquaintance with the most celebrated writers of the day, and that it was as clearly his duty to read the eminent Paul de Coq as to study Swift or Molière, and Mrs Penn Dennis yielded with a sigh of perplexity. But Miss Laura was warned off the books, both by his anxious mother and that rigid moralist Mr Arthur Penn Dennis himself, who, however he might be called upon to study every branch of literature in order to form his mind and to perfect his style, would by no means prescribe such a course of reading to a young lady whose business in life was very different. In the course of this long vocation, Mr Penn drank up the bin of claret which his father had laid in, and of which we have heard the son remark that there was not a headache in a hog's head, and this wine being exhausted he wrote for a further supply to his wine merchants, Messers Binney and Latham of Mark Lane London, from whom indeed old Dr Portman had recommended Penn to get a supply of port and sherry on going to college. You will have, no doubt, to entertain your young friends at Bonnerface with wine parties. The honest rector had remarked to the lad, There used to be customary at college in my time, and I would advise you to employ an honest and respectable house in London for your small stock of wine, rather than to have recourse to the Oxbridge tradesmen whose liquor, if I remember rightly, was both deleterious in quality and exorbitant in price. And the obedient young gentleman took the doctor's advice and patronised Messers Binney and Latham at the rector's suggestion. So when he wrote orders for a stock of wine to be sent down to the sellers at Fair Oaks, he hinted that Messers B and L might send in his university account for wine at the same time with the Fair Oaks bill. The poor widow was frightened at the amount, but Penn laughed at her old-fashioned views, said that the bill was moderate, that everybody drank Claret and Champagne now, and finally the widow paid, feeling dimly that the expenses of her household were increasing considerably, and that her narrow income would scare suffice to meet them. But they were only occasional. Penn merely came home for a few weeks at the vocation. Laura and she might pinch when he was gone. In the brief time he was with them, ought they not to make him happy? Arthur's own allowances were liberal all this time, indeed much more so than those of the sons of far more wealthy men. Years before, the thrifty and affectionate John Pendennis, whose darling project it had ever been to give his son a university education, and those advantages of which his own father's extravagance had deprived him, had begun laying by a store of money which he called Arthur's Education Fund. Year after year in his book, his executors found entries of sums vested as A, E, F, and during the period subsequent to her husband's decease, and before Penn's entry at college, the widow had added sundry sums to this fund, so that when Arthur went up to Oxbridge it reached no inconsiderable amount. Let him be liberally allowance, was Major Pendennis's maxim. Let him make his first entree into the world as a gentleman, and take his place with men of good rank and station. After giving it to him, it will be his own duty to hold it. There is no such bad policy as stinting a boy, or putting him on a lower allowance than his fellows. Arthur will have to face the world, and fight for himself presently. Meanwhile, we shall have procured for him good friends, gentlemanly habits, and have him well backed, and well trained against the time when the real struggle comes. And these liberal opinions the Major probably advanced, both because they were just, and because he was not dealing with his own money. Thus young Penn, the only son of an estated country gentleman, with a good allowance, and a gentleman like bearing and person, looked to be a lad of much more consequence than he was really, and was held by the Oxbridge authorities, tradesmen, and undergraduates, as quite a young buck, and member of the aristocracy. His manner was frank, brave, and perhaps a little impertinent, as becomes a high-spirited youth. He was perfectly generous, and free-handed with his money, which seemed pretty plentiful. He loved joviality, and had a good voice for a song. Boat-racing had not risen in Penn's time to the furor which, as we are given to understand, it has since attained in the university. And riding and tandem-driving were the fashions of the ingenuous youth. Penn rode well to Hounds, appeared in Pink, as became a young buck, and not particularly extravagant in Equestrian or any other amusement, yet managed to run up a fine bill at Niles, the livery-stablekeeper, and in a number of other quarters. In fact, this lucky young gentleman had almost every taste to a considerable degree. He was very fond of books of all sorts. Dr. Portman had taught him to like rare editions, and his own taste led him to like beautiful bindings. It was marvellous what tall copies, and gilding, and marbling, and blind tooling the booksellers and binders put upon Penn's book-shells. He had a very fair taste in matters of art, and a keen relish for prints of a high school, none of your French opera-dancers, or