The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of MistakesYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
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The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Domestic fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Stepmothers -- Fiction
The dog, as well as Ulick could make out, was a waif or stray, belonging
to a gipsy deported that morning by the police, and on whom its master’s
sins had been visited. So without scruple he carried the basket home to
his lodgings, and on the way, had the misfortune to encounter his uncle,
while shirtfront, coat, and waistcoat were fresh from the muddy and
bloody fray, and his visage in the height of disfigurement.
Mr. Goldsmith looked on the whole affair as an insult to every Goldsmith
of past ages! A mere street row! He ordered Mr. More to his lodgings,
and said he should hear from him to-morrow. Ulick came down to Willow
Lawn in the dark, almost considering himself as dismissed, not knowing
whether to be glad or sorry; and wanting to consult Mr. Kendal whether
it would be possible to work his way at college as Mr. Hope had done, or
even wondering whether he might venture to beg for a recommendation to
‘Kendal and Kendal.’
Mr. Kendal was so strongly affected, that he took up his hat and went
straight to Mr. Goldsmith, ‘to put the matter before him in a true
light.’
True light or false, it was intolerable in the banker’s eyes, and it
took a great deal of eloquence to persuade him that his nephew was worth
a second trial. Fighting in Tibb’s Alley over a gipsy’s dog, and coming
back looking like a ruffian! Mr. Goldsmith wished him no harm, but it
would be a disgrace to the concern to keep him on, and Miss Goldsmith,
whom Mr. Kendal heartily wished to gag, chimed in with her old
predictions of the consequences of her poor sister’s foolish marriage.
The final argument, was Mr. Kendal’s declaration of the testimonials
with which he would at once send him out to Calcutta, to take the
situation once offered to his own son. No sooner did Mr. Goldsmith hear
that his nephew had an alternative, than he promised to be lenient, and
finally dispatched a letter to U. More, Esquire, with a very serious
rebuke, but a promise that his conduct should be overlooked, provided
the scandal were not repeated, and he should not present himself at the
bank till his face should be fit to be seen.
Mr. Kendal mounted him the next morning on Gilbert’s horse, and sent him
to Fairmead. The dog was left in charge of Bridget, who treated it with
abundant kindness, but failed to obtain the exclusive affection which
the poor thing lavished upon its rescuer. By the time Ulick came home,
it had arrived at limping upon three legs, and was bent on following
him wherever he went. Disreputable and heinously ugly it was, of tawny
currish yellow (whence it was known as the Orange-man), with a bull-dog
countenance; and the legs that did not limp were bandy. Albinia called
it the Tripod, but somehow it settled into the title of Hyder Ali, to
which it was said to ‘answer’ the most readily, though it would in fact
answer anything from Ulick, and nothing from any one else..
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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