, graperies, aviaries, luxuries of all
kinds. This paradise was separated from the outer world by a, thick hedge
of tall trees and an ivy-covered porter's gate, through which they who
travelled to London on the top of the Clapham coach could only get a
glimpse of the bliss within. It was a serious paradise. As you entered at
the gate, gravity fell on you; and decorum wrapped you in a garment of
starch. The butcher boy who galloped his horse and cart madly about the
adjoining lanes, on passing that lodge fell into an undertaker's pace,
and delivered his joints and sweetbreads silently at the servant's
entrance. The rooks in the elms cawed sermons at morning and evening; the
peacocks walked demurely on the terraces; the guinea fowls looked more
Quaker-like than those birds usually do. The lodge-keeper was serious,
and a clerk at the neighbouring chapel. The pastor, who entered at that
gate and greeted his comely wife and children, fed the little lambkins
with tracts. The head gardener was a Scotch Calvinist, after the
strictest order. On a Sunday the household marched away to sit under his
or her favourite minister, the only man who went to church being Thomas
Newcome, with Tommy, his little son. Tommy was taught hymns suited to his
tender age, pointing out the inevitable fate of wicked children and
giving him a description of the punishment of little sinners, which poems
he repeated to his step-mother after dinner, before a great shining
mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, plum cake, port wine,
and madeira, and surrounded by stout men in black, with baggy white
neckcloths, who took the little man between their knees and questioned
him as to his right understanding of the place whither naughty boys were
bound. They patted his head if he said well, or rebuked him if he was
bold, as he often was.

Then came the birth of Mrs. Newcome's twin boys, Hobson and Bryan, and
now there was no reason why young Newcome, their step-brother, should not
go to school, and to Grey Friars Thomas Newcome was accordingly sent,
exchanging--O ye gods! with what delight--the splendour of Clapham for
the rough, plentiful fare of the new place. The pleasures of school-life
were such to him that he did not care to go home for a holiday; for by
playing tricks and breaking windows, by taking the gardener's peaches and
the housekeeper's jam, by upsetting his two little brothers in a go-cart
(of which injury the Baronet's nose bore marks to