tawdry-racing prints, such as had delighted the simple eyes of Mr. Spicer, his predecessor. But your strangest and rembrandt etchings and wilkies before the letter, with which his apartments were furnished presently in the most perfect good taste, as was allowed in the university, where this young fellow got no small reputation. We have mentioned that he exhibited a certain partiality for rings, jewellery, and fine-raiment of all sorts, and it must be owned that Mr. Penn, during his time at the university, was rather a dressy man, and loved to array himself in splendour. He and his polite friends would dress themselves out with as much care in order to go and dine at each other's rooms, as other folks would who were going to enslave a mistress. They said he used to wear rings over his kid-gloves, which he always denies. But what follies will not youth perpetrate with its own admirable gravity and simplicity? That he took perfumed baths is a truth, and he used to say that he took them after meeting certain men of a very low set in Hall. In Penn's second year, when Miss Father-in-Gay made her chief hit in London, and scores of prints were published of her, Penn had one of these hung in his bedroom, and confided to the men of his set how awfully, how wildly, how madly, how passionately he had loved that woman. He showed them in confidence the verses that he had written to her, and his brow would darken, his eyes roll, his chest heave with emotion, as he recalled that fatal period of his life, and described the woes and agonies which he had suffered. The verses were copied out, handed about, sneered at, admired, passed from coterie to coterie. There are few things which elevate a lad in the estimation of his brother-boys, more than to have a character for a great and romantic passion. Perhaps there is something noble in it at all times. Among very young men it is considered heroic. Penn was pronounced a tremendous fellow. They said he had almost committed suicide, that he had fought a duel with a baronet about her. Freshmen pointed him out to each other. As at the promenade time at two o'clock he swaggered out of college, surrounded by his cronies, he was famous to behold. He was elaborately attired. He would ogle the ladies who came to lionize the university, and pass before him on the arms of happy gownsmen, and give his opinion upon their personal charms, or their toilettes, with the gravity of a critic whose experience entitled him to speak with authority. Men used to say that they had been walking with Penn Dennis, and were as pleased to be seen in his company, as some of us would be if we walked with a duke down Powell Mall. He and the proctor capped each other as they met, as if they were rival powers, and the men hardly knew which was the greater. In fact, in the course of his second year, Arthur Penn Dennis had become one of the men of fashion in the university. It is curious to watch that facile admiration, and simple fidelity of youth. They hang round a leader, and wonder at him, and love him, and imitate him. No generous boy ever lived, I suppose, that has not had some wonderment of admiration for another boy. And Monsieur Penn at Oxbridge had his school, his faithful band of friends, and his rivals. When the young men heard at the haberdasher shops that Mr. Penn Dennis of Boniface had just ordered a crimson satin cravat, you would see a couple of dozen crimson satin cravats in Main Street in the course of the week. And Simon, the jeweller, was known to sell no less than two gross of Penn Dennis pins, from a pattern which the young gentleman had selected in his shop. Now, if any person with an arithmetical turn of mind will take the trouble to calculate what a sum of money it would cost a young man to indulge freely in all the above propensities which we have said Mr. Penn possessed, it will be seen that a young fellow, with such liberal tastes and amusements, must needs in the course of two or three years spend, or owe, a very handsome sum of money. We have said our friend Penn had not a calculating turn. No one propensity of his was outrageously extravagant. And it is certain that Paddington's Taylor's account, Guttelbury's Cook's bill for dinners, Dillon Tandy's bill with Finn the print-seller, for Raphael Morgus and Lancia Proofs, and Wormel's dealings with Parkton, the great bookseller for Aldine editions, black letterfolios, and richly illuminated missiles of the sixteenth century, and Snaffle's or Foker's score with Nile the horse-dealer, were, each and all of them, incomparably greater than any little bills which Mr. Penn might run up with the above-mentioned tradesmen. But Penn Dennis of Boniface had the advantage over all these young gentlemen, his friends and associates, of a universality of taste, and whereas young Lord Paddington did not care tuppence for the most beautiful print, or to look into any guilt-frame that had not a mirror within it, and Guttelbury did not mind in the least how he was dressed, and had an aversion for horse-exercise, nay, a terror of it, and Snaffle never read any printed works but the racing-calendar, or Bell's life, or cared for any manuscript except his greasy little scrawl of a betting-book. Our