The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER LVII. Foreign Ground

  Worthy Major Pendennis fulfilled his promise to Warrington so far as tosatisfy his own conscience, and in so far to ease poor Helen with regardto her son, as to make her understand that all connexion between Arthurand the odious little gatekeeper was at an end, and that she needhave no further anxiety with respect to an imprudent attachment or adegrading marriage on Pen's part. And that young fellow's mind was alsorelieved (after he had recovered the shock to his vanity) by thinkingthat Miss Fanny was not going to die of love for him, and that nounpleasant consequences were to be apprehended from the luckless andbrief connexion.

  So the whole party were free to carry into effect their projectedContinental trip, and Arthur Pendennis, rentier, voyageant avec MadamePendennis and Mademoiselle Bell, and George Warrington, particulier, agede 32 ans, taille 6 pieds (Anglais), figure ordinaire, cheveux noirs,barbe idem, etc., procured passports from the consul of H.M. the King ofthe Belgians at Dover, and passed over from that port to Ostend, whencethe party took their way leisurely, visiting Bruges and Ghent on theirway to Brussels and the Rhine. It is not our purpose to describe thisoft-travelled tour, or Laura's delight at the tranquil and ancientcities which she saw for the first time, or Helen's wonder and interestat the Beguine convents which they visited, or the almost terror withwhich she saw the black-veiled nuns with outstretched arms kneelingbefore the illuminated altars, and beheld the strange pomps andceremonials of the Catholic worship. Barefooted friars in the streets;crowned images of Saints and Virgins in the churches before which peoplewere bowing down and worshipping, in direct defiance, as she held,of the written law; priests in gorgeous robes, or lurking in darkconfessionals; theatres opened, and people dancing on Sundays,--allthese new sights and manners shocked and bewildered the simple countrylady; and when the young men after their evening drive or walk returnedto the widow and her adopted daughter, they found their books ofdevotion on the table, and at their entrance Laura would commonly ceasereading some of the psalms or the sacred pages which, of all others,Helen loved. The late events connected with her son had cruelly shakenher; Laura watched with intense, though hidden anxiety, every movementof her dearest friend; and poor Pen was most constant and affectionatein waiting upon his mother, whose wounded bosom yearned with lovetowards him, though there was a secret between them, and an anguish orrage almost on the mother's part, to think that she was dispossessedsomehow of her son's heart, or that there were recesses in it which shemust not or dared not enter. She sickened as she thought of the sacreddays of boyhood when it had not been so--when her Arthur's heart hadno secrets, and she was his all in all: when he poured his hopes andpleasures, his childish griefs, vanities, triumphs into her willingand tender embrace; when her home was his nest still; and before fate,selfishness, nature, had driven him forth on wayward wings--to range hisown flight--to sing his own song--and to seek his own home and his ownmate. Watching this devouring care and racking disappointment in herfriend, Laura once said to Helen, "If Pen had loved me as you wished,I should have gained him, but I should have lost you, mamma, I know Ishould; and I like you to love me best. Men do not know what it is tolove as we do, I think,"--and Helen, sighing, agreed to this portion ofthe young lady's speech, though she protested against the former part.For my part I suppose Miss Laura was right in both statements, andwith regard to the latter assertion especially, that it is an old andreceived truism--love is an hour with us: it is all night and allday with a woman. Damon has taxes, sermon, parade, tailors' bills,parliamentary duties, and the deuce knows what to think of; Delia hasto think about Damon--Damon is the oak (or the post) and stands up, andDelia is the ivy or the honeysuckle whose arms twine about him. Is itnot so, Delia? Is it not your nature to creep about his feet and kissthem, to twine round his trunk and hang there; and Damon's to stand likea British man with his hands in his breeches pocket, while the prettyfond parasite clings round him?

