anxious that he should occupy: but of this aged buffoon it may
be mentioned that he had no particular idea that his condition
of life was not a high one, and that in his whiskey ed blood



143

there was not a black drop , nor in his muddled brains a bitter
feeling, against any mortal being. Even his child, his cruel
Emily, he would have taken to his heart and forgiven with
tears; and what more can one say of the christian charity of a
man that he is actually ready to forgive those who have done
him every kindness , and with whom he is wrong in a dispute ?
There was some idea amongst the young men who fre-
quented the Back Kitchen , and made themselves merry with
the society of Captain Costigan, that the Captain made a
mystery regarding his lodgings for fear of duns, or from a
desire of privacy, and lived in some wonderful place. Nor
would the landlord of the premises , when questioned upon
this subject, answer any inquiries; his maxim being that he
only knew gentlemen who frequented that room, in that room ;
that when they quitted that room, having paid their scores as
gentlemen, and behaved as gentlemen, his communication
with them ceased; and that, as a gentleman himself, he
thought it was only impertinent curiosity to ask where any
other gentleman lived. Costigan, in his most intoxicated and
confidential moments, also evaded any replies to questions or
hints addressed to him on this subject : there was no particular
secret about it, as we have seen, who have had more than
once the honour of entering his apartment, but in the vicissi-
tudes of a long life he had been pretty often in the habit of
residing in houses where privacy was necessary to his comfort,
and where the apparance of some visitors would have brought
him anything but pleasure. Hence all sorts of legends were
formed by wags or credulous persons respecting his place of
abode. It was stated that he slept habitually in a watch-box
in the city : in a cab at a mews , where a cab proprietor gave
him a shelter: in the Duke of York's Column, &c. , the wildest
of these theories being put abroad by the facetious and imagi-
native Huxter. For Huxey, when not silenced by the com-



144



pany of "swells," and when in the society of his own friends,
was a very different fellow to the youth whom we have seen
cowed by Pen's impertinent airs , and, adored by his family at
home , was the life and soul of the circle whom he met , either
round the festive board or the dissecting table.

On one brilliant September morning , as Huxter was re-
regaling himself with a cup of coffee at a stall in Covent
Garden, having spent a delicious night dancing at Vaux-
hall, he spied the General reeling down Henrietta-street,
with a crowd of hooting blackguard boys at his heels , who
had left their beds under the arches of the river betimes,
and were prowling about already for breakfast, and the
strange livelihood of the day. The poor old General was
not in that condition when the sneers and jokes of these
young beggars had much effect upon him: the cabmen and
watermen at the cab-stand knew him, and passed their
comments upon him: the policemen gazed after him, and
warned the boys off him, with looks of scorn and pity; what
did the scorn and pity of men, the jokes of ribald children,
matter to the General? He reeled along the street with glazed
eyes, having just sense enough to know whither he was bound,
and to pursue his accustomed beat homewards. He went to
bed not knowing how he had reached it, as often as any man
in London. He woke and found himself there, and asked no
questions, and he was tarjking about on this daily though
perilous voyage, when, from his station at the coffee-stall,
Huxter spied him. To note his friend, to pay his twopence
(indeed, he had put eightpence left, or he would have had a
cab fromVauxhall to take him home), was with the eager
Huxter the work of an instant — Costigan dived down the alleys
by Drury-lane Theatre , where gin-shops, oyster-shops, and
theatrical wardrobes abound, the proprietors of which were
now asleep behind their shutters, as the pink morning lighted



145



up their chimneys ; and through these courts Huxter followed
the General, until he reached Oldcastle-street, in which is the
gate of Shepherd's Inn.

Here, just as he was within sight of home, a luckless slice
of orange-peel came between the General's heel and the pave-
ment, and caused the poor old fellow to fall backwards.

Huxter ran up to him instantly, and after a pause, during
which the veteran, giddy with his fall and his previous whiskey,
gathered, as he best might, his dizzy brains together, the
young surgeon lifted up the limping General, and very kindly
and good-naturedly offered to conduct him to his home. For
some time, and in reply to the queries which the student of
medicine put to him, the muzzy General refused to say where
his lodgings were, and declared thatthey were hard by, and
that he could reach them without difficulty ; and he disengaged
himself from Huxter's arm, and made a rush, as if to get to his
own home unattended : but he reeled and lurched so , that the
young surgeon insisted upon accompanying him, and, with
many soothing expressions and cheering and consolatory
phrases, succeeded in getting the General's dirty old hand
under what he called his own fin, and led the old fellow,
moaning piteously, across the street. He stopped when he
came to the ancient gate, ornamented with the armorial
bearings of the venerable Shepherd. "Here 't is," said he,
drawing up at the portal, and he made a successful pull at the
gate-bell, which presently brought out old Mr. Bolton, the
porter, scowling fiercely, and grumbling as he was used to do
ev6ry morning when it became his turn to let in that early-
bird.