Catholic-minded young friend occupied himself in every one of the branches of science or pleasure above-mentioned, and distinguished himself tolerably in each. Hence young Penn got a prodigious reputation in the university, and was hailed as a sort of cryton. And as for the English verse prize, in competition for which we have seen him busily engaged at Fair Oaks, Jones of Jesus carried it that year certainly, but the undergraduates thought Penn's a much finer poem. And he had his verses printed at his own expense, and distributed in guilt-Morocco covers among his acquaintance. I found a copy of it lately in a dusty corner of Mr. Penn's bookcases, and have it before me this minute, bound up in a collection of old Oxbridge tracts, university statutes, prize poems by successful and unsuccessful candidates, declamations recited in the college chapel, speeches delivered at the Union Debating Society, and inscribed by Arthur with his name and college, Penn Dennis, Boniface, or presented to him by his affixionate friend Thompson, or Jackson, the author. How strange the epigraphs look in those half-boyish hands, and what a thrill the sight of the documents gives one after the lapse of a few lusters. How fate, since that time, has removed some, estranged others, dealt awfully with all. Many a hand is cold that wrote those kindly memorials, and that we pressed in the confident and generous grasp of youthful friendship. What passions our friendships were in those old days, how artless and void of doubt. How the army were never tired of having linked in yours under the fair college avenues, or by the riverside, where it washes mordant gardens, or Christchurch meadows, or wines by Trinity and Kings, was withdrawn of necessity when you entered presently the world, and each parted to push and struggle for himself through the great mob on the way through life. Are we the same men now that wrote those inscriptions, that read those poems, that delivered or heard those essays and speeches so simple, so pompous, so ludicrously solemn, parodied so artlessly from books, and spoken with smug, chubby faces, and such an admirable aping of wisdom and gravity? Here is the book before me. It is scarcely fifteen years old. Here is Jack moaning with despair and byronic misanthropy, whose career at the university was one of unmixed milk punch. Here is Tom's daring essay in defence of suicide, and of republicanism in general, at propos of the death of Rowland and the Girondins. Tom's, who wears the starchest tie in all the diocese, and would go to Smithfield rather than eat a beefsteak on a Friday in Lent. Here is Bob of the blank circuit, who has made a fortune in railroad committees, and whose dinners are so good, bellowing out with tankard and godfrey. On to the breechy soldiers of the cross, scale the red wall and swim the choking fos, eat dauntless archers, twang your crossbows well, on bill and battle-axe and manganelle, plie battering ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours, id deus volt. After which comes a malifluous description of the gardens of Sharon, and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy that roses shall deck the entire country of Syria, and a speedy reign of peace be established, all in undeniably deca-celabic lines, and the queerest aping of sense and sentiment and poetry. And there are essays and poems along with these grave parodies and boyish exercises, which are at once so frank and false and mirthful, yet somehow so mournful, by youthful hands that shall never write more. Fate has interposed darkly, and the young voices are silent, and the eager brains have ceased to work. This one had genius and a great dissent, and seemed to be destined for honours, which now are of little worth to him. That had virtue, learning, genius, every faculty and endowment which might secure love, admiration, and worldly fame. An obscure and solitary churchyard contains the grave of many fond hopes, and the pathetic stone which bids them farewell. I saw the sun shining on it in the fall of last year, and heard the sweet village choir raising anthems round about. What boots, whether it be Westminster, or a little country spire which covers your ashes, or if, a few days sooner or later, the world forgets you? Amidst these friends, then, and a host more, Penn passed more than two brilliant and happy years of his life. He had his fill of pleasure and popularity. No dinner or supper-party was complete without him, and Penn's jovial wit, and Penn's songs, and dashing courage, and frank and manly bearing, charmed all the undergraduates, and even disarmed the tutors, who cried out at his idleness, and murmured about his extravagant way of life. Though he became the favourite and leader of young men, who were much his superiors in wealth and station, he was much too generous to endeavour to propitiate them by any meanness or cringing on his own part, and would not neglect the humblest man of his acquaintance in order to curry favour with the richest young grandee in the university. His name is still remembered at the Union Debating Club, as one of the brilliant orators of his day. By the way, from having been an ardent Tory in his Freshman's