 Chapter 20 of the History of Pen Denys, 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 Pen Denys by William Makepeace Thackeray Chapter 20 Rakes Progress Some short time before Mr Foker's departure from Oxbridge, there had come up to Boniface, a gentleman who had once, as it turned out, belonged to the other university of Camford, which he had quitted on account of some differences with the tutors and authorities there. This gentleman, whose name was Horace Blondel, was of the ancient Suffolk family of Blondel Blondel, of Blondel Blondel Hall, Blondel Blondelshire, as the young wags used to call it, and no doubt it was on account of his descent, and because Dr Dunn, the master of Boniface, was a Suffolk man, and related perhaps to the family, that Mr Horace Blondel was taken in at Boniface, after St George's, and one or two other colleges had refused to receive him. There was a living in the family, which it was important for Mr Blondel to hold, and being in a Dragoon regiment at the time when his third brother, for whom the living was originally intended, sickened and died, Mr Blondel determined upon quitting crimson pantaloons and sable sheikos for the black coat and white neckcloth of the English divine. The misfortunes which occurred at Camford occasioned some slight disturbance to Mr Blondel's plans, but although defeated upon one occasion, the resolute extragoon was not dismayed and set to work to win a victory elsewhere. In Penn's second year, Major Penn Dennis paid a brief visit to his nephew, and was introduced to several of Penn's university friends. The gentle and polite Lord Plin Limon, the gallant and open-hearted Magnus Charters, the sly and witty Harland, the intrippid Ringwood, who was called Rupert in the Union debating club, from his opinions and the bravery of his blunders. Broadbent, styled Barebone's Broadbent from the republican nature of his opinions, he was of a dissenting family from Bristol, and a perfect bow and urges of debate. Mr Blondel Blondel finally, who had at once taken his place among the select of the university. Major Penn Dennis, though he did not understand Harland's Greek quotations, or quite appreciate Broadbent's thick shoes and dingy hands, was nevertheless delighted with the company assembled round his nephew, and highly approved of all the young men, with the exception of that one who gave himself the greatest heirs in the society, and affected most to have the manners of a man of the world. As he and Penn sat at breakfast on the morning after the party, in the rooms of the latter, the Major gave his opinions regarding the young men, with whom he was in the greatest good humour. He had regaled them with some of his stories, which, though not quite so fresh in London, where people have a diseased appetite for novelty in the way of anecdotes, were entirely new at Oxbridge, and the lads heard them with that honest sympathy, that eager pleasure, that boisterous laughter, or that profound respect, so rare in the metropolis, and which must be so delightful to the professed raconteur. Only once or twice during the telling of the anecdote, Mr Blondel's face wore a look of scorn, or betrayed by its expression, that he was acquainted with the tales narrated. Once he had the audacity to question the accuracy of one of the particulars of a tale as given by Major Penn Dennis, and gave his own version of the anecdote, about which he knew he was right, for he heard it openly talked of at the club, by so and so, and Tother, who were present at the business. The youngsters present looked up with wonder at their associate, who dared to interrupt the major. Few of them could appreciate that melancholy grace and politeness, with which Major Penn Dennis had once succeeded, to Mr Blondel's version of the story, and thanked him for correcting his own error. They stared on the next occasion of meeting, when Blondel spoke in contemptuous terms of old pen, said, everyone knew old pen, regular old trenchaman at Gaunt House, notorious old bore, regular old Fogy. Major Penn Dennis, on his side, liked Mr Blondel, not a wit. These sympathies are pretty sure to be mutual amongst men and women, and if, for my part, some kind friend tells me that such and such a man has been abusing me, I am almost sure, on my own side, that I have a misliking to such and such a man. We like or dislike each other, as folks like or dislike the odour of certain flowers, or the taste of certain dishes or wines, or certain books. We can't tell why, but as a general rule, all the reasons in the world will not make us love Dr Fell, and as sure as we dislike him, we may be sure that he dislikes us. So the Major said, Penn, my boy, your dinner went off a mervel. You did the honours very nicely. You carved well. I'm glad you learned to carve. Just done on the sideboard now in most good houses, but is still an important point, and may aid you in middle life. Young Lord Plin Limon is a very amiable young man, quite the image of his dear mother, whom I knew as Lady Aquila Brownbill, and Lord Magnussen's republicanism will wear off. It sits prettily enough on a young patrician in early life, though nothing is so loathsome among persons of our rank. Mr Broadbent seems to have much eloquence and considerable reading. Your friend Foker is always delightful. But your acquaintance, Mr Bloundle, struck me as in all respects a most ineligible young man. Bless my soul, sir, Bloundle, Bloundle! cried Penn, laughing. Why, sir, he's the most popular man of the university. We elected him of the Barnasides the first week he came up, had a special meeting on purpose. He's of an excellent family. Suffolk, Bloundles, descended from Richard's Blondel, bear a harp in chief, and motto, oh, mongroy. A man may have a very good coat of arms and be a tiger, my boy, the major said, chipping his egg. That man is a tiger, mark my word, a low man. I will lay a wager that he left his regiment, which was a good one, for a more respectable man than my friend Lord Martingale never sat in a saddle in bad odour. There is the unmistakable look of slang and bad habits about this Mr Bloundle. He frequents low gambling houses and billiard hells. Sir, he haunts third-rate clubs. I know he does. I know by his style. I never was mistaken in my man yet. Did you remark the quantities of rings and jewellery he wore? That person has scamp written on his countenance, if any man ever had. Mark my words and avoid him. Let us turn the conversation. The dinner was a little too fine, but I don't object to your making a few extra frae when you receive friends. Of course you don't do it often, and only those whom it is your interest to feta. The cutlets were excellent, and the souffle uncommonly light and good. The third bottle of champagne was not necessary, but you have a good income, and as long as you keep within it, I shall not quarrel with you, my dear boy. Poor Pen. The worthy uncle little knew how often those dinners took place, while the reckless young Amphitrian delighted to show his hospitality and skill in gourmandese. There is no art than that, so long to learn, so difficult to acquire, so impossible and beyond the means of many unhappy people, about which boys are more anxious to have an air of knowingness. A taste and knowledge of wines and cookery appears to them to be the sign of an accomplished ruwe and manly gentleman. I like to see them wink at a glass of claret, as if they had an intimate acquaintance with it, and discuss a salmi, poor boys. It is only when they grow old that they know they know nothing of the science, when perhaps their conscience whispers them that the science is in itself little worth, and that a leg of mutton and content is as good as the dinners of pontiffs. But little Pen, in his character of admirable Crichton, thought it necessary to be a great judge and practitioner of dinners. We have just said how the college cook respected him, and shall soon have to deplore that that worthy man so blindly trusted our Pen. In the third year of the lads residence at Oxbridge, his staircase was by no means encumbered with dish covers and desserts, and waiters carrying in dishes and skips opening ice champagne. Crowds of different sorts of attendants, with faces sulky or piteous hung about the outer oak, and assailed the unfortunate lad as he issued out of his den. Nor did his guardians' advice take any effect, or induced Mr Pen to avoid the society of the disreputable Mr Bloundle. What young men like in their companions is, what had got Pen a great part of his own repute and popularity, a real or supposed knowledge of life. A man who has seen the world, or who can speak of it with a knowing air, a roue, or lovelace, who has his adventures to