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 L