Costigan tried to hold Bolton for a moment In genteel con-
versation, but the other surlily would not. "Don't bother
me," he said; "go to your hown bed, Capting, and don't
keep honest men out of theirs." So the Captain tacked across
Pendennis. III. 10



146



the square and reached his own staircase, up which he stumbled
with the worthy Huxter at his heels. Costigan had a key of
his own, which Huxter inserted into the keyhole for him, so
that there was no need to call up little Mr. Bows from the sleep
into which the old musician had not long since fallen, and
Huxter having aided to disrobe his tipsy patient, and ascer-
tained that no bones were broken, helped him to bed, and
applied compresses and water to one of his knees and shins,
which, with the pair of trowsers which encased them, Costigan
had severely torn in his fall. At the General's age , and with
his habit of body, such wounds as he had inflicted on himself
are slow to heal: a good deal of inflammation ensued, and
the old fellow lay ill for some days suffering both pain and
fever.

Mr. Huxter undertook the case of his interesting patient
with great confidence and alacrity, and conducted it with
becoming skill. He visited his friend day after day, and con-
soled him with lively rattle and conversation, for the absence
of the society which Costigan needed, and of which he was an
ornament; and he gave special instructions to the invalid's
nurse about the quantity of whiskey which the patient was to
take — instructions which, as the poor old fellow could not for
many days get out of his bed or sofa himself, he could not by
any means infringe. Bows , Mrs, Bolton , and our little friend
Fanny, when able to do so, officiated at the General's bed-
side, and the old warrior was made as comfortable as possible
under his calamity.

Thus Huxter, whose affable manners and social turn made
him quickly intimate with persons in whose society he fell, and
whose over-refinement did not lead them to repulse the fami-
liarities of this young gentleman, became pretty soon intimate
in Shepherd's Inn, both with our acquaintances in the garrets
and those in the Porter's Lodge. He thought he had seen



147



Fanny somewhere: he felt certain that he had: but it is no
wonder that he should not accurately remember her, for the
poor little thing never chose to tell him where she had met
him : he himself had seen her at a period, when his own views
both of persons and of right and wrong were clouded by the
excitement of drinking and dancing , and also little Fanny was
very much changed and worn by the fever and agitation, and
passion and despair, which the past three weeks had poured
upon the head of that little victim. Borne down was the head
now, and very pale and wan the face; and many and many a
time the sad eyes had looked into the postman's, as he came
to the Inn, and the sickened heart had sunk as he passed away.
When Mr. Costigan's accident occurred, Fanny was rather
glad to have an opportunity of being useful and doing some-
thing kind — something that would make her forget her own
little sorrows perhaps : she felt she bore them better whilst she
did her duty, though I dare say many a tear dropped Into the
old Irishman's gruel. Ah, me! stir the gruel well, and have
courage, little Fanny! If everybody who has suiFered from
your complaint were to die of It straightway , what a fine year
the undertakers would have I

Whether from compassion for his only patient, or delight
in his society, Mr. Huxter found now occasion to visit Cos-
tigah two or three times in the day at least, and if any of the
members of the Porter's Lodge family were not in attendance
on the General, the young doctor was sure to have some
particular directions to address to those at their own place of
habitation. He was a kind fellow; he made or purchased
toys for the children; he brought them apples and brandy
balls; he brought a mask and frightened them with it, and
caused a smile upon the face of pale Fanny. He called Mrs.
Bolton Mrs. B., and was very intimate, familiar, and facetious
with that lady, quite different from that 'aughty artless beast,'

10*



148



as Mrs. Bolton now denominated a certain young gentleman
of our acquaintance, and whom she now vowed she never
could abear.