relate, is sure of an admiring audience among boys. It is hard to confess, but so it is. We respect that sort of prowess. From our school days we have been taught to admire it. Other five in the hundred, out of the hundreds and hundreds of English schoolboys, brought up at our great schools and colleges, that must not own at one time of their lives to having read and liked Don Juan. Awful propagation of evil. The idea of it should make the man tremble who holds the pen, lest untruth, or impurity, or unjust anger, or unjust praise escape it. One such diseased creature as this is enough to infect a whole colony, and the tutors of Boniface began to find the moral tone of their college lowered, and their young men growing unruly, and almost un-gentleman-like. Soon after Mr Bloundle's arrival at Oxbridge. The young magnates of the neighbouring great college of St George's, who regarded pen, and in whose society he lived, were not taken in by Bloundle's flashy graces and rakish heirs of fashion. Broadbent called him Captain McHeath, and said he would live to be hanged. Fokker, during his brief stay at the university with McHeath, with characteristic caution, declined to say anything in the captain's disfavour, but hinted to Pen that he had better have him for a partner at Wist than play against him, and better back him at a car than bet on the other side. You see, he plays better than you do, Pen, was the astute young gentleman's remark. He plays uncommonly well, the captain does. And Pen, I wouldn't take the odds too freely from him if I was you. I don't think he's too flush with money, the captain ain't. But beyond these dark suggestions and generalities, the cautious Fokker could not be got to speak. Not that his advice would have had more weight with a headstrong young man than advice commonly has with a lad who is determined on pursuing his own way. Pen's appetite for pleasure was insatiable, and he rushed at it wherever it presented itself, with an eagerness which bespoke his fiery constitution and youthful health. He called taking pleasure, seeing life, and quoted well-known maxims from Terence, from Horace, from Shakespeare, to show that one should do all that might become a man. He bade fair to be utterly used up on a roue in a few years if he were to continue at the pace at which he was going. One night, after a supper party in college, at which Pen and McHeath had been present, and at which a little quiet ventail had been played, an amusement much pleasanter to men in their second and third year than the boisterous custom of singing songs, which bring the proctors about the rooms, and which have grown quite stale by this time, every man having expended his budget. As the men had taken their caps and were going away, to no great losses or winnings on any side, Mr Bloundle playfully took up a green wine-glass from the supper-table, which had been destined to contain iced cup, but into which he inserted something still more pernicious, namely a pair of dice, which the gentleman took out of his waistcoat pocket and put into the glass. Then, giving the glass a graceful wave, which showed that his hand was quite experienced in the throwing of dice, he called sevens the main, and whisking the ivory cubes gently on the table, swept them up lightly again from the cloth, and repeated this process two or three times. The other men looked on, Pen, of course, among the number, who had never used the dice as yet, except to play a humdrum game of backgammon at home. Mr Bloundle, who had a good voice, began to troll out the chorus from Robert the Devil, an opera then in great vogue, in which chorus many of the men joined, especially Pen, who was in very high spirits, having won a good number of shillings and half-crowns at the Vantail. And presently, instead of going home, most of the party was seated round the table, playing at dice, the green glass going round from hand to hand, until Pen finally shivered it after throwing six mains. From that night, Pen plunged into the delights of the game of hazard, as eagerly as it was his custom to pursue any new pleasure. Dice can be played of mornings, as well as after dinner or supper, Bloundle would come into Pen's rooms after breakfast, and it was astonishing how quick the time passed as the bones were rattling. They had little quiet parties with closed doors, and Bloundle devised a box lined with felt, so that the dice should make no noise, and their tell-tale rattle not bring the sharp-eared tutors up to the rooms. Bloundle, Ringwood and Pen were once very nearly caught by Mr Buck, who, passing in the quadrangle, thought he heard the words, two to one on the caster, through Pen's open window. But when the tutor got into Arthur's rooms, he found the lads with three homers before them, and Pen said he was trying to coach the other two men, and asked Mr Buck with great gravity, what was the present condition of the River Scamander, and whether it was navigable or no? Mr Arthur Penn Dennis did not win much money in these transactions with Mr Bloundle, or indeed gain good of any kind, except a knowledge of the odds at hazard, which he might have learned out of books. Captain McHeath had other accomplishments, which he exercised for Pen's benefit. The Captain's stories had a great and unfortunate charm for Arthur, who was never tired of hearing Bloundle's histories of garrison conquests, and of his feats in country quarters. He had been at Paris, and had plenty of legends about the Palais Royale, and the Salon and Frascates. He had gone to the Salon one night, after a dinner at the Café de Paris, where we were all devilishly cut by Jove, and on waking in the morning in my own rooms, I found myself with 12,000 francs under my pillow, and 149 Napoleons in one of my boots. Wasn't that a coup, eh? The Captain said. Penn's eyes glistened with excitement as he heard this story. He respected the man who could win such a sum of money. He sighed, and said it would set him all right. McHeath laughed, and told him to drink another drop of maraschino. I could tell you stories much more wonderful than that, he added, and so indeed the Captain could have done, without any further trouble than that of invention, with which portion of the poetic faculty nature had copiously endowed him. He laughed to scorn Penn's love for Miss Fotheringay, when he came to hear of that Amor from Arthur, as he pretty soon did, for, we have said, Penn was not averse to telling the story now to his confidential friends, and he and they were rather proud of the transaction. But McHeath took away all Penn's conceit on this head, not by demonstrating the folly of the lad's passion for an uneducated woman, much his senior in years, but by exposing his absurd desire of gratifying his passion in a legitimate way. Marry her, said he, you might as well marry, blank, and he named one of the most notorious actresses on the stage. She had a shred of character. He knew twenty men who were openly admirers of her, and named them, and the sums each had spent upon her. I know no kind of column any more frightful or frequent than this, which takes away the character of women. No men more reckless and mischievous than those who lightly use it, and no kind of cowards more despicable than the people who invent these slanders. Is it or not a misfortune that a man himself of a candid disposition, and disposed, like our friend Penn, to blurt out the truth on all occasions, begins life by believing all that is said to him? Would it be better for a lad to be less trustful and so less honest? It requires no small experience of the world to know that a man, who has no special reason there too, is telling you lies. I am not sure whether it is not best to go on being duped for a certain time. At all events, our honest Penn had a natural credulity, which enabled him to accept all statements which were made to him, and he talked every one of Captain McHeath's figments, as if they had been the most unquestioned facts of history. So Blondels account about Miss Fotheringay pained and mortified Penn exceedingly. If he had been ashamed of his passion before, what were his feelings regarding it now? When the object of so much pure flame and adoration turned out to be only a worthless impostor, an impostor detected by all but him? It never occurred to Penn to doubt the fact, or to question whether the stories of a man who, like his new friend, never spoke well of any woman were likely to be true. One Easter vacation, when Penn had announced to his mother and uncle his intention not to go down but to stay at Oxbridge and Reed, Mr Penn was nevertheless induced to take a brief visit to London in company with his friend Mr Blondel. They put up at a hotel in