Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest, will long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr. Swishtail's famous school. The latter Youth (who used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail's young gentlemen. His parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtail's academy upon what are called "mutual principles"--that is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he stood there--most at the bottom of the school--in his scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great big bones were bursting--as the representative of so many pounds of tea, candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild proportion was supplied for the puddings of the establishment), and other commodities. A dreadful day it was for young Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the school, having run into the town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames Street, London, at the Doctor's door, discharging a cargo of the wares in which the firm dealt.
Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were frightful, and merciless against him. "Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. Sugars is ris', my boy." Another would set a sum--"If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, meriting the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen.
"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said in private to the little boy who had brought down the storm upon him. At which the latter replied haughtily, "My father's a gentleman, and keeps his carriage"; and Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks before a slight; who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for the sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable dog-latin?
Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the rudiments of the above language, as they are propounded in that wonderful book the Eton Latin Grammar, was compelled to remain among the very last of Doctor Swishtail's scholars, and was "taken down" continually by little fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form, a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his dog's-eared primer, and his tight corduroys. High and low, all made fun of him. They sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were. They cut his bed-strings. They upset buckets and benches, so that he might break his shins over them, which he never failed to do. They sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and candles. There was no little fellow but had his jeer and joke at Dobbin; and he bore everything quite patiently, and was entirely dumb and miserable.
Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the Swishtail Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the town-boys. Ponies used to come for him to ride home on Saturdays. He had his top-boots in his room, in which he used to hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater: and took snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble. He could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. He could make French poetry. What else didn't he know, or couldn't he do? They said even the Doctor himself was afraid of him.
Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects, and bullied them, with splendid superiority. This one blacked his shoes: that toasted his bread, others would fag out, and give him balls at cricket during whole summer afternoons. "Figs" was the fellow whom he despised most, and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at him, he scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication.
One day in private, the two young gentlemen had had a difference. Figs, alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a home letter; when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were probably the subject.
"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."
"You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many words were scratched out, many were mis-spelt, on which had been spent I don't know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a grocer's wife, and lived in a back parlour in Thames Street). "You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff: "I should like to know why, pray? Can't you write to old Mother Figs to-morrow?"
"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench very nervous.
"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.
"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth letterth."
"Well, NOW will you go?" says the other.
"No, I won't. Don't strike, or I'll THMASH you," roars out Dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked, that Mr. Cuff paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his pockets, and walked away with a sneer. But he never meddled personally with the grocer's boy after that; though we must do him the justice to say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back.
Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the Arabian Nights which he had apart from the rest of the school, who were pursuing their various sports--quite lonely, and almost happy. If people would but leave children to themselves; if teachers would cease to bully them; if parents would not insist upon directing their thoughts, and dominating their feelings--those feelings and thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much do you and I know of each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbour, and how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, than those of the dull and world-corrupted person who rules him?)--if, I say, parents and masters would leave their children alone a little more, small harm would accrue, although a less quantity of as in praesenti might be acquired.
Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the Prince found her, and whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie; and looking up, he saw Cuff before him, belabouring a little boy.
It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's cart; but he bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small. "How dare you, sir, break the bottle?" says Cuff to the little urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over him.
The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been removed from the top, and niches made convenient in the brick); to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the Doctor's outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground again; during the performance of which feat, his foot had slipt, and the bottle was broken, and the shrub had been spilt, and his pantaloons had been damaged, and he appeared before his employer a perfectly guilty and trembling, though harmless, wretch.
"How dare you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; "you blundering little thief. You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle. Hold out your hand, sir."
Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child's hand. A moan followed. Dobbin looked up. The Fairy Peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern with Prince Ahmed: the Roc had whisked away Sindbad the Sailor out of the Valley of Diamonds out of sight, far into the clouds: and there was everyday life before honest William; and a big boy beating a little one without cause.
"Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin quivered, and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes.
"Take that, you little devil!" cried Mr. Cuff, and down came the wicket again on the child's hand.--Don't be horrified, ladies, every boy at a public school has done it. Your children will so do and be done by, in all probability. Down came the wicket again; and Dobbin started up.