It was from this lady, who was very free in her conversa-
tion, that Huxter presently learnt what was the illness which
was evidently preying upon little Fan, and what had been
Pen's behaviour regarding her, Mrs. Bolton's account of the
transaction was not, it may be imagined, entirely an impartial
narrative. One would have thought from her story that the
young gentleman had employed a course of the most per-
severing and flagitious artifices to win the girl's heart, had
broken the most solemn promises made to her, and was a
wretch to be hated and chastised by every champion of
woman. Huxter, in his present frame of mind respecting
Arthur, and suffering under the latter's contumely, was ready,
of course, to take all for granted that was said in the disfavour
of this unfortunate convalescent. But why did he not write
home to Clavering, as he had done previously, giving an
account of Pen's misconduct, and of the particulars regarding
it, which had now come to his knowledge? He once, in a
letter to his brother-in-law, announced that that nice young
man, Mr. Pendennis, had escaped narrowly from a fever,
and that no doubt all Clavering, where he was so popular^
would be pleased at his recovery; and he mentioned that
he had an interesting case of compound fracture, an officer
of distinction, which kept him in town; but as for Fanny
Bolton, he made no more mention of her in his letters — no
more than Pen himself had made mention of her. O you
mothers at home, how much do you think you know about
your lads? How much do you think you know?

But with Bows, there was no reason why Huxter should
not speak his mind, and so, a very short time after his con-
versation with Mrs. Bolton, Mr. Sam talked to the musician



149



about his early acquaintance with Pendennis ; described him
as a confounded conceited blackguard, and expressed a deter-
mination to punch his impudent head as soon as ever he should
be well enough to stand up like a man.

Then it was that Bows on his part spoke, and told Ms
version of the story, whereof Arthur and little Fan were the
hero and heroine ; how they had met by no contrivance of the
former, but by a blunder of the old Irishman, now in bed
with a broken shin — how Pen had acted with manliness and
self-control in the business — how Mrs. Bolton was an idiot;
and he related the conversation which he, Bows, had had
with Pen, and the sentiments uttered by the young man.
Perhaps Bows's story caused some twinges of conscience in
the breast of Pen's accuser, and that gentleman frankly
owned that he had been wrong with regard to Arthur,
and withdrew his project for punching Mr. Pendennis's
head.

But the cessation of his hostility for Pen did not diminish
Huxter's attentions to Fanny, which unlucky Mr, Bows
marked with his usual jealousy and bitterness of spirit. "I
have but to like anybody," the old fellow thought, "and
somebody is sure to come and be preferred to me. It has
been the same ill-luck with me since I was a lad, until now
that I am sixty years old. What can such a man as I am
expect better than to be laughed at? It Is for the young
to succeed, and to be happy, and not for old fools like me.
I've played a second fiddle all through life," he said, with
a bitter laugh ; " how can I suppose the luck is to change after
it has gone against me so long?" This was the selfish way
in which Bows looked at the state of affairs : though few per-
sons would have thought there was any cause for his jealousy,
who looked at the pale and grief- stricken countenance of the
hapless little girl, its object. Fanny received Huxter's good-



150



natured efforts at consolation and kind attentions kindly.
She laughed now and again at his jokes and games with her
little sisters, but relapsed quickly into a dejection which ought
to have satisfied Mr. Bows that the new-comer had no place in
her heart as yet, had jealous Mr. Bows been enabled to see
with clear eyes.

But Bows did not. Fanny attributed Pen's silence some-
how to Bows's interference. Fanny hated him. Fanny treated
Bows with constant cruelty and injustice. She turned from
him when he spoke — she loathed his attempts at consola-
tion. A hard life had Mr. Bows, and a cruel return for his
regard.

When Warrington came to Shepherd's Inn as Pen's ambas-
sador, it was for Mr. Bows's apartments he inquired (no doubt
upon a previous agreement with the principal for whom he
acted in this delicate negotiation), and he did not so much as
catch a glimpse of Miss Fanny when he stopped at the inn-gate
and made his inquiry. Warrington was, of course, directed
to the musician's chambers, and found him tending the patient
there, from whose chamber he came out to wait upon his
guest. We have said that they had been previously known to
one another, and the pair shook hands with sufficient cordia-
lity. After a little preliminary talk, Warrington said that he
had come from his friend Arthur Pendennis, and from his
family, to thank Bows for his attention at the commencement
of Pen's illness, and for his kindness in hastening into the
country to fetch the Major.

