d had tried to condole with
the widow, or bring the subject of the Fotheringay affair on the tapis,
and had been severally checked by the haughty reserve of Mrs. Pendennis,
supported by the frigid politeness of the Major her brother.

These rebuffs, however, did not put an end to the gossip, and slander
went on increasing about the unlucky Fairoaks' family. Glanders (H.P.),
a retired cavalry officer, whose half-pay and large family compelled
him to fuddle himself with brandy-and-water instead of claret after he
quitted the Dragoons, had the occasional entree at Fairoaks, and kept
his friend the Major there informed of all the stories which were
current at Clavering. Mrs. Pybus had taken an inside place by the coach
to Chatteris, and gone to the George on purpose to get the particulars.
Mrs. Speers's man, had treated Mr. Foker's servant to drink at Baymouth
for a similar purpose. It was said that Pen had hanged himself for
despair in the orchard, and that his uncle had cut him down; that, on
the contrary, it was Miss Costigan who was jilted, and not young Arthur;
and that the affair had only been hushed up by the payment of a large
sum of money, the exact amount of which there were several people in
Clavering could testify--the sum of course varying according to the
calculation of the individual narrator of the story.

Pen shook his mane and raged like a furious lion when these scandals,
affecting Miss Costigan's honour and his own, came to his ears. Why was
not Pybus a man (she had whiskers enough), that he might call her out
and shoot her? Seeing Simcoe pass by, Pen glared at him so from his
saddle on Rebecca, and clutched his whip in a manner so menacing, that
that clergyman went home and wrote a sermon, or thought over a sermon
(for he delivered oral testimony at great length), in which he spoke
of Jezebel, theatrical entertainments (a double cut this--for Doctor
Portman, the Rector of the old church, was known to frequent such), and
of youth going to perdition, in a manner which made it clear to every
capacity that Pen was the individual meant, and on the road alluded to.
What stories more were there not against young Pendennis, whilst he
sate sulking, Achilles-like in his tent, for the loss of his ravished
Briseis?

After the affair with Hobnell, Pen was pronounced to be a murderer as
well as a profligate, and his name became a name of terror and a byword
in Clavering. But this was not all; he was not the only on