We came over once or twice from Periwinkle Bay. We mounted Hornblow’s colours openly. We drove up ostentatiously to the Ram, forsaking the Ringwood Arms, where Mr. Grenville Woolcomb’s Committee Room was now established in that very coffee-room where we had dined in Mr. Bradgate’s company. We warmed in the contest. We met Bradgate and his principal more than once, and our Montagus and Capulets defied each other in the public street. It was fine to see Philip’s great figure and noble scowl when he met Woolcomb at the canvass. Gleams of mulatto hate quivered from the eyes of the little captain.

Darts of fire flashed from beneath Philip’s eyebrows as he elbowed his way forward, and hustled Woolcomb off the pavement. Mr. Philip never disguised any sentiment of his. Hate the little ignorant, spiteful, vulgar, avaricious beast? Of course I hate him, and I should like to pitch him into the river. Oh, Philip! Charlotte pleaded. But there was no reasoning with this savage when in wrath. I deplored, though perhaps I was amused by, his ferocity.The local paper on our side was filled with withering epigrams against this poor Woolcomb, of which, I suspect, Philip was the author. I think I know that fierce style and tremendous invective. In the man whom he hates he can see no good; and in his friend no fault. When we met Bradgate apart from his principal, we were friendly enough. He said we had no chance in the contest. He did not conceal his dislike and contempt for his client At a short distance from the Ringwood Arms, and on the opposite side of the street,is theRam Inn..

He amused us in later days (when he actually became Philip’s man of law) by recounting, his fury, his jealousy, his avarice, his brutal behaviour. Poor Agnes had married for money, and he gave her none. Old Twysden, in giving his daughter to this man, had hoped to have the run of a fine house; to ride in Woolcomb’s carriages, and feast at his table. But Woolcomb was so stingy that he grudged the meat which his wife ate, and would give none to her relations. He turned those relations out of his doors. Talbot and Ringwood Twysden, he drove them both away.

He lost a child, because he would not send for a physician. His wife never forgave him that meanness. Her hatred for him became open and avowed. They parted, and she led a life into which we will look no farther. She quarrelled with parents as well as husband. “Why,” she said, “did they sell me to that man?” Why did she sell herself? She required little persuasion from father and mother when she committed that crime. To be sure, they had educated her so well to worldliness, that when the occasion came she was ready.

Windham was the chairman of the evening — elected to that post because he is very fond of making speeches to which he does not in the least expect you to listen. All men of sense are glad to hand over this office to him: and I hope, for my part, a day will soon arrive (but I own, mind you, that I do not carve well) when we shall have the speeches done by a skilled waiter at the side table, as we now have the carving. Don’t you find that you splash the gravy, that you mangle the meat, that you can’t nick the joint in helping the company to a dinner-speech?

I, for my part, own that I am in a state of tremor and absence of mind before the operation; in a condition of imbecility during the business; and that I am sure of a headache and indigestion the next morning. What then? Have I not seen one of the bravest men in the world, at a city-dinner last year, in a state of equal panic? — I feel that I am wandering from Philip’s adventures to his biographer’s, and confess I am thinking of the dismal fiasco I myself made on this occasion at the Richmond dinner.You see, the order of the day at these meetings is to joke at everything — to joke at the chairman, at all the speakers, at the army and navy, at the venerable the legislature, at the bar and bench, and so forth. If we toast a barrister we show how admirably he would have figured in the dock: if a sailor, how lamentably sea-sick he was: if a soldier, how nimbly he ran away¡@The Georgian and Circassian girls, they say, used to submit to their lot very complacently, and were quite eager to get to market at Constantinople and be sold..

For example, we drank the Venerable Archdeacon Brackley and the army. We deplored the perverseness which had led him to adopt a black coat instead of a red. War had evidently been his vocation, as he had shown by the frequent battles in which he had been engaged at school. For what was the other great warrior of the age famous? for that Roman feature in his face, which distinguished, which gave a name to, our Brackley — a name by which we fondly clung (cries of “Nosey, Nosey!") Might that feature ornament ere long the face of — of one of the chiefs of that army of which he was a distinguished field-officer! Might — Here I confess I fairly broke down, lost the thread of my joke — at which Brackley seemed to look rather severe — and finished the speech with a gobble about regard, esteem, everybody respect you, and good health, old boy — which answered quite as well as a finished oration, however the author might be discontented with it.