I can't tell what his motive was. Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia. It would be ungentlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin's foolish soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the place. Whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he sprang, and screamed out, "Hold off, Cuff; don't bully that child any more; or I'll--"
"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption. "Hold out your hand, you little beast."
"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's sentence; and little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him: while Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. Fancy our late monarch George III when he heard of the revolt of the North American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little David stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was proposed to him.
"After school," says he, of course; after a pause and a look, as much as to say, "Make your will, and communicate your last wishes to your friends between this time and that."
"As you please," Dobbin said. "You must be my bottle holder, Osborne."
"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see his papa kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion.
Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, "Go it, Figs"; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the commencement of which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his adversary, and floored that unlucky champion three times running. At each fall there was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to have the honour of offering the conqueror a knee.
"What a licking I shall get when it's over," young Osborne thought, picking up his man. "You'd best give in," he said to Dobbin; "it's only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used to it." But Figs, all whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.
As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs now determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might--once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.
Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly. "Well hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. "Give it him with the left, Figs my boy."
Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat. Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting out, "Go it, Figs," as there were youths exclaiming, "Go it, Cuff." At the twelfth round the latter champion was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or defence. Figs, on the contrary, was as calm as a quaker. His face being quite pale, his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely, gave this young fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into many spectators. Nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to close for the thirteenth time.
If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the Guard--(that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had not yet taken place)--it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles--it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as leaping down the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms of battle--in other words, Cuff coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary's nose, and sent him down for the last time.
"I think that will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent dropped as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball plump into the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again.
And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made you think he had been their darling champion through the whole battle; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. He threatened to flog Figs violently, of course; but Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, "It's my fault, sir--not Figs'--not Dobbin's. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly cost him.
Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the transaction.
Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18--
DEAR MAMA,--I hope you are quite well. I should be much obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a fight here between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So Cuff is now Only Second Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it. We call him Figs because his father is a Grocer--Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City--I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his father's. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't this, because he has 2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom in livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony, and I am
Your dutiful Son, GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE
P.S.--Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.
In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose prodigiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the school. "After all, it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about this accident of birth. "Old Figs" grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer.
And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped him on with his Latin verses; "coached" him in play-hours: carried him triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-sized form; and even there got a fair place for him. It was discovered, that although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. To the contentment of all he passed third in algebra, and got a French prize-book at the public Midsummer examination. You should have seen his mother's face when Telemaque (that delicious romance) was presented to him by the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents and company, with an inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped hands in token of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-out for the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays.
Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children--such an affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth Orson had for splendid young Valentine his conqueror. He flung himself down at little Osborne's feet, and loved him. Even before they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most generous of created boys. He shared his money with him: bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esquire, from his attached friend William Dobbin--the which tokens of homage George received very graciously, as became his superior merit.
So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell Square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, "Mrs. Sedley, Ma'am, I hope you have room; I've asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall. He's almost as modest as Jos."
"Modesty! pooh," said the stout gentleman, casting a vainqueur look at Miss Sharp.
"He is--but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley," Osborne added, laughing. "I met him at the Bedford, when I went to look for you; and I told him that Miss Amelia was come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a night's pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child's party. Don't you remember the catastrophe, Ma'am, seven years ago?"
"Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-natured Mrs. Sedley. "What a gawky it was! And his sisters are not much more graceful. Lady Dobbin was at Highbury last night with three of them. Such figures! my dears."
"The Alderman's very rich, isn't he?" Osborne said archly. "Don't you think one of the daughters would be a good spec for me, Ma'am?"
"You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like to know, with your yellow face?"
"Mine a yellow face? Stop till you see Dobbin. Why, he had the yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and once at St. Kitts."
"Well, well; yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn't it, Emmy?" Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss Amelia only made a smile and a blush; and looking at Mr. George Osborne's pale interesting countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought in her little heart that in His Majesty's army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a hero. "I don't care about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said, "or about his awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know," her little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of George.
"There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne said, "nor a better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And he looked towards the glass himself with much naivete; and in so doing, caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur! I think I have YOUR gauge"--the little artful minx!
That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose--a very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.
This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty's Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies, to which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.