  Old Pendennis had only accompanied our friends to the water's edge,and left them on board the boat, giving the chief charge of the littleexpedition to Warrington. He himself was bound on a brief visit to thehouse of a great man, a friend of his, after which sojourn he proposedto join his sister-in-law at the German watering-place, whither theparty was bound. The Major himself thought that his long attentions tohis sick family had earned for him a little relaxation--and though thebest of the partridges were thinned off, the pheasants were still tobe shot at Stillbrook, where the noble owner still was; old Pendennisbetook himself to that hospitable mansion and disported there withgreat comfort to himself. A royal Duke, some foreigners of note, someillustrious statesmen, and some pleasant people visited it: it did theold fellow's heart good to see his name in the Morning Post amongstthe list of the distinguished company which the Marquis of Steyne wasentertaining at his country-house at Stillbrook. He was a very usefuland pleasant personage in a country-house. He entertained the youngmen with queer little anecdotes and grivoises stories on theirshooting-parties or in their smoking-room, where they laughed at him andwith him. He was obsequious with the ladies of a morning, in therooms dedicated to them. He walked the new arrivals about the park andgardens, and showed them the carte du pays, and where there was the bestview of the mansion, and where the most favourable point to look at thelake: he showed, where the timber was to be felled, and where the oldroad went before the new bridge was built, and the hill cut down; andwhere the place in the wood was where old Lord Lynx discovered SirPhelim O'Neal on his knees before her ladyship, etc. etc.; he calledthe lodge-keepers and gardeners by their names; he knew the number ofdomestics that sat down in the housekeeper's room, and how many dinedin the servants'-hall; he had a word for everybody, and about everybody,and a little against everybody. He was invaluable in a country-house, ina word: and richly merited and enjoyed his vacation after his labours.And perhaps whilst he was thus deservedly enjoying himself with hiscountry friends, the Major was not ill pleased at transferring toWarrington the command of the family expedition to the Continent, andthus perforce keeping him in the service of the ladies,--a servitudewhich George was only too willing to undergo, for his friend's sake, andfor that of a society which he found daily more delightful. Warringtonwas a good German scholar, and was willing to give Miss Laura lessons inthe language, who was very glad to improve herself, though Pen, for hispart, was too weak or lazy now to resume his German studies. Warringtonacted as courier and interpreter; Warrington saw the baggage in and outof ships, inns and carriages, managed the money matters, and put thelittle troop into marching order. Warrington found out where the Englishchurch was, and, if Mrs. Pendennis and Miss Laura were inclined to gothither, walked with great decorum along with them. Warrington walkedby Mrs. Pendennis's donkey, when that lady went out on her eveningexcursions; or took carriages for her; or got 'Galignani' for her; ordevised comfortable seats under the lime-trees for her, when the guestsparaded after dinner, and the Kursaal band at the bath, where our tiredfriends stopped, performed their pleasant music under the trees. Manya fine whiskered Prussian or French dandy, come to the bath for the'Trente-et-quarante,' cast glances of longing towards the prettyfresh-coloured English girl who accompanied the pale widow, and wouldhave longed to take a turn with her at the galop or the waltz. ButLaura did not appear in the ballroom, except once or twice, when Penvouchsafed to walk with her; and as for Warrington, that rough diamondhad not had the polish of a dancing-master, and he did not know how towaltz,--though he would have liked to learn, if he could have had such apartner as Laura.--Such a partner! psha, what had a stiff bachelor to dowith partners and waltzing? what was he about, dancing attendance here?drinking in sweet pleasure at a risk he knows not of what after-sadness,and regret, and lonely longing? But yet he stayed on. You would havesaid he was the widow's son, to watch his constant care and watchfulnessof her; or that he was an adventurer, and wanted to marry her fortune,or, at any rate, that he wanted some very great treasure or benefitfrom her,--and very likely he did,--for ours, as the reader has possiblyalready discov
ered, is a Selfish Story, and almost every person,according to his nature, more or less generous than George, andaccording to the way of the world as it seems to us, is occupied aboutNumber One. So Warrington selfishly devoted himself to Helen, whoselfishly devoted herself to Pen, who selfishly devoted himself tohimself at this present period, having no other personage or objectto occupy him, except, indeed, his mother's health, which gave him aserious and real disquiet; but though they, sate together, they did nottalk much, and the cloud was always between them.