The Archdeacon’s little sermon was very brief, as the discourses of sensible divines sometimes will be. He was glad to meet old friends — to make friends with old foes (loud cries of “Bravo, Nosey!") In the battle of life, every man must meet with a blow or two; and every brave one would take his facer with good humour. Had he quarrelled with any old schoolfellow in old times? He wore peace not only on his coat, but in his heart. Peace and good-will were the words of the day in the army to which he belonged; and he hoped that all officers in it were animated by one.

Miss Charlotte Baynes, who kept the name of Miss Grigsby, the governess, amongst all the roguish children of a facetious father, was with us one month, and her mamma expressed great cheerfulness at her absence, and at the thought that she had found such good friends. After two months, her uncle Major MacWhirter, returned from visiting his relations in the North, and offered to take his niece back to France again. He made this proposition with the jolliest air in the world, and as if his niece would jump for joy to go back to her mother.

But to the major’s astonishment, Miss Baynes turned quite pale, ran to her hostess, flung herself into that lady’s arms and then there began an osculatory performance which perfectly astonished the good major. Charlotte’s friend, holding Miss Baynes tight in her embrace, looked fiercely at the major over the girl’s shoulder, and defied him to take her away from that sanctuary.“Oh, you dear, good dear friend!” Charlotte gurgled out, and sobbed I know not what more expressions of fondness and gratitude.But the truth is, that two sisters, or mother and daughter, could not love each other more heartily than these two personages. Mother and daughter forsooth! You should have seen Charlotte’s piteous look when sometimes the conviction would come on her that she ought at length to go home to mamma; such a look as I can fancy Iphigenia casting on Agamemnon, when, in obedience to a painful sense of duty, he was about to — to use the sacrificial knife¡@I takeleave toput ina documentwhich Philipreceived at this time.

No, we all loved her. The children would howl at the idea of parting with their Miss Grigsby. Charlotte, in return, helped them to very pretty lessons in music and French — served hot, as it were, from her own recent studies at Tours — and a good daily governess operated on the rest of their education to everybody’s satisfaction.And so months rolled on and our young favourite still remained with us. Mamma fed the little maid’s purse with occasional remittances; and begged her hostess to supply her with all necessary articles from¡@the milliner. Afterwards, it is true, Mrs. General Baynes — But why enter upon these painful family disputes in a chapter which has been devoted to sentiment?As soon as Mr. Firmin received the letter above faithfully copied (with the exception of the pecuniary offer, which I do not consider myself at liberty to divulge), he hurried down from Thornhaugh Street to Westminster. He dashed by Buttons, the page, he took no notice of my wondering wife at the drawing-room door; he rushed to the second floor, bursting open the school-room door, where Charlotte was teaching our dear third daughter to play In .

Charlotte! Charlotte!” he cried out.“La, Philip! don’t you see Miss Grigsby is giving us lessons?” said the children.But he would not listen to those wags, and still beckoned Charlotte to him. That young woman rose up and followed him out of the door, as, indeed, she would have followed him out of the window; and there, on the stairs, they read Dr. Firmin’s letter, with their heads quite close together, you understand.Two hundred a year more,” said Philip, his heart throbbing so that he could hardly speak; “and your fifty — and two hundred the Gazette — and — ”“Oh, Philip!” was all Charlotte could say, and then — There was a pretty group for the children to see, and for an artist to draw!

The general accompanied the party to the diligence office. Little Char was very pale and melancholy indeed when she took her place in the coupé. “She should have a corner: she had been ill, and ought to have a corner,” uncle Mac said, and cheerfully consented to be bodkin. Our three special friends are seated. The other passengers clamber into their places. Away goes the clattering team, as the general waves an adieu to his friends. “Monstrous fine horses those grey Normans; famous breed, indeed,” he remarks to his wife on his return.
 

“Indeed,” she echoes. “Pray, in what part of the carriage was Mr. Firmin,” she presently asks.“In no part of the carriage at all!” Baynes answers fiercely, turning beet-root red. And thus, though she had been silent, obedient, hanging her head, the woman showed that she was aware of her master’s schemes, and why her girl had been taken away. She knew; but she was beaten. It remained for her but to be silent and bow her head. I daresay she did not sleep one wink that night. She followed the diligence in its journey. “Char is gone,” she thought. “Yes; in due time he will take from me the obedience of my other children, and tear them out of my lap.” He — that is, the general — was .

