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P. G. Wodehouse - "The Adventures of Sally"

Gilbert Parker - "The World For Sale, Volume 3."

Charlotte M. Yonge - "The Dove in the Eagle's Nest"

Upton Sinclair - "They Call Me Carpenter"

Barry Lyndon

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> Barry Lyndon




Young Bullingdon, however, was almost the only person with whom she
was concerned that my mother could not keep in order. The accounts
she sent me of him at first were such as gave my paternal heart
considerable pain. He rejected all regularity and authority. He
would absent himself for weeks from the house on sporting or other
expeditions. He was when at home silent and queer, refusing to make
my mother's game at piquet of evenings, but plunging into all sorts
of musty old books, with which he muddled his brains; more at ease
laughing and chatting with the pipers and maids in the servants'
hall, than with the gentry in the drawing-room; always cutting jibes
and jokes at Mrs. Barry, at which she (who was rather a slow woman
at repartee) would chafe violently: in fact, leading a life of
insubordination and scandal. And, to crown all, the young scapegrace
took to frequenting the society of the Romish priest of the parish--
a threadbare rogue, from some Popish seminary in France or Spain--
rather than the company of the vicar of Castle Lyndon, a gentleman
of Trinity, who kept his hounds and drank his two bottles a day.

Regard for the lad's religion made me not hesitate then how I should
act towards him. If I have any principle which has guided me through
life, it has been respect for the Establishment, and a hearty scorn
and abhorrence of all other forms of belief. I therefore sent my
French body-servant, in the year 17--, to Dublin with a commission
to bring the young reprobate over; and the report brought to me was
that he had passed the whole of the last night of his stay in
Ireland with his Popish friend at the mass-house; that he and my
mother had a violent quarrel on the very last day; that, on the
contrary, he kissed Biddy and Dosy, her two nieces, who seemed very
sorry that he should go; and that being pressed to go and visit the
rector, he absolutely refused, saying he was a wicked old Pharisee,
inside whose doors he would never set his foot. The doctor wrote me
a letter, warning me against the deplorable errors of this young imp
of perdition, as he called him; and I could see that there was no
love lost between them. But it appeared that, if not agreeable to
the gentry of the country, young Bullingdon had a huge popularity
among the common people. There was a regular crowd weeping round the
gate when his coach took its departure. Scores of the ignorant
savage wretches ran for miles along by the side of the chariot; and
some went even so far as to steal away before his departure, and
appear at the Pigeon-House at Dublin to bid him a last farewell. It
was with considerable difficulty that some of these people could be
kept from secreting themselves in the vessel, and accompanying their
young lord to England.

To do the young scoundrel justice, when he came among us, he was a
manly noble-looking lad, and everything in his bearing and
appearance betokened the high blood from which he came. He was the
very portrait of some of the dark cavaliers of the Lyndon race,
whose pictures hung in the gallery at Hackton: where the lad was
fond of spending the chief part of his time, occupied with the musty
old books which he took out of the library, and which I hate to see
a young man of spirit poring over. Always in my company he preserved
the most rigid silence, and a haughty scornful demeanour; which was
so much the more disagreeable because there was nothing in his
behaviour I could actually take hold of to find fault with: although
his whole conduct was insolent and supercilious to the highest
degree. His mother was very much agitated at receiving him on his
arrival; if he felt any such agitation he certainly did not show it.
He made her a very low and formal bow when he kissed her hand; and,
when I held out mine, put both his hands behind his back, stared me
full in the face, and bent his head, saying, 'Mr. Barry Lyndon, I
believe;' turned on his heel, and began talking about the state of
the weather to his mother, whom he always styled 'Your Ladyship.'
She was angry at this pert bearing, and, when they were alone,
rebuked him sharply for not shaking hands with his father.

'My father, madam?' said he; 'surely you mistake. My father was the
Right Honourable Sir Charles Lyndon. _I_ at least have not forgotten
him, if others have.' It was a declaration of war to me, as I saw at
once; though I declare I was willing enough to have received the boy
well on his coming amongst us, and to have lived with him on terms
of friendliness. But as men serve me I serve them. Who can blame me
for my after-quarrels with this young reprobate, or lay upon my
shoulders the evils which afterwards befell? Perhaps I lost my
temper, and my subsequent treatment of him WAS hard. But it was he
began the quarrel, and not I; and the evil consequences which ensued
were entirely of his creating.

