ainst 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 thin