Covent Garden, where Blondel had a tick, as he called it, and took the pleasures of the town very freely after the want of young university men. Blondel still belonged to a military club, whether he took Penn to Dine once or twice. The young men would drive thither in a cab, trembling lest they should meet Major Penn Dennis on his beat in Palmale. And here Penn was introduced to a number of gallant young fellows with spurs and mustachios, with whom he drank pale ale of mornings and beat the town of a night. Here he saw a deal of life indeed, nor in his career about the theatres and singing houses, which these roaring young blades frequented, was he very likely to meet his guardian. One night, nevertheless, they were very near to each other, a plank only separating Penn, who was in the boxes of the museum theatre, from the Major, who was in Lord Stein's box, along with that venerated nobleman. The fathering gay was in the pride of her glory. She had made a hit. That is, she had drawn very good houses for nearly a year, had starved the provinces with great eclaire, had come back to shine in London with somewhat diminished luster, and now was acting with ever-increasing attraction, etc. Triumph of the good old British drama, as the playbills abound, to houses in which there was plenty of room for anybody who wanted to see her. It was not the first time Penn had seen her, since that memorable day, when the two had parted in Chatteris. In the previous year, when the town was making much of her, and the press lauded her beauty, Penn had found a pretext for coming to London in term time, and had rushed off to the theatre to see his old flame. He recollected it rather than renewed it. He remembered how ardently he used to be on the lookout at Chatteris, when the speech before Ophelia's, or Mrs Haller's entrance on the stage, was made by the proper actor. Now, as the actor spoke, he had a sort of feeble thrill. As the house began to thunder with applause, and Ophelia entered with her old bow and sweeping curtsy, Penn fell to slight shock and blushed very much as he looked at her, and could not help thinking that all the house was regarding him. He hardly heard her for the first part of the play, and he thought with such rage of the humiliation to which she had subjected him, that he began to fancy he was jealous and in love with her still. But that illusion did not last very long. He ran round to the stage door of the theatre to see her, if possible, but he did not succeed. He passed indeed under his nose with a female companion, but he did not know her, nor did she recognise him. The next night he came in late and stayed very quietly for the after-piece, and on the third and last night of his stay in London, why Talioni was going to dance at the opera? Talioni! And there was to be Don Giovanni, which he admired of all things in the world. So Mr Penn went to Don Giovanni and Talioni. This time the illusion about her was quite gone. She was not less handsome, but she was not the same somehow. The light was gone out of her eyes, which used to flash there, or pens no longer were dazzled by it. The rich voice spoke as of old, yet it did not make Penn's bosom thrill as formally. He thought he could recognise the brogue underneath. The accent seemed to him coarse and false. It annoyed him to hear the same emphasis on the same words, only uttered a little louder. Worse than this, it annoyed him to think that he should ever have mistaken that loud imitation for genius, or melted at those mechanical sobs and sighs. He felt that it was in another life almost, that it was another man who had so madly loved her. He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated, and very lonely. Ah, poor Penn! The delusion is better than the truth sometimes, and fine dreams than dismal waking. They went and had an uproarious supper that night, and Mr Penn had a fine headache the next morning, with which he went back to Oxbridge, and spent all his ready money. As all this narrative is taken from Penn's own confessions, so that the reader may be assured of the truth of every word of it, and as Penn himself never had any accurate notion of the manner in which he spent his money, and plunged himself into much deeper pecuniary difficulties during his luckless residence at Oxbridge University, it is, of course, impossible for me to give any accurate account of his involvements, beyond that general notion of his way of life, which has been sketched a few pages back. He does not speak too hardly of the roguery of the university tradesmen, or of those in London whom he honoured with his patronage at the outset of his career. Even Finch, the moneylender to whom Blandel introduced him, and with whom he had various transactions in which the young rascal's signature appeared upon stamped paper, treated him, according to Penn's own account, with forbearance, and never malted him of more than a hundred percent. The old college cook, his fervent admirer, made him a private bill, offered to send him in dinners up to the very last, and never would have pressed his account to his dying day. There was that kindness and frankness about Arthur Penn Dennis, which won most people who came in contact with him, and which, if it rendered him an easy prey to rogues, got him, perhaps, more goodwill than he merited from many honest men. It was impossible to resist his good nature, or, in his worst moments, not to hope for his rescue from utter ruin. At the time of his full career of university pleasure, he would leave the gayest party to go and sit with a sick friend. He never knew the difference between small and great in the treatment of his acquaintances, however much the unlucky lad's tastes, which were of the sumptuous order, led him to prefer good society. He was only too ready to share his guinea with a poor friend, and, when he got money, had an irresistible propensity for paying, which he never could conquer through life. In his third year at college, the Duns began to gather awfully round about him, and there was a lever at his oak which scandalised the tutors and would have scared many a stouter heart. With some of these he used to battle, some he would bully, under Mr Blondel's directions, who was a master in this art, though he took a degree in no other, and some deprecate. And it is reported of him that little Mary Fraudsham, the daughter of a certain poor gilder and frame-maker, whom Mr Penn had thought fit to employ, and who had made a number of beautiful frames for his fine prince, coming to Pendenis with a piteous tale that her father was ill with Agu, was an execution in their house, Penn, in an anguish of remorse, rushed away, pawned his grand watch and every single article of jewellery, except two old gold sleeve buttons, which had belonged to his father, and rushed with the proceeds to Fraudsham's shop, where, with tears in his eyes and the deepest repentance and humility, he asked the poor tradesman's pardon. This young gentleman is not told as an instance of Penn's virtue, but rather of his weakness. It would have been much more virtuous to have had no prince at all. He still stood for the baubles which he sold in order to pay Fraudsham's bill, and his mother had cruelly to pinch herself in order to discharge the jeweller's account, so that she was in the end the sufferer by the lads' impertinent fancies and follies. We are not presenting Penn to you as a hero or a model, only as a lad who, in the midst of a thousand vanities and weaknesses, has as yet some generous impulses, and is not altogether dishonest. We have said it was to the scandal of Mr Buck, the tutor, that Penn's extravagances became known, from the manner in which he entered college, the associates he kept, and the introductions of Dr Portman and the major, Buck, for a long time, thought that his pupil was a man of large property, and wondered rather that he only wore a plain gown. Once, on going up to London to the levee with an address from his Majesty's Loyal University of Oxbridge, Buck had seen Major Penn Dennis at St James's in conversation with two knights of the garter, in the carriage of one of whom the dazzle tutor Major whisked away after the levee. He asked Penn to whine the instant he came back, let him off from chapels and lectures more than ever, and felt perfectly sure that he was a young gentleman of large estate. Thus he was thunderstruck when he heard the truth and received a dismal confession from Penn. His university debts were large, and the tutor had nothing to do and, of course, Penn did not acquaint him with his London debts. What man ever does tell all when pressed by his friends about his liabilities? The tutor learned enough to know that Penn was