As it is best to nip vice in the bud, and for a master of a family
to exercise his authority in such a manner as that there may be no
question about it, I took the earliest opportunity of coming to
close quarters with Master Bullingdon; and the day after his arrival
among us, upon his refusal to perform some duty which I requested of
him, I had him conveyed to my study, and thrashed him soundly. This
process, I confess, at first agitated me a good deal, for I had
never laid a whip on a lord before; but I got speedily used to the
practice, and his back and my whip became so well acquainted, that I
warrant there was very little CEREMONY between us after a while.

If I were to repeat all the instances of the insubordination and
brutal conduct of young Bullingdon, I should weary the reader. His
perseverance in resistance was, I think, even greater than mine in
correcting him: for a man, be he ever so much resolved to do his
duty as a parent, can't be flogging his children all day, or for
every fault they commit: and though I got the character of being so
cruel a stepfather to him, I pledge my word I spared him correction
when he merited it many more times than I administered it. Besides,
there were eight clear months in the year when he was quit of me,
during the time of my presence in London, at my place in Parliament,
and at the Court of my Sovereign.

At this period I made no difficulty to allow him to profit by the
Latin and Greek of the old rector; who had christened him, and had a
considerable influence over the wayward lad. After a scene or a
quarrel between us, it was generally to the rectory-house that the
young rebel would fly for refuge and counsel; and I must own that
the parson was a pretty just umpire between us in our disputes. Once
he led the boy back to Hackton by the hand, and actually brought him
into my presence, although he had vowed never to enter the doors in
my lifetime again, and said, 'He had brought his Lordship to
acknowledge his error, and submit to any punishment I might think
proper to inflict.' Upon which I caned him in the presence of two or
three friends of mine, with whom I was sitting drinking at the time;
and to do him justice, he bore a pretty severe punishment without
wincing or crying in the least. This will show that I was not too
severe in my treatment of the lad, as I had the authority of the
clergyman himself for inflicting the correction which I thought
proper.

Twice or thrice, Lavender, Bryan's governor, attempted to punish my
Lord Bullingdon; but I promise you the rogue was too strong for HIM,
and levelled the Oxford man to the ground with a chair: greatly to
the delight of little Byran, who cried out, 'Bravo, Bully! thump
him, thump him!' And Bully certainly did, to the governor's heart's
content; who never attempted personal chastisement afterwards; but
contented himself by bringing the tales of his Lordship's misdoings
to me, his natural protector and guardian.

With the child, Bullingdon was, strange to say, pretty tractable. He
took a liking for the little fellow,--as, indeed, everybody who saw
that darling boy did,--liked him the more, he said, because he was
'half a Lyndon.' And well he might like him, for many a time, at the
dear angel's intercession of 'Papa, don't flog Bully to-day!' I have
held my hand, and saved him a horsing, which he richly deserved.

With his mother, at first, he would scarcely deign to have any
communication. He said she was no longer one of the family. Why
should he love her, as she had never been a mother to him? But it
will give the reader an idea of the dogged obstinacy and surliness
of the lad's character, when I mention one trait regarding him. It
has been made a matter of complaint against me, that I denied him
the education befitting a gentleman, and never sent him to college
or to school; but the fact is, it was of his own choice that he went
to neither. He had the offer repeatedly from me (who wished to see
as little of his impudence as possible), but he as repeatedly
declined; and, for a long time, I could not make out what was the
charm which kept him in a house where he must have been far from
comfortable.

It came out, however, at last. There used to be very frequent
disputes between my Lady Lyndon and myself, in which sometimes she
was wrong, sometimes I was; and which, as neither of us had very
angelical tempers, used to run very high. I was often in liquor; and
when in that condition, what gentleman is master of himself? Perhaps
I DID, in this state, use my Lady rather roughly; fling a glass or
two at her, and call her by a few names that were not complimentary.
I may have threatened her life (which it was obviously my interest
not to take), and have frightened her, in a word, considerably.

After one of these disputes, in which she ran screaming through the
galleries, and I, as tipsy as a lord, came staggering after, it
appears Bullingdon was attracted out of his room by the noise; as I
came up with her, the audacious rascal tripped up my heels, which
were not very steady, and catching his fainting mother in his arms,
took her into his own room; where he, upon her entreaty, swore he
would never leave the house as long as she continued united with me.
I knew nothing of the vow, or indeed of the tipsy frolic which was
the occasion of it; I was taken up 'glorious,' as the phrase is, by
my servants, and put to bed, and, in the morning, had no more
recollection of what had occurred any more than of what happened
when I was a baby at the breast. Lady Lyndon told me of the
circumstance years after; and I mention it here, as it enables me to
plead honourably 'not guilty' to one of the absurd charges of
cruelty trumped up against me with respect to my stepson. Let my
detractors apologise, if they dare, for the conduct of a graceless
ruffian who trips up the heels of his own natural guardian and
stepfather after dinner.