  Every day Laura looked for Warrington, and received him with more frankand eager welcome. He found himself talking to her as he didn'tknow himself that he could talk. He found himself performing acts ofgallantry which astounded him after the performance: he found himselflooking blankly in the glass at the crow's feet round his eyes, and atsome streaks of white in his hair, and some intrusive silver bristles inhis grim, blue beard. He found himself looking at the young bucks at thebath--at the bland, tight-waisted Germans--at the capering Frenchmen,with their lacquered mustachios and trim varnished boots--at the Englishdandies, Pen amongst them, with their calm domineering air, and insolentlanguor: and envied each one of these some excellence or quality ofyouth, or good looks, which he possessed, and of which Warrington feltthe need. And every night, as the night came, he quitted the littlecircle with greater reluctance; and, retiring to his own lodging intheir neighbourhood, felt himself the more lonely and unhappy. The widowcould not help seeing his attachment. She understood, now, why MajorPendennis (always a tacit enemy of her darling project) had been soeager that Warrington should be of their party. Laura frankly ownedher great, her enthusiastic, regard for him: and Arthur would make nomovement. Arthur did not choose to see what was going on; or did notcare to prevent, or actually encouraged, it. She remembered his oftenhaving said that he could not understand how a man proposed to a womantwice. She was in torture--at secret feud with her son, of all objectsin the world the dearest to her--in doubt, which she dared not expressto herself, about Laura--averse to Warrington, the good and generous. Nowonder that the healing waters of Rosenbad did not do her good, or thatDoctor von Glauber, the bath physician, when he came to visit her, foundthat the poor lady made no progress to recovery. Meanwhile Pen gotwell rapidly; slept with immense perseverance twelve hours out of thetwenty-four; ate huge meals; and, at the end of a couple of months, hadalmost got back the bodily strength and weight which he had possessedbefore his illness.

  After they had passed some fifteen days at their place of rest andrefreshment, a letter came from Major Pendennis announcing his speedyarrival at Rosenbad, and, soon after the letter, the Major himself madehis appearance accompanied by Morgan his faithful valet, without whomthe old gentleman could not move. When the Major travelled he wore ajaunty and juvenile travelling costume; to see his back still youwould have taken him for one of the young fellows whose slim waist andyouthful appearance Warrington was beginning to envy. It was not untilthe worthy man began to move, that the observer remarked that Time hadweakened his ancient knees, and had unkindly interfered to impedethe action of the natty little varnished boots in which the gay oldtraveller still pinched his toes. There were magnates both of our owncountry and of foreign nations present that autumn at Rosenbad. Theelder Pendennis read over the strangers' list with great gratificationon the night of his arrival, was pleased to find several of hisacquaintances among the great folks, and would have the honour ofpresenting his nephew to a German Grand Duchess, a Russian Princess, andan English Marquis, before many days were over: nor was Pen by any meansaverse to making the acquaintance of these great personages, having aliking for polite life, and all the splendours and amenities belongingto it. That very evening the resolute old gentleman, leaning on hisnephew's arm, made his appearance in the halls of the Kursaal, and lostor won a napoleon or two at the table of 'Trente-et-quarante.' He didnot play to lose, he said, or to win, but he did as other folks did,and betted his napoleon and took his luck as it came. He pointed out theRussians and Spaniards gambling for heaps of gold, and denounced theireagerness as something sordid and barbarous; an English gentleman shouldplay where the fashion is play, but should not elate or depress himselfat the sport; and he told how he had seen his friend the Marquis ofSteyne, when Lord Gaunt, lose eighteen thousand at a sitting, and breakthe bank three nights running at Paris, without ever showing the leastemotion at his defeat or victory. "And that's what I call being anEnglish gentleman, Pen, my dear boy," the old gentleman said, warming ashe prattled about his recollections--"what I call the great manneronly remains with us and with a few families in France." And as RussianPrincesses passed him, whose reputation had long ceased to be doubtful,and damaged English ladies, who are constantly seen in company oftheir faithful attendant for the time being in these gay haunts ofdissipation, the old Major, with eager garrulity and mischievous relish,told his nephew wonderful particulars regarding the lives of theseheroines; and diverted the young man with a thousand scandals. Egad,he felt himself quite young again, he remarked to Pen, as, rougedand grinning, her enormous chasseur behind her bearing her shawl,the Princess Obstropski smiled and recognised and accosted him. Heremembered her in '14 when she was an actress of the Paris Boulevard,and the Emperor Alexander's aide-de-camp Obstropski (a man of greattalents, who knew a good deal about the Emperor Paul's death, and was adevil to play) married her. He most courteously and respectfully askedleave to call upon the Princess, and to present to her his nephew, Mr.Arthur Pendennis; and he pointed out to the latter a half-dozen ofother personages whose names were as famous, and whose histories wereas satisfying. What would poor Helen have thought, could she have heardthose tales, or known to what kind of people her brother-in-law waspresenting her son? Only once, leaning on Arthur's arm, she had passedthrough the room where the green tables were prepared for play, and thecroaking croupiers were calling out their fatal words of Rouge gagne andCouleur perd. She had shrunk terrified out of the pandemonium, imploringPen, extorting from him a promise, on his word of honour, that he wouldnever play at those tables; and the scene which so frightened the simplewidow, only amused the worldly old veteran, and made him young again!He could breathe the air cheerfully which stifled her. Her right was nothis right: his food was her poison. Human creatures are constituted thusdifferently, and with this variety the marvellous world is peopled. Tothe credit of Mr. Pen, let it be said, that he kept honestly the promisemade to his mother, and stoutly told his uncle of his intention to abideby it.