He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that it was inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise, you may be sure Miss Amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing into the room. As it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the Captain's heart, and nestled there. When she held out her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and thought--"Well, is it possible--are you the little maid I remember in the pink frock, such a short time ago--the night I upset the punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted? Are you the little girl that George Osborne said should marry him? What a blooming young creature you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!" All this he thought, before he took Amelia's hand into his own, and as he let his cocked hat fall.
His history since he left school, until the very moment when we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by the conversation in the last page. Dobbin, the despised grocer, was Alderman Dobbin--Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light Horse, then burning with military ardour to resist the French Invasion. Colonel Dobbin's corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself was but an indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign and the Duke of York; and the colonel and alderman had been knighted. His son had entered the army: and young Osborne followed presently in the same regiment. They had served in the West Indies and in Canada. Their regiment had just come home, and the attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm and generous now as it had been when the two were schoolboys.
So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, and the last Gazette. In those famous days every gazette had a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment which had been away from the chances of honour. Miss Sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it. Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal.
He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with the most killing grace--and coming back to the table, filled himself bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous rapidity.
"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.

Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected result, will long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr. Swishtail's famous school.
Dobbin (who used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-up Dobbin, and other contemptuous names) was the quietest, clumsiest, and, it seemed, the dullest of Dr. Swishtail's pupils. His father was a grocer: and it was rumoured that his board and schooling were paid for in goods, not money. He stood there in his scraggy corduroys and jacket, with his great bones bursting through the seams, as the representative of so many pounds of tea, candles, sugar, soap and other commodities. A dreadful day it was for young Dobbin when one of the boys espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, at the Doctor's door, unloading its wares.
Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were merciless. "Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. Sugar is ris', my boy." Another would ask: "If a pound of mutton-candles costs sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from the circle of young knaves, who rightly considered that the selling of goods is a shameful practice, deserving the scorn of all real gentlemen.
"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said in private to the little boy who had brought down the storm upon him.
At which the latter replied haughtily, "My father's a gentleman, and keeps his carriage"; and William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in the playground, in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who does not recollect similar hours of childish grief? Who feels injustice so acutely as a generous boy? and how many of those gentle souls do you degrade and torture, for the sake of a little arithmetic and dog-latin?
Now, William Dobbin, from his inability to learn Latin, was compelled to remain in the lower form, with little pink-faced fellows; a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his dog-eared primer, and his corduroys. All made fun of him. They cut his bed-strings. They left buckets for him to break his shins over. They sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and candles. Dobbin bore everything patiently, and was entirely dumb and miserable.
Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the Swishtail School. He smuggled wine in. He fought the town-boys. Ponies were brought for him to ride home on Saturdays. He had a gold repeater watch: and took snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. What couldn't he do? They said even the Doctor himself was afraid of him.
Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects, and bullied them with splendid superiority. They blacked his shoes, toasted his bread, and gave him balls at cricket during whole summer afternoons. Dobbin, or "Figs," was the fellow whom he despised most, although he scarcely ever condescended to speak to him.
One day, Dobbin, alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a letter home; when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon some errand.
"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."
"You can't?" says Mr. Cuff, picking up the letter (in which many words were scratched out or mis-spelt, with much labour and tears; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a grocer's wife.) "Can't you write to old Mother Figs tomorrow?"
"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench very nervous.
"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.
"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth letterth."
"Well, NOW will you go?" says the other.
"No, I won't. Don't strike me, or I'll THMASH you," roars out Dobbin, looking so wicked that Mr. Cuff paused, put his hands into his pockets, and walked away with a sneer. But he never meddled with the grocer's boy after that; though he spoke of Dobbin with contempt behind his back.
Some time after this, it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a sunshiny afternoon, was near poor William Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, looking at a favourite copy of the Arabian Nights while the rest of the school were pursuing various sports. He was quite lonely, and almost happy. He had for once forgotten the world, and was away with Sinbad the Sailor, when the shrill cries of a little fellow weeping woke up his pleasant reverie. Looking up, he saw Cuff belabouring a little boy. It was the lad who had told about the grocer's cart; but Dobbin bore no malice towards the young and small.
"How dare you break the bottle, sir?" says Cuff to the urchin, swinging a cricket-stump at him. The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall; to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the Doctor's spies, and clamber back into the playground again. His foot had slipped, and the bottle was broken, and he stood guilty and trembling.