He had had in the last few days four awful battles — with his child, with his friends, with his wife — in which latter combat he had been conqueror. No wonder Baynes was tired, and needed rest. Any one of those engagements was enough to weary the veteran.If we take the liberty of looking into double-bedded rooms, and peering into the thoughts which are passing under private nightcaps, may we not examine the coupé of a jingling diligence with an open window, in which a young lady sits wide awake by the side of her uncle and aunt¡@When Baynes got an opportunity of speaking unobserved, as he thought, to madame, you may be sure the guilty wretch asked her how his little Charlotte was !

These perhaps are asleep; but she is not. Ah! she is thinking of another journey! that blissful one from Boulogne, when he was there yonder in the imperial, by the side of the conductor. When the MacWhirter party had come to the diligence office, how her little heart had beat! How she had looked under the lamps at all the people lounging about the court! How she had listened when the clerk called out the names of the passengers; and, mercy, what a fright she had been in, lest he should be there after all, while she stood yet leaning on her father’s arm! But there was no — well, names, I think, need scarcely be mentioned. There was no sign of the individual in question. Papa kissed her, and sadly said good-by. Good Madame Smolensk came with an adieu and an embrace for her dear Miss, and whispered, “Courage, mon enfant,” and then said, “Hold, I have brought you some bonbons.” There they were in a little packet. Little Charlotte put the packet into her little basket. Away goes the diligence, but the individual had made no sign.

Before he would own himself in the wrong to any individual, he would eat that individual’s ears and nose: but to be surrounded by three enemies, and strike your flag before such odds, was no disgrace; and Baynes could take the circumbendibus way of apology to which some proud spirits will submit. Thus he could say to the doctor, “Well, doctor, perhaps I was hasty in accusing Bunch of employing bad language to me. A bystander can see these things sometimes when a principal is too angry; and as you go against me — well — there, then, I ask Bunch’s pardon.”

That business over, the MacWhirter reconciliation was very speedily brought about. Fact was, was in a confounded ill-temper — very much disturbed by events of the day — didn’t mean anything but this, that, and so forth. If this old chief had to eat humble pie, his brave adversaries were anxious that he should gobble up his portion as quickly as possible, and turned away their honest old heads as he swallowed it. One of the party told his wife of the quarrel which had arisen, but Baynes never did. “I declare, sir,” Philip used to say, “had she known anything about the quarrel that night, Mrs. Baynes would have made her husband turn out of bed at midnight, and challenge his old friends over again!” But then there was no love between Philip and Mrs. Baynes, and in those whom he hates he is accustomed to see little good don’t care to hear about the subject on more thanone day in the week.
 

Thus, any gentle reader who expected to be treated to an account of the breakage of the sixth commandment will close this chapter disappointed. Those stout old rusty swords which were fetched off their hooks by the warriors, their owners, were returned undrawn to their flannel cases. Hands were shaken after a fashion — at least no blood was shed. But, though the words spoken between the old boys were civil enough, Bunch, Baynes, and the doctor could not alter their opinion that Philip had been hardly used, and that the benefactor of his family merited a better treatment from General Baynes.Meanwhile, that benefactor strode home through the rain in a state of perfect rapture. The rain refreshed him, as did his own tears. The dearest little maiden had sunk for a moment on his heart, and, as she lay there, a thrill of hope vibrated through his whole frame.

Her father’s old friends had held out a hand to him, and bid him not despair. Blow wind, fall autumn rains! In the midnight, under the gusty trees, amidst which the lamps of the réverbères are tossing, the young fellow strides back to his lodgings. He is poor and unhappy, but he has Hope along with him. He looks at a certain breast-button of hisit off to sleep. “Her cheek was lying there,” he thinks, “just there.” My poor little Charlotte! what could she have done to the breast-button of the old coat?

Now though the unhappy Philip slept quite soundly, so that his boots, those tramp-worn sentries, remained en faction at his door until quite a late hour next morning; and though little Charlotte, after a prayer or two, sank into the sweetest and most refreshing girlish slumber, Charlotte’s father and mother had a bad night; and, for my part, I maintain that they did not deserve a good one. It was very well for Mrs. Baynes to declare that it was MacWhirter’s snoring which kept them awake (Mr. and Mrs. Mac being lodged in the bed-room over their relatives) — I don’t say a snoring neighbour is pleasant — but what a bedfellow is a bad conscience!