Bows replied that it was but his duty: he had never
thought to have seen the young gentleman alive again when
he went in search of Pen's relatives, and he was very glad
of Mr. Pendennis's recovery, and that he had his friends
with him. "Lucky are they who have friends, Mr. War-



151

rington," said the musician. "I might be up in this garret
and nobody would care for me, or mind whether I was alive
or dead."

" What I not the General , Mr. Bows ? " Warrington asked.

"The General likes his whiskey-bottle more than any-
thing in life," the other answered; "we live together from
habit and convenience ; and he cares for me no more than you
do. What is it you want to ask me, Mr. Warrington? You
ain't come to visit me, I know very well. Nobody comes to
visit me. It is about Fanny, the porter's daughter, you are
come — I see that very well. Is Mr. Pendennis, now he has
got well, anxious to see her again? Does his lordship the
Sultan propose to throw his 'andkerchief to her? She has
been very ill. Sir, ever since the day when Mrs. Pendennis
turnedher out of doors — kind of a lady, wasn't it? The poor
girl and myself found the young gentleman raving in a fever,
knowing nobody, with nobody to tend him but his drunken
laundress — she watched day and night by him. I set off to
fetch his uncle. Mamma comes and turns Fanny to the right
about. Uncle comes and leaves me to pay the cab. Carry my
compliments to the ladies and gentleman, and say we are both
very thankful , very. Why, a countess couldn't have behaved
better, and for an apothecary's lady, as I 'm given to under-
stand Mrs. Pendennis was — I 'm sure her behaviour is most
uncommon aristocratic and genteel. She ought to have a
double gilt pestle and mortar to her coach."

It was from Mr. Huxter that Bows had learned Pen's
parentage, no doubt, and if he took Pen's part against the
young surgeon, and Fanny's against Mr. Pendennis, it was
because the old gentleman was in so savage a mood, that his
humour was to contradict everybody.

Warrington was curious, and not ill pleased at the musi-
cian's taunts and irascibility. "I never heard of these trans-



152



actions," he said, "or got but a very imperfect account of
them from Major Pendennis. What was a lady to do ? I think
(I have never spoken with her on the subject) she had some
notion that the young woman and my friend Pen were on —
on terms of — of an intimacy which Mrs. Pendennis could not,
of course, recognise — '*

"Oh, of course not. Sir. Speak out, Sir; say what you
mean at once , that the young gentleman of the Temple had
made a victim of the girl of Shepherd's Inn, eh? And so she
was to be turned out of doors — or brayed alive in the double
gilt pestle and mortar, by Jove! No, Mr. Warrington, there
was no such thing: there was no victimising, orif there was,
Mr. Arthur was the victim, not the girl. He is an honest
fellow, he is, though he is conceited, and a puppy sometimes.
He can feel like a man , and run away from temptation like a
man. I own it, though I suffer by it, I own it. He has a
heart, he has: but the girl hasn't. Sir. That girl will do
anything to win a man , and fling him away without a pang.
Sir. If she 's flung away herself. Sir, she 'U feel it and cry.
She had a fever when Mrs. Pendennis turned her out of doors ;
and she made love to the Doctor, Doctor Goodenough, who
came to cure her. Now she has taken on with another chap —
another sawbones, ha, ha I d— it. Sir, she likes the pestle
and mortar, and hangs round the pill boxes, she's so fond
of 'em, and she has got a fellow from Saint Bartholomew's,
who grins through a horse collar for her sisters, and charms
away her melancholy. Go and see. Sir: very likely he 's in
the lodge now. If you want news about Miss Fanny, you must
askat the Doctor's shop. Sir, not of an old fiddler like me —
Goodbye, Sir. There 's my patient calling."

And a voice was heard from the Captain's bed-room, a
well-known voice, which said, "I 'd loike a dthrop of dthrink,
Bows, I'm thirstee." And not sorry, perhaps, to hear that such



153

was the state of things , and that Pen's forsaken was consoling
herself, Warrington took his leave of the irascible musician.

As luck would have it, he passed the lodge door just as
Mr. Huxter was in the act of frightening the children with the
mask whereof we have spoken, and Fanny was smiling lan-
guidly at his farces. Warrington laughed bitterly. "Are all
women like that?" he thought. "I think there 's one that 's
not," he added, with a sigh.