"How dare you?" says Cuff; "you blundering little thief. You drank it, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle. Hold out your hand, sir."
Down came the stump with a great thump on the child's hand. A moan followed. Dobbin looked up: the Roc whisked away Sinbad the Sailor out of sight, and there was everyday life; a big boy beating a little one without cause.
"Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin quivered, and gathered himself up.
"Take that, you little devil!" cried Mr. Cuff. Down came the stump again; and Dobbin sprang up, and screamed out,
"Hold off, Cuff; don't bully that child any more; or I'll-"
"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement. "Hold out your hand, you little beast."
"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," Dobbin said; and little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him. Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less.
"After school," said he, after a pause.
"As you please," Dobbin said. "You must be my bottle holder, Osborne."
"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for he was rather ashamed of his champion.
Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, "Go it, Figs"; and not a single other boy uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds of the fight. At its start, Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on his face, planted blows upon his adversary and floored him three times running. At each fall there was a cheer.
"What a beating I shall get when it's over," young Osborne thought, picking up his man. "You'd best give in," he said to Dobbin; "it's only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used to it."
But Figs, whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.
As he did not know how to parry Cuff's blows, Figs now determined that he would start with a charge on his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, hit out a couple of times with all his might - once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.
Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of all.
"Well hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. "Give it him with the left, Figs my boy."
Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the fight. Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting for Figs as for Cuff. At the twelfth round Cuff lost all presence of mind and power of attack. Figs, on the contrary, was calm and pale, his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely. He had a fierce and ghastly air, which struck terror into many spectators.
Nevertheless, Cuff prepared to close for the thirteenth time; coming up full of pluck, but reeling and groggy. The Fig-merchant put in his left on his adversary's nose, and sent him down for the last time.
"I think that will do," Figs said, as his opponent dropped neatly on the green, and did not stand up again.
And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. He threatened to flog Figs; but Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, stood up and said, "It's my fault, sir - not Dobbin's. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By this magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys.
Young Osborne wrote home to his parents.
Dear Mama,
I hope you are quite well. I should be much obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a fight here between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it. We call him Figs because his father is a Grocer. I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his father's. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't this week, because he has 2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony, and I am
Your dutiful Son, GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE
P.S. Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.
After Dobbin's victory, his character rose greatly in the eyes of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs became as respectable a nickname as any other in the school.
"After all, it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, was popular.
And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made wonderful advances in learning. The superb Cuff himself helped him with his Latin verses, "coached" him in play-hours, and carried him triumphantly into the middle form.
It was discovered that although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. He passed third in algebra, and got presented with a prize-book before the whole school. All the boys clapped, despite his blushes and stumbles; you should have seen his mother's face. Old Dobbin, his father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two guineas, most of which he spent in tuck for the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays.
Dobbin modestly attributed all his good fortune to little George Osborne, to whom he vowed love and affection. He was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He believed Osborne to be perfect in every way, the handsomest, the bravest, the cleverest, the most generous of boys. He shared his money with him: bought him presents of knives, pencil-cases, toffee, and books - gifts which George received very graciously, as became his superior merit.
So Lieutenant Osborne, arriving at Russell Square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, "Mrs. Sedley, Ma'am, I've asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall. I met him at the Bedford, and told him that we were all going out; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child's party. Don't you remember the catastrophe, Ma'am, seven years ago?"
"Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-natured Mrs. Sedley. "What a gawky! And his sisters are not much more graceful. Lady Dobbin was at Highbury last night with three of them. Such figures! my dears."
"His father the Alderman's very rich, isn't he?" Osborne said archly. "Don't you think one of the daughters would be a good match for me, Ma'am?"
"You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like to know, with your yellow face?"
"Mine a yellow face? Wait till you see Dobbin. He had the yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and once at St. Kitts."
"Well, yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn't it, Emmy?" Mrs. Sedley said. Amelia only smiled and blushed. Looking at George Osborne's pale, interesting face, and black, curling, shining whiskers, she thought that there never was such a face or such a hero.
"I don't care about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said, "or his awkwardness. I shall always like him;" her reason being that he was the friend and champion of George.