This circumstance served to unite mother and son for a little; but
their characters were too different. I believe she was too fond of
me ever to allow him to be sincerely reconciled to her. As he grew
up to be a man, his hatred towards me assumed an intensity quite
wicked to think of (and which I promise you I returned with
interest): and it was at the age of sixteen, I think, that the
impudent young hangdog, on my return from Parliament one summer, and
on my proposing to cane him as usual, gave me to understand that he
would submit to no farther chastisement from me, and said, grinding
his teeth, that he would shoot me if I laid hands on him. I looked
at him; he was grown, in fact, to be a tall young man, and I gave up
that necessary part of his education.

It was about this time that I raised the company which was to serve
in America; and my enemies in the country (and since my victory over
the Tiptoffs I scarce need say I had many of them) began to
propagate the most shameful reports regarding my conduct to that
precious young scapegrace my stepson, and to insinuate that I
actually wished to get rid of him. Thus my loyalty to my Sovereign
was actually construed into a horrid unnatural attempt on my part on
Bullingdon's life; and it was said that I had raised the American
corps for the sole purpose of getting the young Viscount to command
it, and so of getting rid of him. I am not sure that they had not
fixed upon the name of the very man in the company who was ordered
to despatch him at the first general action, and the bribe I was to
give him for this delicate piece of service.

But the truth is, I was of opinion then (and though the fulfilment
of my prophecy has been delayed, yet I make no doubt it will be
brought to pass ere long), that my Lord Bullingdon needed none of MY
aid in sending him into the other world; but had a happy knack of
finding the way thither himself, which he would be sure to pursue.
In truth, he began upon this way early: of all the violent, daring,
disobedient scapegraces that ever caused an affectionate parent
pain, he was certainly the most incorrigible; there was no beating
him, or coaxing him, or taming him.

For instance, with my little son, when his governor brought him into
the room as we were over the bottle after dinner, my Lord would
begin his violent and undutiful sarcasms at me.

'Dear child,' he would say, beginning to caress and fondle him,
'what a pity it is I am not dead for thy sake! The Lyndons would
then have a worthier representative, and enjoy all the benefit of
the illustrious blood of the Barrys of Barryogue; would they not,
Mr. Barry Lyndon?' He always chose the days when company, or the
clergy or gentry of the neighbourhood, were present, to make these
insolent speeches to me.

Another day (it was Bryan's birthday) we were giving a grand ball
and gala at Hackton, and it was time for my little Bryan to make his
appearance among us, as he usually did in the smartest little court-
suit you ever saw (ah me! but it brings tears into my old eyes now
to think of the bright looks of that darling little face). There was
a great crowding and tittering when the child came in, led by his
half-brother, who walked into the dancing-room (would you believe
it?) in his stocking-feet, leading little Bryan by the hand,
paddling about in the great shoes of the elder! 'Don't you think he
fits my shoes very well, Sir Richard Wargrave?' says the young
reprobate: upon which the company began to look at each other and to
titter; and his mother, coming up to Lord Bullingdon with great
dignity, seized the child to her breast, and said, 'From the manner
in which I love this child, my Lord, you ought to know how I would
have loved his elder brother had he proved worthy of any mother's
affection!' and, bursting into tears, Lady Lyndon left the
apartment, and the young lord rather discomfited for once.

At last, on one occasion, his behaviour to me was so outrageous (it
was in the hunting-field and in a large public company), that I lost
all patience, rode at the urchin straight, wrenched him out of his
saddle with all my force, and, flinging him roughly to the ground,
sprang down to it myself, and administered such a correction across
the young caitiff's head and shoulders with my horsewhip as might
have ended in his death, had I not been restrained in time; for my
passion was up, and I was in a state to do murder or any other
crime. The lad was taken home and put to bed, where he lay for a day
or two in a fever, as much from rage and vexation as from the
chastisement I had given him; and three days afterwards, on sending
to inquire at his chamber whether he would join the family at table,
a note was found on his table, and his bed was empty and cold. The
young villain had fled, and had the audacity to write in the
following terms regarding me to my wife, his mother:--