poor, that he had spent a handsome, almost a magnificent allowance, and had raised around him such a fine crop of debts as it would be very hard work for any man to mow down, for there is no plant that grows so rapidly when once it has taken root. Perhaps it was because she was so tender and good that Penn was terrified lest his mother should know of his sins. I can't bear to break it to her," he said to the tutor in an agony of grief. Oh, sir, I've been a villain to her," and he repented, and he wished he had the time to come over again, and he asked himself, Why, why did his uncle insist upon the necessity of living with great people, and in how much did all his grand acquaintance profit him? They were not shy, but Penn thought they were, and slunk from them during his last terms at college. He was as gloomy as a death's head at parties, which he avoided of his own part, or to which his young friends soon ceased to invite him. Everybody knew that Penn Dennis was hard up. That man, Bloundel, who could pay nobody and who was obliged to go down after three terms, was his ruin, the men said. His melancholy figure might be seen shirking about the lonely quadrangles in his battered old cap and torn gown, and he who had been the pride of the university but a year before, the man whom all the young ones loved to look at was now the object of conversation at freshman's wine parties, and they spoke of him with wonder and awe. At last came the degree examinations. Many a young man of his year, whose hobnailed shoes Penn had derided, and whose face or coat he had caricatured, many a man whom he had treated with scorn in the lecture room, or crushed with his eloquence in the debating club, many of his own set who had not half his brains, but a little regularity and constancy of occupation, took high places in the honours or passed with decent credit, and where in the list was Penn the superb, Penn the wit and dandy, Penn the poet and orator, where was Penn the widow's darling and soul pride? Let us hide our heads and shut up the page. The lists came out, and a dreadful rumour rushed through the university, that Penn Dennis of Boniface was plucked. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 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 21. Flight after defeat. Everybody who has the least knowledge of heraldry and the peerage must be aware that the noble family of which, as we know, Helen Penn Dennis was a member, bears for a crest, a nest full of little pelicans, pecking at the ensanguined bosom of a big maternal bird, which plentifully supplies the little wretches with the nutriment on which, according to the heraldic legend, they are supposed to be brought up. Very likely female pelicans, like so to bleed under the selfish little beaks of their young ones. It's certain that women do. There must be some sort of pleasure which we men don't understand, which accompanies the pain of being scarified. And indeed I believe some women would rather actually so suffer than not. They like sacrificing themselves in behalf of the object which their instinct teaches them to love. Be it for a reckless husband, a dissipated son, a darling scape grace of a brother, how ready their hearts are to pour out their best treasures for the benefit of the cherished person. And what a deal of this sort of enjoyment are we, on one side, ready to give the soft creatures. There is scarce a man that reads this, but has administered pleasure in this fashion to his womankind and has treated them to the luxury of forgiving him. They don't mind how they live themselves, but when the prodigal comes home, they make a rejoicing and kill the fatted calf for him. And at the very first hint that the sinner is returning, the kind angels prepare their festival and mercy and forgiveness go smiling out to welcome him. I hope it may be so always for all. If we have only justice to look to, heaven help us. During the latter part of Penn's residence at the University of Oxbridge, his uncle's partiality had greatly increased for the lad. The major was proud of Arthur, who had high spirits, frank manners, a good person, and high gentlemen-like bearing. It pleased the old London bachelor to see Penn walking with the young patricians of his university, and he, who was never known to entertain his friends, and whose stinginess had passed into a sort of byword among some wags at the club who envied his many engagements and did not choose to consider his poverty, was charmed to give his nephew and the young lords snug little dinners at his lodgings and to regale them with good claret and his very best bon-mau and stories, some of which would be injured by the repetition, for the major's manner of telling them was incomparably neat and careful, and others, whereof the repetition would do good to nobody. He paid his court their parents through the young men and to himself as it were by their company. He made more than one visit to Oxbridge where the young fellows were amused by entertaining the old gentlemen and gave parties and breakfasts and fates, partly to joke him and partly to do him honour. He plied them with his stories. He made himself juvenile and hilarious in the company of the young lords. He went to hear Penn at a grand debate at the union, crowed and cheered and wrapped his stick in chorus with the cheers of the men and was astounded at the boy's eloquence and fire. He thought he had got a young pit for a nephew. He had an almost paternal fondness for Penn. He wrote to the lad letters with playful advice and the news of the town. He bragged about Arthur at his clubs and introduced him with pleasure into his conversation, saying that, eggad, the young fellows were putting the old ones to the wall, that the lads who were coming up, Lord Plinlymon, a friend of my boy, young Lord Magnus Charters, a chum of my scape grace, et cetera, would make a greater figure in the world than even their fathers had done before them. He asked permission to bring Arthur to a grand ffaith at Gaunt House, saw him with ineffable satisfaction dancing with the sisters of the young noblemen before mentioned and gave himself as much trouble to procure cards of invitation for the lad to some good houses as if he had been a mamar with a daughter to marry and not an old half-pay officer in a wig. And he boasted everywhere of the boy's great talents and remarkable oratorical powers and of the brilliant degree he was going to take. Lord Runnymedd would take him on on his embassy or the Duke would bring him in for one of his boroughs, he wrote over and over again to Helen, who, for her part, was too ready to believe anything that anybody chose to say in favour of her son. And all this pride and affiction of uncle and mother had been trampled down by Penn's wicked extravagance and idleness. I don't envy Penn's feelings, as the phrase is, as he thought of what he had done. He had slept and the tortoise had won the race. He had marred at its outset what might have been a brilliant career. He had dipped ungenerously into a generous mother's purse, basely and recklessly spilt her little cruise. Oh! it was a coward hand that could strike and rob a creature so tender. And if Penn felt the wrong which he had done to others, are we to suppose that a young gentleman of his vanity did not feel, still more keenly, the shame he had brought upon himself? Let us be assured that there is no more cruel remorse than that and no groans more piteous than those of wounded self-love. Like Joel Miller's friend, the senior angler, who bowed to the audience from his box at the play, because he and the king happened to enter the theatre at the same time, only with a fatuity by no means so agreeable to himself, poor Arthur Penn Dennis felt perfectly convinced that all England would remark the absence of his name from the examination lists and talk about his misfortune. His wounded tutor, his many duns, the skip and bedmaker who waited upon him, the undergraduates of his own time and the years below him, whom he had patronised or scorned, how could he bear to look any of them in the face now? He rushed to his rooms into which he shut himself and there he penned a letter to his tutor full of thanks, regards, remorse and despair, requesting that his name might be taken off the college books and intimating a wish and expectation that death would speedily end the woes of the disgraced Arthur Penn Dennis. Then he slunk out, scarcely knowing whether he went, but mechanically taking the unfrequented little lanes by the backs of the colleges, until he cleared the university precincts and got down to the banks of the Cam Isis River, now deserted but so often alive with the boat races and the crowds of cheering gownsmen. He