At Piccadilly, waiting for the Richmond omnibus, George
fell in with Major Pendeimis, bound in the same direction,
and he told the old gentleman of what he had seen and heard
respecting Fanny.

Major Pendennis was highly delighted: and as might be
expected of such a philosopher, made precisely the same ob-
servation as that which had escaped from Warrington. "All
womenare the same," he said. ^^ La petite se console. Daymy,
when I used to read "Teldmaque" at school, Calypso ne
pouvait SB consoler, — you know the rest, Warrington, — I
used to say it was absard. Absard, by Gad, and so it is.
And so she 's got a new soupirant has she, the little porteress?
Dayvlish nice little girl. How mad Pen will be — eh, War-
rington? But we must break it to him gently, or he '11 be in
such a rage that he will be going after her again. We must
menager the young fellow."

"I think Mrs. Pendennis ought to know that Pen acted
very well in the business. She evidently thinks him guilty,
and according to Mr. Bows, Arthur behaved like a good
fellow," Warrington said.

"My dear Warrington," said the Major, with a look of
some alarm. "In Mrs. Pendennis's agitated state of health
and that sort of thing, the best way, I think, is not to say a
single word about the subject — or, stay, leave it to me: and
1 '11 talk to her — break it to her gently, you know, and that



154



sort of thing. I give you my word I will. And so Calypso 's
consoled, is she?" And he sniggered over this gratifying
truth, happy in the corner of the omnibus during the rest of
the journey.

Pen was very anxious to hear from his envoy what had been
the result of the latter's mission ; and as soon as the two young
men could be alone, the ambassador spoke In reply to Arthur's
eager queries.

"You remember your poem, Pen, of Ariadne in Naxos,"
Warrington said ; " devilish bad poetry it was , to be sure."

" Apres ? " asked Pen , in a great state of excitement.

"When Theseus left Ariadne, do you remember what
happened to her, young fellow?"

"It's a He, it 's a He I You don't mean that!" cried out
Pen , starting up , his face turning red.

"Sit down, stoopid," Warrington said, and with two
fingers pushed Pen back into his seat again. "It 's better for
you as it is , young one ; " he said sadly, in reply to the savage
flush in Arthur's face.



CHAPTER XII.

Foreign ground.

Worthy Major Pendennis fulfilled his promise to War-
rington so far as to satisfy his own conscience , and in so far to
ease poor Helen with regard to her son, as to make her under-
stand that all connexion between Arthur and the odious little
gate-keeper was at an end, and that she need have no farther
anxiety with respect to an imprudent attachment or a degra-
ding marriage on Pen's part. And that young fellow's mind
was also relieved (after he had recovered the shock to his
vanity) by thinking that Miss Fanny was not going to die of



155



love for him, and that no unpleasant consequences were to be
apprehended from the luckless and brief connexion.

So the whole party were free to carry into effect their pro-
jected Continental trip, and Arthur Pendennis, rentier,
voyageant avec Madame Pendennis and Mademoiselle Bell,
and George Warrington, particulier, age de 32 ans, taille 6
pieds (Anglais), figure ordinaire, cheveux noirs, barbe
idem, &c. , procured passports from the consul of H. M. the
King of the Belgians at Dover, and passed over from that port
to Ostend, whence the party took their way leisurely, visiting
Bruges and Ghent on their way to Brussels and the Rhine. It
is not our purpose to describe this oft-travelled tour, or
Laura's delight at the tranquil and ancient cities which she saw
for the first time, or Helen's wonder and interest at the
Bdguine convents which they visited, or the almost terror
with which she saw the black-veiled nuns with outstretched
arms kneeling before the illuminated altars, and beheld the
strange pomps and ceremonials of the Catholic worship. Bare-
footed friars in the streets, crowned images of Saints and
Virgins in the churches before which people were bowing down
and worshipping, in direct defiance, as she held, of the
written law; priests in gorgeous robes, or lurking in dark
confessionals, theatres opened, and people dancing on Sun-
days ; — all these new sights and manners shocked and be-
wildered the simple country lady; and when the young men
after their evening drive or walk returned to the widow and
her adopted daughter, they found their books of devotion on
the table, and at their entrance Laura would commonly cease
reading some of the psalms or the sacred pages which, of all
others, Helen loved. The late events connected with her
son had cruelly shaken her; Laura watched with intense,
though hidden anxiety, every movement of her dearest friend;
and poor Pen was most constant and affectionate in waiting