'Madam,' he said, 'I have borne as long as mortal could endure the
ill-treatment of the insolent Irish upstart whom you have taken to
your bed. It is not only the lowness of his birth and the general
brutality of his manners which disgust me, and must make me hate him
so long as I have the honour to bear the name of Lyndon, which he is
unworthy of, but the shameful nature of his conduct towards your
Ladyship; his brutal and ungentlemanlike behaviour, his open
infidelity, his habits of extravagance, intoxication, his shameless
robberies and swindling of my property and yours. It is these
insults to you which shock and annoy me, more than the ruffian's
infamous conduct to myself. I would have stood by your Ladyship as I
promised, but you seem to have taken latterly your husband's part;
and, as I cannot personally chastise this low-bred ruffian, who, to
our shame be it spoken, is the husband of my mother; and as I cannot
bear to witness his treatment of you, and loathe his horrible
society as if it were the plague, I am determined to quit my native
country: at least during his detested life, or during my own. I
possess a small income from my father, of which I have no doubt Mr.
Barry will cheat me if he can; but which, if your Ladyship has some
feelings of a mother left, you will, perhaps, award to me. Messrs.
Childs, the bankers, can have orders to pay it to me when due; if
they receive no such orders, I shall be not in the least surprised,
knowing you to be in the hands of a villain who would not scruple to
rob on the highway; and shall try to find out some way in life for
myself more honourable than that by which the penniless Irish
adventurer has arrived to turn me out of my rights and home.'

This mad epistle was signed 'Bullingdon,' and all the neighbours
vowed that I had been privy to his flight, and would profit by it;
though I declare on my honour my true and sincere desire, after
reading the above infamous letter, was to have the author within a
good arm's length of me, that I might let him know my opinion
regarding him. But there was no eradicating this idea from people's
minds, who insisted that I wanted to kill Bullingdon; whereas
murder, as I have said, was never one of my evil qualities: and even
had I wished to injure my young enemy ever so much, common prudence
would have made my mind easy, as I knew he was going to ruin his own
way.

It was long before we heard of the fate of the audacious young
truant; but after some fifteen months had elapsed, I had the
pleasure of being able to refute some of the murderous calumnies
which had been uttered against me, by producing a bill with
Bullingdon's own signature, drawn from General Tarleton's army in
America, where my company was conducting itself with the greatest
glory, and with which my Lord was serving as a volunteer. There were
some of my kind friends who persisted still in attributing all sorts
of wicked intentions to me. Lord Tiptoff would never believe that I
would pay any bill, much more any bill of Lord Bullingdon's; old
Lady Betty Grimsby, his sister, persisted in declaring the bill was
a forgery, and the poor dear lord dead; until there came a letter to
her Ladyship from Lord Bullingdon himself, who had been at New York
at headquarters, and who described at length the splendid festival
given by the officers of the garrison to our distinguished
chieftains, the two Howes.

In the meanwhile, if I HAD murdered my Lord, I could scarcely have
been received with more shameful obloquy and slander than now
followed me in town and country. 'You will hear of the lad's death,
be sure,' exclaimed one of my friends. 'And then his wife's will
follow,' added another. 'He will marry Jenny Jones,' added a third;
and so on. Lavender brought me the news of these scandals about me:
the country was up against me. The farmers on market-days used to
touch their hats sulkily, and get out of my way; the gentlemen who
followed my hunt now suddenly seceded from it, and left off my
uniform; at the county ball, where I led out Lady Susan Capermore,
and took my place third in the dance after the duke and the marquis,
as was my wont, all the couples turned away as we came to them, and
we were left to dance alone. Sukey Capermore has a love of dancing
which would make her dance at a funeral if anybody asked her, and I
had too much spirit to give in at this signal instance of insult
towards me; so we danced with some of the very commonest low people
at the bottom of the set--your apothecaries, wine-merchants,
attorneys, and such scum as are allowed to attend our public
assemblies.

The bishop, my Lady Lyndon's relative, neglected to invite us to the
palace at the assizes; and, in a word, every indignity was put upon
me which could by possibility be heaped upon an innocent and
honourable gentleman.