wandered on and on until he found himself at some miles' distance from Oxbridge or rather was found by some acquaintances leaving that city. As Penn went up a hill, a drizzling January rain beating in his face and his ragged gown flying behind him, for he had not divested himself of his academical garments since the morning, a post-chays came rattling up the road on the box of which a servant was seated, whilst within, or rather half out of the carriage window, sat a young gentleman smoking a cigar and loudly encouraging the post-boy. It was our young acquaintance of Baymouth, Mr Spavin, who had got his degree and was driving homewards in triumph in his yellow post-chays. He caught a sight of the figure, madly gesticulating as he worked up the hill and of poor Penn's pale and ghastly face as the shays whirled by him. Whoa! rowed Mr Spavin to the post-boy and the horses stopped in their mad career and the carriage pulled up some fifty yards before Penn. He presently heard his own name shouted and beheld the upper half of the body of Mr Spavin thrust out of the side window of the vehicle and beckoning Penn vehemently towards it. Penn stopped, hesitated, nodded his head fiercely and pointed onwards as if desirous that the postillian should proceed. He did not speak, but his countenance must have looked very desperate for young Spavin, having stared at him with an expression of blank alarm, jumped out of the carriage presently, ran towards Penn holding out his hand and grasping Penn said, I say, hello, old boy, where are you going and what's the round now? I'm going where I deserve to go," said Penn with an implication. This ain't the way," said Mr Spavin smiling. This is the Fenbury Road. I say, Penn, don't take on because you're plucked. It's nothing when you are used to it. I've been plucked three times, old boy, and after the first time I didn't care. Glad it's over, though. You'll have better luck next time. Penn looked at his early acquaintance, who had been plucked, who had been rusticated, who had only, after repeated failures, learned to read and write correctly, and who, in spite of all these drawbacks, had attained the honour of a degree. This man has passed," he thought, and I have failed. It was almost too much for him to bear. Goodbye, Spavin," said he. I'm very glad you're through. Don't let me keep you. I'm in a hurry. I'm going to town tonight. Gammon! said Mr Spavin. This ain't the way to town. This is the Fenbury Road, I tell you. I was just going to turn back," Penn said. All the coaches are full with the men going down," Spavin said. Penn winced. You'd not get a place for a ten-pound note. Get into my yellow. I'll drop you at Mudford, where you have a chance of the Fenbury Mail. I'll lend you a hat and a coat. I've got lots. Come on, jump in, old boy. Go it, leathers! In this way Penn found himself in Mr Spavin's post-chase, and rode with that gentleman as far as the Ram Inn at Mudford, 15 miles from Oxbridge, where the Fenbury Mail changed horses and where Penn got a place on to London. The next day there was an immense excitement in Boniface College, Oxbridge, where, for some time, a rumour prevailed to the terror of Penn's tutor and tradesman that Penn Dennis, maddened at losing his degree, had made away with himself. A battered cat in which his name was almost discernible, together with a seal bearing his crest of an eagle looking at a now extinct sun, had been found three miles on the Fenbury Road near a mill stream, and for four and twenty hours it was supposed that poor Penn had flung himself into the stream, until letters arrived from him bearing the London postmark. The mail reached London at the dreary hour of five and he hastened to the inn at Covent Garden, in which he was accustomed to put up, where the ever-wakeful porter admitted him and showed him to a bed. Penn looked hard at the man and wondered where the boots knew he was plucked. When in bed he could not sleep there, he tossed about until the appearance of the dismal London daylight, when he sprang up desperately and walked off to his uncle's lodgings in Berry Street. Where the maid, who was scouring the steps, was up suspiciously at him as he came with an unshaven face and yesterday's linen. He thought she knew of his mishap too. Good Evans! Miss Harther! What has happened, sir? Mr Morgan, the valet, asked, who had just arranged the well-brushed clothes and shiny boots at the door of his master's bedroom and was carrying in his wig to the mage. My uncle, he cried in a ghastly voice and flung himself down on a chair. Morgan backed before the pale and desperate-looking young man with terrified and wondering glances and disappeared into his master's apartment. The mage put his head out of the bedroom door as soon as he had his wig on. What! Examination over? Senior Wrangler, double-first class, hey? said the old gentleman. I'll come directly! And the head disappeared. They don't know what has happened! groaned Pen. What will they say when they know all? Pen had been standing with his back to the window and to such a dubious light as Berry Street enjoys of a foggy January morning so that his uncle could not see the expression of the young man's countenance, all the looks of gloom and despair which even Mr Morgan had remarked. But when the mage came out of his dressing room neat and radiant and proceeded by faint odours from Del Quire's shop from which Emporium, Major Penn Dennis's wig and his pocket handkerchief got their perfume he held out one of his hands to Pen and was about addressing him in his cheery high-toned voice when he caught sight of the boy's face at length and dropping his hand said Good God, Penn! What's the matter? You'll see it in the papers at breakfast, sir, Penn said. See what? My name isn't there, sir. Hang it! Why should it be? asked the Major, more perplexed. I've lost everything, sir, Penn groaned out. My honour's gone. I'm ruined irretrievably. I can't go back to Oxbridge. What's your honour? screamed out the Major. Heaven's alive. You don't mean to say you have shown the white feather? Penn laughed bitterly at the word feather and repeated it. No, it isn't that, sir. I'm not afraid of being shot. I wish to god anybody would. I've not got my degree. I'm... I'm plucked, sir. The Major had heard of plucking but in a very vague and cursory way and concluded that it was some ceremony performed corporally upon rebellious university youth. I wonder you couldn't look me in the face after such a disgrace, sir, he said. I wonder you submitted to it as a gentleman. I couldn't help it, sir. I did my classical papers well enough. It was those infernal mathematics which I've always neglected. Was it... was it done in public, sir? The Major said. What? The... the plucking, asked the Guardian, looking Penn anxiously in the face. Penn perceived the error under which his Guardian was laboring and in the midst of his misery the blunder caused the poor wretch a faint smile and served to bring down the conversation from the tragedy key in which Penn had been disposed to carry it on. He explained to his uncle that he had gone in to pass his examination and failed. On which the Major said that though he had expected far better things of his nephew there was no great misfortune in this and no dishonour as far as he saw and that Penn must try again. May he again at Oxbridge? Penn thought. After such a humiliation as that he felt that except he went down to burn the place he could not enter it. But it was when he came to tell his uncle of his debts that his mother felt surprise and anger most keenly and broke out in speeches most severe upon Penn which the lad bore as best might without finching. He had determined to make a clean breast and had formed a full, true and complete list of all his bills and liabilities at the university and in London. They consisted of various items such as London, Oxbridge Ditto, Oxbridge Ditto, Bill for Horses, Haberdasher for Shirts and Gloves, Princeller, Jeweler, Books, College Cook, Binding, Grump for Desserts, Hairdresser and Perfumery, Bootmaker, Hotel Bill in London, Wine Merchant in London, Sundries All of which items the reader may fill in at his pleasure. Such accounts have been inspected by the parents of many university youth and it appeared that Mr Penn's bills in all amounted to about £700. And furthermore it was calculated that he had had more than twice that sum of ready money during his stay at Oxbridge. This sum he had spent and for it had to show what. You need not press a man who is down, sir. Penn said to his uncle Gloomily. I know very well, sir, how wicked and idle I have been. My mother won't like to see me dishonoured, sir. He continued with his voice failing. And I