y whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the
go-cart; but upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other
peccadillo performed soon after, Mr. Newcome refused at once, using a
wicked, worldly expression, which well might shock any serious lady;
saying, in fact, that he would be deed if he beat the boy any more, and
that he got flogging enough at school, in which opinion Master Tommy
fully coincided.

The undaunted woman, his stepmother, was not to be made to forgo her
plans for the boy's reform by any such vulgar ribaldries; and Mr.
Newcome being absent in the City on his business, and Tommy refractory
as usual, she summoned the serious butler and the black footman (for
the lashings of whose brethren she felt an unaffected pity) to operate
together in the chastisement of this young criminal. But he dashed so
furiously against the butler's shins as to draw blood from his comely
limbs, and to cause that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer
for many days after; and, seizing the decanter, he swore he would
demolish blacky's ugly face with it: nay, he threatened to discharge it
at Mrs. Newcome's own head before he would submit to the coercion which
she desired her agents to administer.

High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcome that night on the
gentleman's return home from the City, and on his learning the events
of the morning. It is to be feared he made use of further oaths, which
hasty ejaculations need not be set down in this place; at any rate, he
behaved with spirit and manliness as master of the house, vowed that if
any servant laid a hand on the child, he would thrash him first and
then discharge him; and I dare say expressed himself with bitterness
and regret that he had married a wife who would not be obedient to her
husband, and had entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the
master. Friends were called in--the interference, the supplications,
of the Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the Hermitage,
prevailed to allay this domestic quarrel; and no doubt the good sense
of Mrs. Newcome--who, though imperious, was yet not unkind; and who,
excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own that she was sometimes
in fault--induced her to make at least a temporary submission to the
man whom she had placed at the head of her house, and whom it must be
confessed she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill of the
scarlet fever, which afflicting even