"There's not a finer fellow in the army," Osborne said, "nor a better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And he looked towards the mirror; and caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a little.
Rebecca thought, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur! I think I have your measure."
That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a white muslin frock, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose, a very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and wearing the hideous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, with a clumsy bow.
This was Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty's ___th Regiment of Foot, returned from the West Indies, where his regiment had been ordered whilst many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.
He had arrived with a knock so timid that it was inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise Amelia would never have come singing into the room. As it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the Captain's heart, and nestled there. When she held out her hand for him to shake, he paused, and thought, "Are you the little maid I remember in the pink frock, the night I upset the punch-bowl? The little girl that George Osborne said should marry him? What a prize the rogue has got!" All this he thought, before he took Amelia's hand.
His history since he left school, has, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader. His father, the despised grocer, became Alderman Dobbin, and was then knighted. The son had entered the army: and young Osborne followed in the same regiment. They had served in the West Indies and in Canada. Dobbin's attachment to George Osborne was as warm now as it had been at school.
So these worthy people sat down to dinner, and talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, and the last military Gazette. The two gallant young men longed to see their own names in that glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate in belonging to a regiment which had been away from battle.
Miss Sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite faint. Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished with the one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped Rebecca to everything on the table, and gobbled and drank a great deal.
He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired; and returning to the table, filled bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous rapidity.
"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.


It was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old Osborne chose to recreate himself that Sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, and benefactor, was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliated as to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the hands of the man who had most injured and insulted him. The successful man of the world cursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time. As he furnished George with money for his mother, he gave the boy to understand by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse way, that George's maternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and that John Sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever so much money for the aid which his generosity now chose to administer. George carried the pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old widower whom it was now the main business of her life to tend and comfort. The little fellow patronized the feeble and disappointed old man.
It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in Amelia that she chose to accept these money benefits at the hands of her father's enemy. But proper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintance together. A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection; a long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations, and hard words, of kind offices and no returns, had been her lot ever since womanhood almost, or since her luckless marriage with George Osborne. You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied, poor, and rather despised for their poverty, do you ever step down from your prosperity and wash the feet of these poor wearied beggars? The very thought of them is odious and low. "There must be classes--there must be rich and poor," Dives says, smacking his claret (it is well if he even sends the broken meat out to Lazarus sitting under the window). Very true; but think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is--that lottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen and sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for comforters.
So I must own that, without much repining, on the contrary with something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the crumbs that her father-in-law let drop now and then, and with them fed her own parent. Directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this young woman's nature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her a young woman even at that age) it was, I say, her nature to sacrifice herself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved object. During what long thankless nights had she worked out her fingers for little Georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets, scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and mother! And in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseen sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the world respected her, but I believe thought in her heart that she was a poor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose luck in life was only too good for her merits. O you poor women! O you poor secret martyrs and victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks in your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block daily at the drawing-room table; every man who watches your pains, or peers into those dark places where the torture is administered to you, must pity you--and--and thank God that he has a beard. I recollect seeing, years ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at Bicetre, near Paris, a poor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth of snuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper. The kindness was too much for the poor epileptic creature. He cried in an anguish of delight and gratitude: if anybody gave you and me a thousand a year, or saved our lives, we could not be so affected. And so, if you properly tyrannize over a woman, you will find a ha'p'orth of kindness act upon her and bring tears into her eyes, as though you were an angel benefiting her.
Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune allotted to poor little Amelia. Her life, begun not unprosperously, had come down to this--to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage. Little George visited her captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleams of encouragement. Russell Square was the boundary of her prison: she might walk thither occasionally, but was always back to sleep in her cell at night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by thankless sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous disappointed old age. How many thousands of people are there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure this long slavery?--who are hospital nurses without wages--sisters of Charity, if you like, without the romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast, watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and unknown.
The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise, and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.
They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton, upon just such a rainy, dark day as Amelia recollected when first she had been there to marry George. Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new sables. She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk. Her thoughts were away in other times as the parson read. But that she held George's hand in her own, perhaps she would have liked to change places with.... Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayed inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.