know she will pay these accounts. But I shall ask her for no more money. As you like, sir, the major said, you are of age and my hands are washed of your affairs. But you can't live without money and have no means of making it that I see, though you have a fine talent in spending it. And it is my belief that you will proceed as you have begun and ruin your mother before you are five years older. Good morning. It is time for me to go to breakfast. My engagements won't permit me to see you much during the time that you stay in London. I presume that you will acquaint your mother with the news which you have just conveyed to me and pulling on his hat and trembling in his limbs somewhat, Major Pendennis walked out of his lodgings before his nephew and went ruefully off to take his accustomed corner at the club. He saw the Oxbridge examination lists in the morning papers and read over the names, not understanding the business, with mournful accuracy. He consulted various old fogies of his acquaintance in the course of the day at the club's. Wenham, a dean, various civilians, and, as it is called, took their opinion, showing to some of them the amount of his nephew's debts, which he had dotted down on the back of a card, and asking what was to be done and whether such debts were not monstrous, preposterous, what was to be done. There was nothing for it but to pay. Wenham and the others told the Major of Young Men five times as much as Arthur, and with no means at all to pay. The consultations and calculations and opinions comforted the Major somewhat. After all, he was not to pay. But he thought bitterly of the many plans he had formed to make a man of his nephew, of the sacrifices which he had made and of the manner in which he was disappointed. And he wrote off a letter to Dr Portman informing him of the direful events which had taken place and begging the doctor to break them to Helen. For the orthodox old gentleman preserved the regular routine in all things and was of opinion that it was more correct to break a piece of bad news to a person by means of a possibly maladroit and unfeeling messenger than to convey it simply to its destination by a note. So the Major wrote to Dr Portman and then went out to dinner one of the saddest men in any London dining-room that day. Penn too wrote his letter and sculked about London streets for the rest of the day fancing that everybody was looking at him and whispering to his neighbour, that is Penn Dennis of Boniface who was plucked yesterday. His letter to his mother was full of tenderness and remorse. He wept the bitterest tears over it and the repentance and passion soothed him to some degree. He saw a party of roaring young glades from Oxbridge in the coffee-room of his hotel and slunk away from them and paced the streets. He remembers, he says, the prince which he saw hanging up at Ackerman's window in the rain and a book which he read at a stall near the temple. At night he went to the pit of the play and saw Miss Fotheringay but he doesn't in the least recollect in what piece. On the second day there came a kind letter from his tutor containing many grave and appropriate remarks upon the event which had befallen him but strongly urging Penn not to take his name off the university books and to retrieve a disaster which everybody knew was owing to his own carelessness alone and which he might repair by a month's application. He said he had ordered Penn's skip to pack up some trunks of the young gentleman's wardrobe which duly arrived with fresh copies of all Penn's bills laid on the top. On the third day there arrived a letter from home which Penn read in his bedroom and the result of which was that he fell down on his knees with his head in the bedclothes and then prayed out his heart and humbled himself and having gone downstairs and eaten an immense breakfast he salad forth and took his place at the ball and mouth Piccadilly by the chatterous coach for that evening. End of chapter 21 chapter 22 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 22 prodigal's return such a letter as the major wrote of course sent Dr Portman to Fair Oaks and he went off with that alacrity which a good man shows when he has disagreeable news to communicate he wishes the deed were done and done quickly he is sorry but que vous le vous? the tooth must be taken out and he has you in the chair and it is surprising with what courage and vigor of wrist he applies the forceps perhaps he would not be quite so active or eager if it were his tooth but in fine it is your duty to have it out so the doctor having read the epistle out to Mara and Mrs Portman with many damnatory comments upon the young scape grace who was going deeper and deeper into perdition left those ladies to spread the news through the clavering society which they did with their accustomed accuracy and dispatch and strode over to Fair Oaks to break the intelligence to the widow she had the news already she had read Penn's letter and it had relieved her somehow a gloomy presentiment of evil had been hanging over her many months past she knew the worst now and her darling boy was come back to her repentant and tender hearted did she want more? all that the rector could say and his remarks were both dictated by common sense and made respectable by antiquity could not bring Helen to feel any indignation or particular unhappiness except that the boy should be unhappy what was this degree they made such an outcry about and what good would it do Penn why did Doctor Portman and his uncle insist upon sending the boy to a place where there was so much temptation to be risked and so little good to be won why didn't they leave him at home with his mother as for his debts of course they must be paid his debts wasn't his father's money all his and hadn't he a right to spend it in this way the widow met the virtuous doctor and all the arrows of his indignation somehow took no effect upon her gentle bosom for some time past an agreeable practice known since times ever so ancient by which brothers and sisters are want to exhibit their affection towards one another and in which Penn and his little sister Laura had been accustomed to indulge pretty frequently in their childish days had been given up by the mutual consent of those two individuals coming back from college after an absence from home of some months in place of the simple girl whom he had left behind him Mr Arthur found a tall slim handsome young lady to whom he could not somehow proffer the kiss which he had been in the habit of administering previously and who received him with a gracious curtsy and a proffered hand and with a great blush which rose up to the cheek just upon the very spot which young Penn had been used to salute I am not good at descriptions of female beauty and indeed do not care for it in the least thinking that goodness and virtue are of course far more advantageous to a young lady than any mere fleeting charms of person and face and so shall not attempt any particular delineation of Miss Laura Bell at the age of 16 years at that age she had attained her present altitude of five feet four inches so that she was called tall and gawke by some and a maypole by others of her own sex who prefer little women but if she was a maypole she had beautiful roses about her head and it is a fact that many women were disposed to dance round her she was ordinarily pale with a faint rose tinge in her cheeks but they flushed up in a minute when occasion called and continued blushing ever so long the roses remaining after the emotion had passed away which had summoned those pretty flowers into existence her eyes had been described as very large from her earliest childhood and retained that characteristic in later life good natured critics always females said that she was in the habit of making play with those eyes and ogling the gentlemen and ladies in her company but the fact is that nature had made them so to shine and to look and they could no more help so looking and shining than one star can help being brighter than another it was doubtless to mitigate their brightness that Miss Laura's eyes provided with two pairs of veils in the shape of the longest and finest black eyelashes so that when she closed her eyes the same people who found fault with those orbs said that she wanted to show her eyelashes off and indeed I dare say that to see her asleep would have been a pretty sight as for her complexion that was nearly as brilliant as lady mantraps and without the powder which her ladyship uses her nose must be left to the reader's imagination if her mouth was rather large as Miss Pymony averse but for her known appetite one would think could not swallow anything larger than a