My reception in London, whither I now carried my wife and family,
was scarcely more cordial. On paying my respects to my Sovereign at
St. James's, His Majesty pointedly asked me when I had news of Lord
Bullingdon. On which I replied, with no ordinary presence of mind,
'Sir, my Lord Bullingdon is fighting the rebels against your
Majesty's crown in America. Does your Majesty desire that I should
send another regiment to aid him?' On which the King turned on his
heel, and I made my bow out of the presence-chamber. When Lady
Lyndon kissed the Queen's hand at the drawing-room, I found that
precisely the same question had been put to her Ladyship; and she
came home much agitated at the rebuke which had been administered to
her. Thus it was that my loyalty was rewarded, and my sacrifice, in
favour of my country, viewed! I took away my establishment abruptly
to Paris, where I met with a very different reception: but my stay
amidst the enchanting pleasures of that capital was extremely short;
for the French Government, which had been long tampering with the
American rebels, now openly acknowledged the independence of the
United States. A declaration of war ensued: all we happy English
were ordered away from Paris; and I think I left one or two fair
ladies there inconsolable. It is the only place where a gentleman
can live as he likes without being incommoded by his wife. The
Countess and I, during our stay, scarcely saw each other except upon
public occasions, at Versailles, or at the Queen's play-table; and
our dear little Bryan advanced in a thousand elegant accomplishments
which rendered him the delight of all who knew him.

I must not forget to mention here my last interview with my good
uncle, the Chevalier de Ballybarry, whom I left at Brussels with
strong intentions of making his salut, as the phrase is, and who had
gone into retirement at a convent there. Since then he had come into
the world again, much to his annoyance and repentance; having fallen
desperately in love in his old age with a French actress, who had
done, as most ladies of her character do,--ruined him, left him, and
laughed at him. His repentance was very edifying. Under the guidance
of Messieurs of the Irish College, he once more turned his thoughts
towards religion; and his only prayer to me when I saw him and asked
in what I could relieve him, was to pay a handsome fee to the
convent into which he proposed to enter.

This I could not, of course, do: my religious principles forbidding
me to encourage superstition in any way; and the old gentleman and I
parted rather coolly, in consequence of my refusal, as he said, to
make his old days comfortable.

I was very poor at the time, that is the fact; and entre nous, the
Rosemont of the French Opera, an indifferent dancer, but a charming
figure and ankle, was ruining me in diamonds, equipages, and
furniture bills, added to which I had a run of ill-luck at play, and
was forced to meet my losses by the most shameful sacrifices to the
money-lenders, by pawning part of Lady Lyndon's diamonds (that
graceless little Rosemont wheedled me out of some of them), and by a
thousand other schemes for raising money. But when Honour is in the
case, was I ever found backward at her call: and what man can say
that Barry Lyndon lost a bet which he did not pay?

As for my ambitious hopes regarding the Irish peerage, I began, on
my return, to find out that I had been led wildly astray by that
rascal Lord Crabs; who liked to take my money, but had no more
influence to get me a coronet than to procure for me the Pope's
tiara. The Sovereign was not a whit more gracious to me on returning
from the Continent than he had been before my departure; and I had
it from one of the aides-de-camp of the Royal Dukes his brothers,
that my conduct and amusements at Paris had been odiously
misrepresented by some spies there, and had formed the subject of
Royal comment; and that the King had, influenced by these calumnies,
actually said I was the most disreputable man in the three kingdoms.
I disreputable! I a dishonour to my name and country! When I heard
these falsehoods, I was in such a rage that I went off to Lord North
at once to remonstrate with the Minister; to insist upon being
allowed to appear before His Majesty and clear myself of the
imputations against me, to point out my services to the Government
in voting with them, and to ask when the reward that had been
promised to me--viz., the title held by my ancestors--was again to
be revived in my person?

There was a sleepy coolness in that fat Lord North which was the
most provoking thing that the Opposition had ever to encounter from
him. He heard me with half-shut eyes. When I had finished a long
violent speech--which I made striding about his room in Downing
Street, and gesticulating with all the energy of an Irishman--he
opened one eye, smiled, and asked me gently if I had done. On my
replying in the affirmative, he said, 'Well, Mr. Barry, I'll answer
you, point by point. The King is exceedingly averse to make peers,
as you know. Your claims, as you call them, HAVE been laid before
him, and His Majesty's gracious reply was, that you were the most
impudent man in his dominions, and merited a halter rather than a
coronet. As for withdrawing your support from us, you are perfectly
welcome to carry yourself and your vote whithersoever you please.
And now, as I have a great deal of occupation, perhaps you will do
me the favour to retire.' So saying, he raised his hand lazily to
the bell, and bowed me out; asking blandly if there was any other
thing in the world in which he could oblige me.

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