So she determined with all her might and strength to try and make her old father happy. She slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes for old Sedley, walked him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the Brompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing with her own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and querulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or his sorrows. What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of the widow were! The children running up and down the slopes and broad paths in the gardens reminded her of George, who was taken from her; the first George was taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in both instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She strove to think it was right that she should be so punished. She was such a miserable wicked sinner. She was quite alone in the world.
I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the castle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick: the historian has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of Amelia's captivity. Fancy her, if you please, during this period, very sad, but always ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean, poor, not to say vulgar position of life; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards, mending stockings, for her old father's benefit. So, never mind, whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I, however old, scolding, and bankrupt--may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old pillows.
Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death, and Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man.
But we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low and ungenteel station of life. Better days, as far as worldly prosperity went, were in store for both. Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed who was the stout gentleman who called upon Georgy at his school in company with our old friend Major Dobbin. It was another old acquaintance returned to England, and at a time when his presence was likely to be of great comfort to his relatives there.
Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his good-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence probably to Europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and day until he reached his journey's end, and had directed his march with such celerity that he arrived at Madras in a high fever. His servants who accompanied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom he had resolved to stay until his departure for Europe in a state of delirium; and it was thought for many, many days that he would never travel farther than the burying-ground of the church of St. George's, where the troops should fire a salvo over his grave, and where many a gallant officer lies far away from his home.
Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people who watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia. The idea that he should never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours. He thought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations for departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and leaving the little property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desired to benefit. The friend in whose house he was located witnessed his testament. He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be known, he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair was cut off, during the fever which prostrated her after the death of George Osborne on the plateau at Mount St. John.
He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a process of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his original constitution. He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at Madras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended him through his illness prophesied that the honest Major would never survive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded in flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down to the sea with him the relic that he wore at his heart. But whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards home, our friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the Cape. "Kirk will be disappointed of his majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will expect to find himself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." For it must be premised that while the Major was lying ill at Madras, having made such prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed many years abroad, which after its return from the West Indies had been baulked of its stay at home by the Waterloo campaign, and had been ordered from Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their arrival at Madras.
Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state again under the guardianship of Glorvina. "I think Miss O'Dowd would have done for me," he said laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had had her on board, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you, depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize to Southampton, Jos, my boy."
For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also a passenger on board the Ramchunder. He had passed ten years in Bengal. Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret, the prodigious labour of cutcherry, and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he was forced to take there, had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage to Europe was pronounced necessary for him--and having served his full time in India and had fine appointments which had enabled him to lay by a considerable sum of money, he was free to come home and stay with a good pension, or to return and resume that rank in the service to which his seniority and his vast talents entitled him.
He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanour. He had resumed the mustachios to which his services at Waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on deck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuse ornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person. He took breakfast in his cabin and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck as if he were going to turn out for Bond Street, or the Course at Calcutta. He brought a native servant with him, who was his valet and pipe-bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on his turban. That oriental menial had a wretched life under the tyranny of Jos Sedley. Jos was as vain of his person as a woman, and took as long a time at his toilette as any fading beauty. The youngsters among the passengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts, coming home after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the cuddy-table and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and Napoleon. He was great when he visited the Emperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen and the young officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by, he described the whole battle of Waterloo and all but announced that Napoleon never would have gone to Saint Helena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.
After leaving St. Helena he became very generous, disposing of a great quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and great casks packed with soda-water, brought out for his private delectation. There were no ladies on board; the Major gave the pas of precedency to the civilian, so that he was the first dignitary at table, and treated by Captain Bragg and the officers of the Ramchunder with the respect which his rank warranted. He disappeared rather in a panic during a two-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin battened down, and remained in his cot reading the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, left on board the Ramchunder by the Right Honourable the Lady Emily Hornblower, wife of the Rev. Silas Hornblower, when on their passage out to the Cape, where the Reverend gentleman was a missionary; but, for common reading, he had brought a stock of novels and plays which he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable to all by his kindness and condescension.
Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring dark sea, the moon and stars shining overhead and the bell singing out the watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would sit on the quarter-deck of the vessel talking about home, as the Major smoked his cheroot and the civilian puffed at the hookah which his servant prepared for him.