  When the Major arrived, his presence somehow cast a damp upon at leastthree of the persons of our little party--upon Laura who had anythingbut respect for him; upon Warrington, whose manner towards him showedan involuntary haughtiness and contempt; and upon the timid and alarmedwidow, who dreaded lest he should interfere with her darling, thoughalmost desperate, projects for her boy. And, indeed, the Major, unknownto himself, was the bearer of tidings which were to bring about acatastrophe in the affairs of all our friends.

  Pen with his two ladies had apartments in the town of Rosenbad; honestWarrington had lodgings hard by; the Major, on arrival at Rosenbad, had,as befitted his dignity, taken his quarters at one of the great hotels,at the Roman Emperor or the Four Seasons, where two or three hundredgamblers, pleasure-seekers, or invalids, sate down and over-atethemselves daily at the enormous table-d'hote. To this hotel Pen went onthe morning after the Major's arrival, dutifully to pay his respectsto his uncle, and found the latter's sitting-room duly prepared andarranged by Mr. Morgan, with the Major's hats brushed, and his coatslaid out: his despatch-boxes and umbrella-cases, his guidebooks,passports, maps, and other elaborate necessaries of the Englishtraveller, all as trim and ready as they could be in their master's ownroom in Jermyn Street. Everything was ready, from the medicine-bottlefresh filled from the pharmacien's, down to the old fellow'sprayer-book, without which he never travelled, for he made a point ofappearing at the English church at every place which he honoured with astay "Everybody did it," he said; "every English gentleman did it,"and th
is pious man would as soon have thought of not calling upon theEnglish ambassador in a Continental town, as of not showing himself atthe national place of worship.

  The old gentleman had been to take one of the baths for which Rosenbadis famous, and which everybody takes, and his after-bath toilet wasnot yet completed when Pen arrived. The elder called out to Arthur ina cheery voice from the inner apartment, in which he and Morgan wereengaged, and the valet presently came in, bearing a little packet toPen's address--Mr. Arthur's letters and papers, Morgan said, which hehad brought from Mr. Arthur's chambers in London, and which consistedchiefly of numbers of the Pall Mall Gazette, which our friend Mr.Finucane thought his collaborateur would like to see. The papers weretied together: the letters in an envelope, addressed to Pen, in thelast-named gentleman's handwriting.

  Amongst the letters there was a little note addressed, as a formerletter we have heard of had been, to "Arther Pendennis, Esquire," whichArthur opened with a start and a blush, and read with a very keen pangof interest, and sorrow, and regard. She had come to Arthur's house,Fanny Bolton said--and found that he was gone--gone away to Germanywithout ever leaving a word for her--or answer to her last letter, inwhich she prayed but for one word of kindness--or the books which he hadpromised her in happier times, before he was ill, and which she shouldlike to keep in remembrance of him. She said she would not reproachthose who had found her at his bedside when he was in the fever, andknew nobody, and who had turned the poor girl away without a word. Shethought she should have died, she said, of that, but Doctor Goodenoughhad kindly tended her, and kept her life, when, perhaps, the keepingof it was of no good, and she forgave everybody and as for Arthur, shewould pray for him for ever. And when he was so ill, and they cut offhis hair, she had made so free as to keep one little lock for herself,and that she owned. And might she still keep it, or would his mammaorder that that should be gave up too? She was willing to obey him inall things, and couldn't but remember that once he was so kind, oh! sogood and kind! to his poor Fanny.