year, his principles took a sudden turn afterwards, and he became a liberal of the most violent order. He avowed himself a Dantonist, and asserted that Louis XVI was served right. And as for Charles I, he vowed that he would chop off that monarch's head with his own right hand, were he then in the room at the Union Debating Club, and had Cromwell no other executioner for the traitor. He, and Lord Magnus Charters, the Marquis of Runnymede's son, before mentioned, were the most truculent Republicans of their day. There are reputations of this sort made, quite independent of the collegiate hierarchy, in the Republic of Guernsman. A man may be famous in the Honour lists, and entirely unknown to the undergraduates, who elect kings and chieftains of their own, whom they admire and obey, as Negro gangs have private black sovereigns in their own body, to whom they pay an occult obedience, besides that which they publicly profess for their owners and drivers. Among the young ones, Penn became famous and popular. Not that he did much, but there was a general determination that he could do a great deal if he chose. Ah, if Pendenes of Boniface would but try, the men said, he might do anything. He was backed for the Greek Ode, one by Smith of Trinity. Everybody was sure he would have the Latin Hexameter Prize, which Brown of St. John's, however, carried off. And in this way, one university honour after another was lost by him, until, after two or three failures, Mr Penn ceased to compete. But he got a declamation prize in his own college, and brought home to his mother and Laura at Fair Oaks, a set of prize books beguilt with the college arms, and so big, well-bound, and magnificent, that these ladies thought there had been no such prize ever given in a college before, as this of Penn's, and that he had won the very largest honour which Oxbridge was capable of awarding. As vacation after vacation, and term after term, passed away without the desired news that Penn had sate for any scholarship or won any honour, Dr Portman grew mightily gloomy in his behaviour towards Arthur, and adopted a sulky grandeur of deportment towards him, which the lad returned by a similar haughtiness. One vacation he did not call upon the Doctor at all, much to his mother's annoyance, who thought that it was a privilege to enter the rectory house at Clevering, and listen to Dr Portman's antique jokes and stories, though ever so often repeated, with unfailing veneration. I cannot stand the Doctor's patronising air, Penn said. He is too kind to me, a great deal fatherly. I have seen in the world better men than him, and I am not going to bore myself by listening to his dull old stories, and drinking his stupid old port wine. The tacit feud between Penn and the Doctor made the widow nervous, so that she too avoided Portman, and was afraid to go to the rectory when Arthur was at home. One Sunday, in the last long vacation, the wretched boy pushed his rebellious spirit so far as not to go to church, and he was seen at the gate of the Clevering arms, smoking a cigar, in the face of the congregation, as it issued from St Mary's. There was an awful sensation in the village society. Portman prophesied Penn's ruin after that, and groaned in spirit over the rebellious young prodigal. So did Helen tremble in her heart, and little Laura, Laura had grown to be a fine young stripling by this time, graceful and fair, clinging round Helen, and worshipping her with a passionate affection. Both of these women felt that their boy was changed. He was no longer the artless Penn of old days, so brave, so artless, so impetuous, and tender. His face looked care-worn and haggard. His voice had a deeper sound, and tones more sarcastic. Care seemed to be pursuing him, but he only laughed when his mother questioned him, and parried her anxious queries with some scornful jest. Nor did he spend much of his vacations at home. He went on visits to one great friend or another, and scared the quiet pair at Fair Oaks by stories of great houses wither he had been invited, and by talking of lords without their titles. Honest Harry Foker, who had been the means of introducing Arthur Penn Dennis to that set of young men at the university, from whose society and connections Arthur's uncle expected that the lad would get so much benefit, who had called for Arthur's first song at his first supper-party, and who had presented him at the Barmeside Club, where none but the very best men of Oxbridge were admitted. It consisted in Penn's time of six noblemen, eight gentleman-pensioners, and twelve of the most select commoners of the university. Soon found himself left far behind by the young freshman in the fashionable world of Oxbridge, and being a generous and worthy fellow, without a spark of envy in his composition, was exceedingly pleased at the success of his young protégé, and admired Penn quite as much as any of the other youth did. It was he who followed Penn now, and quoted his sayings, learned his songs, and retailed them at minor supper-parties, and was never weary of hearing them from the gifted young poet's own mouth, for a good deal of the time which Mr. Penn might have employed much more advantageously in