In these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance and ingenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the subject of Amelia and her little boy. Jos, a little testy about his father's misfortunes and unceremonious applications to him, was soothed down by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and old age. He would not perhaps like to live with the old couple, whose ways and hours might not agree with those of a younger man, accustomed to different society (Jos bowed at this compliment); but, the Major pointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley to have a house of his own in London, and not a mere bachelor's establishment as before; how his sister Amelia would be the very person to preside over it; how elegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined good manners. He recounted stories of the success which Mrs. George Osborne had had in former days at Brussels, and in London, where she was much admired by people of very great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming it would be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school and make a man of him, for his mother and her parents would be sure to spoil him. In a word, this artful Major made the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia and her unprotected child. He did not know as yet what events had happened in the little Sedley family, and how death had removed the mother, and riches had carried off George from Amelia. But the fact is that every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentleman was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heart was bent upon doing her good. He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented Jos Sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters or daughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are to the male relations when they are courting the females; and perhaps this rogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.
The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the Ramchumder, very sick, and for the three days she lay in the Madras Roads, he did not begin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his old acquaintance, Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a conversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly on the deck. He said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a little something to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make. "Married? not the least," Jos answered; "he had heard from her: she made no mention of the marriage, and by the way, it was curious, she wrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that HE would be happy." What were the dates of Sedley's letters from Europe? The civilian fetched them. They were two months later than the Major's; and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the treatment adopted by him towards his new patient, who had been consigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner with very small hopes indeed; for, from that day, the very day that he changed the draught, Major Dobbin began to mend. And thus it was that deserving officer, Captain Kirk, was disappointed of his majority.
After they passed St. Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety and strength was such as to astonish all his fellow passengers. He larked with the midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds like a boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole party assembled over their grog after supper, and rendered himself so gay, lively, and amiable that even Captain Bragg, who thought there was nothing in his passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller at first, was constrained to own that the Major was a reserved but well-informed and meritorious officer. "He ain't got distangy manners, dammy," Bragg observed to his first mate; "he wouldn't do at Government House, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind to me, and shook hands with me before the whole company, and asking me at dinner to take beer with him, before the Commander-in-Chief himself; he ain't got manners, but there's something about him--" And thus Captain Bragg showed that he possessed discrimination as a man, as well as ability as a commander.
But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within ten days' sail of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper. He did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly excited state when the pilot came on board. Good God, how his heart beat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.

Old Osborne was proud of the fact that Sedley, his enemy and benefactor, was so utterly defeated as to be forced to accept financial help from the man who had insulted him. Osborne cursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time. And in his brutal, coarse way, he gave the boy to understand that John Sedley was a wretched old bankrupt who was indebted to his generosity. George carried the money to Amelia and her father, and patronized the feeble and disappointed old man.
It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in Amelia that she chose to accept money from her father's enemy. But proper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintance. A long course of poverty and hard words, of kind acts and no returns, had been her lot. You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly suffering, and despised for their poverty, do you ever step down from your prosperity and wash the feet of these poor weary beggars? How mysterious and unaccountable is that lottery of life which gives to one man fine clothes and riches and sends another rags.
So Amelia gratefully took the crumbs that her father-in-law let drop, and with them fed her own parent. It was her nature to sacrifice herself for the beloved object. During what long thankless nights had she worked out her fingers for little Georgy; what scorns and privations had she endured for father and mother! And in the midst of all these unseen sacrifices, she did not respect herself, but thought herself a poor-spirited, despicable little creature, who did not deserve any good fortune.
O you poor women! O you poor secret martyrs and victims, whose life is a torture, who lay your heads down on the block daily at the drawing-room table; every man who watches your pains must pity you - and thank God that he has a beard. If you properly tyrannize over a woman, you will find a hap'orth of kindness will bring tears into her eyes, as though you were an angel.
Amelia's life had come down to this - to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage. Little George visited her captivity sometimes and consoled it. Russell Square was the boundary of her prison: she might walk there occasionally, but was always back in her cell at night, to watch by the thankless sick-beds of tyrannous old age. How many thousands of people, women for the most part, are doomed to endure this long slavery? - hospital nurses without wages, who strive, watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away unknown.
Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a lack of temptation, whose success may be chance, whose rank is an ancestor's accident.