  When Major Pendennis, fresh and smirking from his toilet, came out ofhis bedroom to his sitting-room, he found Arthur, with this note beforehim, and an expression of savage anger on his face, which surprisedthe elder gentleman. "What news from London, my boy?" he rather faintlyasked; "are the duns at you that you look so glum?"

  "Do you know anything about this letter, sir?" Arthur asked.

  "What letter, my good sir?" said the other dryly, at once perceivingwhat had happened.

  "You know what I mean--about, about Miss--about Fanny Bolton--the poordear little girl," Arthur broke out. "When she was in my room? Was shethere when I was delirious--I fancied she was--was she? Who sent her outof my chambers? who intercepted her letters to me? Who dared to do it?Did you do it, uncle?"

  "It's not my practice to tamper with gentlemen's letters, or to answerdamned impertinent questions," Major Pendennis cried out, in a greattremor of emotion and indignation. "There was a girl in your rooms whenI came up at great personal inconvenience, daymy--and to meet with areturn of this kind for my affection to you, is not pleasant, by Gad,sir--not at all pleasant."

  "That's not the question, sir," Arthur said hotly--"and I beg yourpardon, uncle. You were, you always have been, most kind to me: but Isay again, did you say anything harsh to this poor girl? Did you sendher away from me?"

  "I never spoke a word to the girl," the uncle said, "and I never senther away from you, and know no more about her, and wish to know no moreabout her, than about the man in the moon."

  "Then it's my mother that did it," Arthur broke out. "Did my mother sendthat poor child away?"

  "I repeat I know nothing about it, sir," the elder said testily. "Let'schange the subject, if you please."

  "I'll never forgive the person who did it," said Arthur, bouncing up andseizing his hat.

  The Major cried out, "Stop, Arthur, for God's sake, stop;" but before hehad uttered his sentence Arthur had rushed out of the room, and at thenext minute the Major saw him striding rapidly down the street that ledtowards his home.

  "Get breakfast!" said the old fellow to Morgan, and he wagged his headand sighed as he looked out of the window. "Poor Helen--poor soul!There'll be a row. I knew there would: and begad all the fat's in thefire."

  When Pen reached home he only found Warrington in the ladies'drawing-room, waiting their arrival in order to conduct them to the roomwhere the little English colony at Rosenbad held their Sunday church.Helen and Laura had not appeared as yet; the former was ailing, and herdaughter was with her. Pen's wrath was so great that he could not deferexpressing it. He flung Fanny's letter across the table to his friend."Look there, Warrington," he said; "she tended me in my illness, sherescued me out of the jaws of death, and this is the way they havetreated the dear little creature. They have kept her letters from me;they have treated me like a child, and her like a dog, poor thing! Mymother has done this."

  "If she has, you must remember it is your mother," Warringtoninterposed.

  "It only makes the crime the greater, because it is she who has doneit," Pen answered. "She ought to have been the poor girl's defender, nother enemy: she ought to go down on her knees and ask pardon of her. Iought! I will! I am shocked at the cruelty which has been shown her.What? She gave me her all, and this is her return! She sacrificeseverything for me, and they spurn her."

  "Hush!" said Warrington, "they can hear you from the next room."

  "Hear? let them hear!" Pen cried out, only so much the louder. "Thosemay overhear my talk who intercept my letters. I say this poor girl hasbeen shamefully used, and I will do my best to right her; I will."

  The door of the neighbouring room opened, and Laura came forth with apale and stern face. She looked at Pen with glances from which beamedpride, defiance, aversion. "Arthur, your mother is very ill," she said;"it is a pity that you should speak so loud as to disturb her."

  "It is a pity that I should have been obliged to speak at all," Penanswered. "And I have more to say before I have done."

  "I should think what you have to say will hardly be fit for me to hear,"Laura said, haughtily.

  "You are welcome to hear it or not, as you like," said Mr. Pen. "I shallgo in now and speak to my mother."

  Laura came rapidly forward, so that she should not be overheard by herfriend within. "Not now, sir," she said to Pen. "You may kill her if youdo. Your conduct has gone far enough to make her wretched."

  "What conduct?" cried out Pen, in a fury. "Who dares impugn it?Who dares meddle with me? Is it you who are the instigator of thispersecution?"

