his dying day), by
going to sleep during the sermons, and treating reverend gentlemen with
levity, he drew down on himself the merited anger of his step-mother; and
many punishments. To please Mrs. Newcome, his father whipped Tommy for
upsetting his little brothers in the go-cart; but, upon being pressed to
repeat the whipping for some other prank, Mr. Newcome refused, saying
that the boy got flogging enough at school, with which opinion Master
Tommy fully agreed. His step-mother, however, determined to make the
young culprit smart for his offences, and one day, when Mr. Newcome was
absent, and Tommy refractory as usual, summoned the butler and footman to
flog the young criminal. But he dashed so furiously against the butler's
shins as to cause that menial to limp and suffer for many days after;
and, seizing the decanter, he threatened to discharge it at Mrs.
Newcome's head before he would submit to the punishment she desired
administered. When Mr. Newcome returned, he was indignant at his wife's
treatment of Tommy, and said so, to her great displeasure. This affair,
indeed, almost caused a break in their relations, and friends and clergy
were obliged to interfere to allay the domestic quarrel. At length Mrs.
Newcome, who was not unkind, and could be brought to own that she was
sometimes in fault, was induced to submit to the decrees of her husband,
whom she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill of scarlet
fever she nursed him through his illness, and uttered no reproach to her
husband when the twins took the disease. And even though Tommy in his
delirium vowed that he would put on his clothes and run away to his old
nurse Sarah, Mrs. Newcome's kindness to him never faltered. What the boy
threatened in his delirium, a year later he actually achieved. He ran
away from home, and appeared one morning, gaunt and hungry, at Sarah's
cottage two hundred miles away from Clapham. She housed the poor prodigal
with many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep; from which
slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose instinct,
backed by Mrs. Newcome's intelligence, had made him at once aware whither
the young runaway had fled. Seeing a horsewhip in his parent's hand,
Tommy, scared out of a sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket,
knew his fate; and getting out of bed, received his punishment without a
word. Very likely the father suffered more than the child; for, when the
punishment was o