They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton, upon just such a rainy, dark day as when Amelia married George. Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new furs. Her thoughts were away in other times as the parson read. Except that she held George's hand, perhaps she would have liked to change places with.... Then she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayed to be strengthened to do her duty.
So she determined to try and make her old father happy. She slaved, toiled, patched and mended, sang and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked for old Sedley, walked out with him, listened to his stories with untiring smiles, or sat musing by his side as the querulous old man prattled about his wrongs. What sad thoughts the widow had! The children running up and down in the gardens reminded her of George, taken from her like the first George. Her selfish, guilty love, in both instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She strove to think it was right that she should be so punished. She was a miserable wicked sinner, alone in the world.
I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful incident to enliven it - a tender gaoler, for instance, or a mouse come out to play, or a tunnel under the castle, dug by a toothpick; but Amelia's captivity had no such incident. Though very sad, she was always ready to smile when spoken to; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards, mending stockings, for her old father's benefit.
May we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our pillows. Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death, and Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by him.
But better days were in store for both. Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed who was the stout gentleman who called upon Georgy with Major Dobbin.
The Major had easily succeeded in getting leave to go to Madras, and from there to Europe, on urgent private affairs, and had travelled so quickly that he arrived at Madras in a high fever. His servants brought him to a friend's house in a state of delirium; and it was thought for many days that he would never travel farther than the grave-yard.
Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, you might have heard him raving about Amelia. In his lucid hours, he thought his last day was come, and made solemn preparations for departure, leaving his little property to those whom he most desired to benefit. The friend in whose house he was staying witnessed his will. The Major desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which he wore round his neck and which he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair was cut off during her illness after her husband's death.
He recovered, rallied, and relapsed again. He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the East Indiaman ship, and so weak that the friend who had tended him through his illness thought that the honest Major would never survive the voyage. But whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship spread her sails and set out towards home, Dobbin began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the Cape.
"I think Miss O'Dowd would have done for me if we had her on board," he said laughingly to his companion, "and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you, depend upon it, and carried you as a prize to Southampton, Jos, my boy."
For indeed it was no other than our stout Jos who was with him. He had passed ten years in Bengal. Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage to Europe was pronounced necessary for his health - and having served his full time in India and laid by a considerable sum of money, he was free to come home and stay with a good pension, or to return and resume a high rank in the service.
He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained in majesty. He swaggered about on deck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profusion of jewellery. He brought a native servant who wore the Sedley crest in silver on his turban. The young soldiers among the passengers used to draw out Sedley and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and Napoleon. When they passed Saint Helena, Major Dobbin not being nearby, Jos described the battle of Waterloo and implied that Napoleon never would have gone to Saint Helena but for Jos Sedley.
After leaving St. Helena, he disposed of a great quantity of claret, preserved meats, and soda-water. He disappeared in a panic during a two-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin battened down; but in general he made himself agreeable to all by his kindness and condescension.
Many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring dark sea, the moon shining overhead and the bell singing out the watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would sit on the quarter-deck talking and smoking. Major Dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the subject of Amelia and her son.
Jos, a little testy about his father's applications for money, was soothed by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes. Perhaps Jos would not like to live with the old couple; but the Major pointed out how advantageous it would be for Jos to have his own house in London, how his sister Amelia would be the very person to preside over it; how elegant, gentle and refined she was. He told Jos how much admired she had formerly been by people of great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming it would be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school.
The Major did not know yet what events had happened in the little Sedley family, and how riches had carried off George from Amelia. But the fact is that every day, this love-smitten gentleman was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and bent upon doing her good. He coaxed and complimented Jos Sedley perseveringly to this end.
The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board very sick, he did not begin to rally until a conversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly on the deck. He said that he had left a little something to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make.
"Marry? not at all," Jos answered. "Her latest letter made no mention of marriage, and by the way, she wrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that he would be happy."
From that day, Dobbin began to mend. After they passed St. Helena, his gaiety and strength astonished his fellow passengers. He larked with the midshipmen, ran up the shrouds like a boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole party, and was generally lively and amiable.
But during a calm, only ten days' sail from England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise his comrades. He did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly excited state when the friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.