  "I said before it was a subject of which it did not become me to hearor to speak," Laura said. "But as for mamma, if she had acted otherwisethan she did with regard to--to the person about whom you seem to takesuch an interest, it would have been I that must have quitted yourhouse, and not that--that person."

  "By heavens! this is too much," Pen cried out, with a violentexecration.

  "Perhaps that is what you wished," Laura said, tossing her head up. "Nomore of this, if you please; I am not accustomed to hear such subjectsspoken of in such language," and with a stately curtsey the younglady passed to her room, looking her adversary full in the face as sheretreated and closed the door upon him.

  Pen was bewildered with wonder, perplexity, fury, at this monstrous andunreasonable persecution. He burst out into a loud and bitter laugh asLaura quitted him, and with sneers and revilings, as a man who jeersunder an operation, ridiculed at once his own pain and his persecutor'sanger. The laugh, which was one of bitter humour, and no unmanly orunkindly expression of suffering under most cruel and unmerited torture,was heard in the next apartment, as some of his unlucky previousexpressions had been, and, like them, entirely misinterpreted by thehearers. It struck like a dagger into the wounded and tender heart ofHelen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the high-spirited girl with scornand anger. "And it was to this hardened libertine," she thought--"tothis boaster of low intrigues, that I had given my heart away." "Hebreaks the most sacred
laws," thought Helen. "He prefers the creature ofhis passion to his own mother; and when he is upbraided, he laughs, andglories in his crime. 'She gave me her all,' I heard him say it,"argued the poor widow, "and he boasts of it, and laughs, and breaks hismother's heart." The emotion, the shame, the grief, the mortificationalmost killed her. She felt she should die of his unkindness.

  Warrington thought of Laura's speech--"Perhaps that is what you wished.""She loves Pen still," he said. "It was jealousy made her speak."--"Comeaway, Pen. Come away, and let us go to church and get calm. You mustexplain this matter to your mother. She does not appear to know thetruth: nor do you quite, my good fellow. Come away, and let us talkabout it." And again he muttered to himself, "'Perhaps that is what youwished.' Yes, she loves him. Why shouldn't she love him? Whom else wouldI have her love? What can she be to me but the dearest and the fairestand the best of women?"

  So, leaving the women similarly engaged within, the two gentlemen walkedaway, each occupied with his own thought, and silent for a considerablespace. "I must set this matter right," thought honest George "as sheloves him still--I must set his mind right about the other woman." Andwith this charitable thought, the good fellow began to tell more atlarge what Bows had said to him regarding Miss Bolton's behaviour andfickleness, and he described how the girl was no better than a littlelight-minded flirt; and, perhaps, he exaggerated the good-humour andcontentedness which he had himself, as he thought, witnessed in herbehaviour in the scene with Mr. Huxter.

  Now, all Bows's statements had been coloured by an insane jealousy andrage on that old man's part; and instead of allaying Pen's renascentdesire to see his little conquest again, Warrington's accounts inflamedand angered Pendennis, and made him more anxious than before to sethimself right, as he persisted in phrasing it, with Fanny. They arrivedat the church door presently; but scarce one word of the service, andnot a syllable of Mr. Shamble's sermon, did either of them comprehend,probably--so much was each engaged with his own private speculations.The Major came up to them after the service, with his well-brushed hatand wig, and his jauntiest, most cheerful air. He complimented them uponbeing seen at church; again he said that every comme-il faut person madea point of attending the English service abroad; and he walked back withthe young men, prattling to them in garrulous good-humour, and makingbows to his acquaintances as they passed; and thinking innocently thatPen and George were both highly delighted by his anecdotes, which theysuffered to run on in a scornful and silent acquiescence.

  At the time of Mr. Shamble's sermon (an erratic Anglican divine, hiredfor the season at places of English resort, and addicted to debts,drinking, and even to roulette, it was said), Pen, chafing under thepersecution which his womankind inflicted upon him, had been meditatinga great act of revolt and of justice, as he had worked himself up tobelieve; and Warrington on his part had been thinking that a crisisin his affairs had likewise come, and that it was necessary for him tobreak away from a connexion which every day made more and more wretchedand dear to him. Yes, the time was come. He took those fatal words,"Perhaps that is what you wished," as a text for a gloomy homily, whichhe preached to himself, in the dark pew of his own heart, whilst Mr.Shamble was feebly giving utterance to his sermon.