button everybody allowed that her smile was charming and showed off a set of pearly teeth whilst her voice was so low and sweet that to hear it was like listening to sweet music because she is in the habit of wearing very long dresses people of course say that her feet are not small but it may be that they are of the size becoming her figure and it does not follow because Mrs Pinsher is always putting her foot out that all other ladys should be perpetually bringing theirs on the tapas in fine Miss Laura Bell at the age of 16 was a sweet young lady many thousands of such are to be found let us hope in this country where there is no lack of goodness and modesty and purity and beauty now Miss Laura since she had learned to think for herself and in the past two years her mind and her person had both developed themselves considerably had only been half pleased with Pinsher's general conduct and bearing her mother at home had become of late very rare and short it was in vain that the fond widow urged how constant Arthur's occupations and studies were and how many his engagements it is better that he should lose a prize Laura said than forget his mother and indeed Mama I don't see that he gets many prizes why doesn't he come home and stay with you instead of passing his vocations there is nobody there who will love him half so much as as you do as I do only Laura sighed out Mrs Penn Dennis Laura declared stoutly that she did not love a pen a bit when he did not do his duty to his mother nor would she be convinced by any of Helen's fond arguments that the boy must make his way in the world that his uncle was most desirous that Penn should cultivate the acquaintance of persons who were likely to befriend him in life that men had a thousand ties and calls which women could not understand and so forth perhaps Helen no more believed in these excuses than her adopted daughter did but she tried to believe that she believed them and comforted herself for the maternal infatuation and that is a point whereon I suppose many a gentleman has reflected that do what we will we are pretty sure of the woman's love that once has lived and that that untiring tenderness and forgiveness never fail us also there had been that freedom not to say audacity in Arthur's latter talks and ways which had shocked and displeased Laura not that he ever offended her by rudeness or addressed to her a word which she ought not to hear for Mr Penn was a gentleman and by nature and education polite to every woman high and low but he spoke lightly and laxly of women in general was less courteous in his actions than in his words neglectful in sundry ways and in many of the little offices of life it offended Miss Laura that he should smoke his horrid pipes in the house that he should refuse to go to church with his mother or on walks or visits with her ornning over his novel in his dressing-gown when the gentle widow returned from those duties the hero of Laura's early infancy about whom she had passed so many many nights talking with Helen who recited endless stories of the boy's virtues and love and bravery when he was away at school was a very different person from the young man whom now she knew bold and brilliant sarcastic and defiant seeming to score on the simple occupations or pleasures or even devotions of the women with whom he lived and whom he quitted on such light pretexts the fathering gay affair too when Laura came to hear of it which she did first by some sarcastic illusions of Major Penn Dennis when on a visit to Fair Oaks and then from their neighbours at Clevering who had plenty of information to give her on this head vastly shocked and outraged Miss Laura a Penn Dennis fling himself away on such a woman as that Helen's boy galloping away from home day after day to fall on his knees to an actress and drink with her horrid father a good son want to bring such a man and such a woman into his house and set her over his mother I would have run away mum I would if I had had to walk barefoot through the snow Laura said and you would have left me too then Helen answered on which of course Laura withdrew her previous observation and the two women rushed into each other's embraces with that warmth which belonged to both their natures and which characterises not a few of their sex whence came all the indignation of Miss Laura about Arthur's passion perhaps she did not know that if men throw themselves away upon women women throw themselves away upon men too and that there is no more accounting for love than for any other physical liking or antipathy perhaps she had been misinformed by the clavering people and old Mrs Portman who was vastly bitter against Penn especially since his impertinent behaviour to the doctor and since the wretch had smoked cigars in church time perhaps finally she was jealous but this is a vice in which it is said that a lady's very seldom indulge albeit she was angry with Penn against his mother she had no such feeling but devoted herself to Helen with the utmost force of her girlish affection such affection as women whose hearts are disengaged are apt to bestow upon the near female friend it was devotion it was passion it was all sorts of fondness and folly it was a profusion of caresses tender epithets and endearments such as it does not become sober historians with beards turn rate do not let us men despise these instincts because we cannot feel them these women were made for our comfort and delectation gentlemen with all the rest of the minor animals but as soon as Miss Laura heard that Penn was unfortunate and unhappy all her wrath against him straightway vanished and gave place to the most tender and unreasonable compassion he was the pen of old days once more restored to her the frank and affectionate the generous and tender hearted she at once took side with Helen against Dr Portman when he outcried at the enormity of Penn's transgressions debts what were his debts they were a trifle he had been thrown into expensive society by his uncle's order and of course was obliged to live in the same manner as the young gentleman whose company he frequented disgraced by not getting his degree the poor boy was ill when he went in for the examinations he couldn't think of his mathematics and stuff on account of those very debts which oppressed him very likely some of the odious tutors and masters were jealous of him and had favourites of their own whom they wanted to put over his head other people disliked him and were cruel to him and were unfair to him she was very sure and so with flushing cheeks and eyes bright with anger this young creature reasoned and she went up and seized Helen's hand and kissed her in the doctor's presence and her looks braved the doctor and seemed to ask how he dared to say a word against her darling mother's pen when that divine took his leave not a little discomforted and amazed at the pertinacious obstinacy of the women Laura repeated her embraces and arguments with tenfold fervor to Helen who felt that there was a great deal of cogency in most of the latter there must be some jealousy against Penn she felt quite sure that he had offended some of the examiners who had taken a mean revenge of him nothing more likely altogether the announcement of the misfortune fixed these two ladies very little indeed Penn, who was plunged in his shame and grief in London and torn with great remorse for thinking of his mother's sorrow would have wondered had he seen how easily she bore the calamity indeed calamity is welcome to women if they think it will bring true and affection home again and if you have reduced your mistress to a crust depend upon it that she won't repine and only take a very little bit of it for herself provided you will eat the remainder in her company and directly the doctor was gone Laura ordered fires to be lighted in Mr Arthur's rooms and his bedding to be aired and had these preparations completed by the time Helen had finished a most tender and affectionate letter to Penn when the girl smiling fondly took her mamar by the hand and led her into those apartments where the fires were blazing so cheerfully and there the two kind creatures sat down on the bed and talked about Penn ever so long Laura added a post script to Helen's letter in which she called him her dearest Penn and bade him come home instantly with two of the handsomest dashes under the word and be happy with his mother and his affectionate sister Laura in the middle of the night as these two ladies after reading their Bibles a great deal during the evening and after taking just a look into Penn's room as they passed to their own in the middle of the night I say Laura, whose head not unfrequently chose to occupy that pillow which