the pursuit of the regular scholastic studies, was given up to the composition of secular ballads, which he sang about at parties, according to university want. It had been as well for Arthur, if the honest Foker had remained for some time at college, for, with all his vivacity, he was a prudent young man, and often curbed Penn's propensity to extravagance. But Foker's collegiate career did not last very long after Arthur's entrance at Boniface. Repeated differences with the university authorities caused Mr. Foker to quit Oxbridge in an untimely manner. He would persist in attending races on the neighbouring Hungerford Heath, in spite of the injunctions of his academic superiors. He never could be got to frequent the chapel of the college with that regularity of piety which Alma Mater demands from her children. Tandems which are abominations in the eyes of the heads and tutors were Foker's greatest delight, and so reckless was his driving, and frequent the accidents and upsets out of his drag, that Penn called taking a drive with him, taking the diversions of pearly. Finally, having a dinner party at his rooms to entertain some friends from London, nothing would satisfy Mr. Foker, but painting Mr. Buck's door for a million, in which freak he was caught by the proctors. And although young Blackstrap, the celebrated Negro fighter, who was one of Mr. Foker's distinguished guests, and was holding the can of paint while the young artist operated on the door, knocked down two of the proctor's attendants and performed prodigies of valor, yet these feats rather injured than served Foker, whom the proctor knew very well, and who was taken with the brush in his hand, and who was summarily convened and sent down from the university. The tutor wrote a very kind and feeling letter to Lady Agnes on the subject, stating that everybody was fond of the youth, that he never meant harm to any mortal creature, that he for his own part would have been delighted to pardon the harmless little broish frolic, had not its unhappy publicity rendered it impossible to look the freak over, and breathing the most fervent wishes for the young fellow's welfare, wishes no doubt sincere, for Foker, as we know, came of a noble family on his mother's side, and on the other, was heir to a great number of thousand pounds a year. I don't matter, said Foker, talking over the matter with Penn, a little sooner or a little later. What is the odds? I should have been plucked for my little go again, I know I should. That Latin I cannot screw into my head, and my mama's anguish would have broke out next term. The Governor will blow like an old grampus, I know he will. Well, we must stop till he gets his wind again. I shall probably go abroad and improve my mind with foreign travel. Yes, Pali vues the ticket, Italy, and that sort of thing. I'll go to Paris, and learn to dance and complete my education. But it's not me I'm anxious about, Penn. As long as people drink beer, I don't care. It's about you, I'm doubtful, my boy. You're going too fast, and can't keep up the pace, I tell you. It's not the fifty you owe me, paid or not when you like. But it's the everyday pace, and I tell you it will kill you. You're living as if there were no end to the money in the stocking at home. You ought to give dinners, you ought to eat them. Fellows are glad to have you. You ought to owe horse-bills, you ought to ride other chap's nags. You know no more about betting than I do about algebra. The chaps will win your money as sure as you sport it. Hang me if you're not trying everything. I saw you sit down to a cart last week at Trumpington's, and taking your turn with the bones after Ringwood's supper. They'll beat you at it, Penn, my boy, even if they play on the square. Which I don't say they don't, nor which I don't say they do, mind. But I won't play with them. You're no match for them. You ain't up to their weight. It's like little black strap standing up to Tom Spring. The blacks are pretty fighter, but Lord bless you. His arm ain't long enough to touch Tom. And I tell you, you're going it with fellows beyond your weight. Look here. If you'll promise me never to bet nor touch a box nor a card, I'll let you off the two ponies. But Penn laughingly said, that though it wasn't convenient to him to pay the two ponies at that moment, he by no means wished to be let off any just debts he owed. And he and Foker parted, not without many dark forebodings on the latter's part with regard to his friend, who Harry thought was travelling speedily on the road to ruin. One must do at Rome, as Rome does, Penn said, in a dandified manner, jingling some sovereigns in his waistcoat pocket. A little quiet play at a cart can't hurt a man who plays pretty well. I came away fourteen sovereigns richer from Ringwood supper, and gah! I wanted the money. And he walked off, after having taken leave of poor Foker, who went away without any beat of drum, or offered to drive the coach out of Oxbridge, to superintend a little dinner, which he was going to give at his own rooms in Boniface, about which dinners, the cook of the college, who had a great respect for Mr. Penn Dennis, always took his special pains for his young favourite.