the nightcap of the late Penn Dennis had been accustomed to press cried out suddenly mamar are you awake Helen stirred and said yes I'm awake the truth is though she had been lying quite still and silent she had not been asleep one instant but had been looking at the light lamp in the chimney and had been thinking of Penn for hours and hours then Miss Laura who had been acting with similar hypocrisy and lying occupied with her own thoughts as motionless as Helen's broach with Penn's and Laura's hair in it on the frilled white pincushion on the dressing table began to tell Mrs Penn Dennis of a notable plan which she had been forming in her busy little brains and by which all Penn's embarrassments will be made to vanish in a moment and without the least trouble to anybody you know mamar this young lady said that I have been living with you for ten years during which time you have never taken any of my money and have been treating me just as if I was a charity girl now this obligation has offended me very much because I am proud and do not like to be beholden to people and as if I had gone to school only I wouldn't it must have cost me at least fifty pounds a year it is clear that I owe you fifty times ten pounds which I know you have put in the bank at Chatteris for me and which doesn't belong to me a bit now tomorrow we will go to Chatteris and see that nice old Mr Rowdy with the bald head and ask him for it, not for his head but for the five hundred pounds and I dare say he will send you two more which we will save and pay back and we will send the money to Penn who can pay all his debts without hurting anybody and then we will live happy ever after what Helen replied to this speech need not be repeated as the widow's answer was made up of a great number of incoherent ejaculations, embraces and other irrelative matter but the two women slept well after that talk and when the night lamp went out with a splutter and the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills and the birds began to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glistening evergreens on Fair Oaks lawn Helen woke too and as she looked at the sweet face of the girl sleeping beside her her lips parted with a smile blushes on her cheeks her spotless bosom heaving and falling with gentle undulations as if happy dreams were sweeping over it Penn's mother felt happy and grateful beyond all power of words save such as pious women offer up to the beneficent dispenser of love and mercy in whose honour a chorus of such praises is constantly rising up all round the world although it was January and rather cold weather so sincere was Mr Penn's remorse and so determined his plans of economy that he would not take an inside place in the coach but sat up behind with his friend the guard who remembered his formal liberality and lent him plenty of great coats perhaps it was the coal that made his knees tremble as he got down at the lodge gate or it may be that he was agitated at the notion of seeing the kind creature for whose love he had made so selfish a return Old John was in waiting to receive his master's baggage but he appeared in a fustian jacket and no longer wore his livery of drab and blue ice garner and stable man and lives in the lodge now this worthy man remarked with a grin of welcome to Penn and something of a blush but instantly as Penn turned the corner of the shrubbery and was out of eyeshot of the coach Helen made her appearance her face beaming with love and forgiveness for forgiving is what some women love best of all we may be sure that the widow having a certain other object in view had lost no time in writing off to Penn an account of the noble, the magnanimous the magnificent offer of Laura filling up her letter with a profusion of benedictions upon both her children it was probably the knowledge of this money obligation which caused Penn to blush very much when he saw Laura who was in waiting in the hall and who this time only broke through the little arrangement of which we have spoken as having subsisted between her and Arthur for the last few years but the truth is there has been a great deal too much said about kissing in the present chapter so the prodigal came home and the fatted calf was killed for him and he was made as happy as two simple women could make him no illusions were made to the Oxbridge mishap or questions asked as to his father proceedings for some time but Penn debated these anxiously in his own mind and up in his own room where he passed much time in cogitation a few days after he came home he rode to Chatteris on his horse and came back on the top of the coach he then informed his mother that he had left the horse to be sold and when that operation was affected he handed her over the check which she and possibly Penn himself thought was an act of uncommon virtue and self-denial but which Laura pronounced to be only strict justice he rarely mentioned the loan which he had made and which indeed had been accepted by the widow with certain modifications but once or twice and with great hesitation and stammering he alluded to it and thanked her but it evidently pained his vanity to be beholden to the orphan for Sucker he was wild to find some means of repaying her he left off drinking wine and but took himself, but with great moderation to the refreshment of whisky and water he gave up cigar smoking but it must be confessed that of late years he had liked pipes and tobacco as well or even better so that this sacrifice was not a very severe one he fell asleep a great deal after dinner when he joined the ladies in the drawing room and was certainly very moody and melancholy he watched the coaches with great interest walked in to read the papers at clavering assiduously dined with anybody who would ask him and the widow was glad that he should have any entertainment in their solitary place and played a good deal at Cribbage with Captain Glander's he avoided Dr Portman who, in his turn whenever Penn passed, gave him very severe looks from under his shovel hat he went to church with his mother, however very regularly and read prayers for her at home to the little household always humble it was greatly diminished now a couple of maids did the work of the house at Fair Oaks the silver dish covers never saw the light at all John put on his livery to go to church and assert his dignity on Sundays but it was only for form's sake he was gardener, an outdoor man vice-upton resigned there was but little fire in Fair Oaks kitchen and John and the maids drank their evening beer there by the light of a single candle all this was Mr Penn's doing and the state of things did not increase his cheerfulness for some time Penn said no power on earth could induce him to go back to Oxbridge again after his failure there but one day Laura said to him, with many blushes that she thought, as some sort of reparation of punishment on himself for his for his idleness, he ought to go back and get his degree if he could fetch it by doing so and so back Mr Penn went a plucked man is a dismal being in a university belonging to no set of men there and owned by no one Penn felt himself plucked indeed by all the fine feathers which he had won during his brilliant years and rarely appeared out of his college regularly going to morning chapel and shutting himself up in his rooms of nights away from the noise and suppers of the undergraduates there were no duns about his door they were all paid scarcely any cards were left there the men of his year had taken their degrees and were gone he went into a second examination and passed with perfect ease he was somewhat more easy in his mind when he appeared in his bachelor's gown on his way back from Oxbridge he paid a visit to his uncle in London but the old gentleman received him with very cold looks and would scarcely give him his forefinger to shake he called a second time but Morgan the valet said his master was from home Penn came back to Fair Oaks and to his books and to his idleness and loneliness and despair he commenced several tragedies and wrote many copies of verses of a gloomy cast he formed plans of reading and broke them he thought about enlisting about the Spanish Legion about a profession he chafed against his captivity and cursed the idleness which had caused it Helen said he was breaking his heart and was sad to see his prostration as soon as they could afford it he should go abroad he should go to London he should be freed from the dull society of two poor women it was dull, very, certainly the tender widow's habitual melancholy seemed to deepen into a sad aglume and Laura saw with alarm that the dear friend became every year more languid and weary a pale cheek grew more one