It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the boy which he
was to take to school. Molly, the housemaid, blubbered in the passage
when he went away--Molly kind and faithful in spite of a long arrear of
unpaid wages. Mrs. Becky could not let her husband have the carriage
to take the boy to school. Take the horses into the City!--such a
thing was never heard of. Let a cab be brought. She did not offer to
kiss him when he went, nor did the child propose to embrace her; but
gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was very shy of
caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that he was to come home
on Saturdays, when she would have the benefit of seeing him. As the
cab rolled towards the City, Becky's carriage rattled off to the park.
She was chattering and laughing with a score of young dandies by the
Serpentine as the father and son entered at the old gates of the
school--where Rawdon left the child and came away with a sadder purer
feeling in his heart than perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever
known since he himself came out of the nursery.
He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined alone with Briggs.
He was very kind to her and grateful for her love and watchfulness over
the boy. His conscience smote him that he had borrowed Briggs's money
and aided in deceiving her. They talked about little Rawdon a long
time, for Becky only came home to dress and go out to dinner--and then
he went off uneasily to drink tea with Lady Jane, and tell her of what
had happened, and how little Rawdon went off like a trump, and how he
was to wear a gown and little knee-breeches, and how young Blackball,
Jack Blackball's son, of the old regiment, had taken him in charge and
promised to be kind to him.
In the course of a week, young Blackball had constituted little Rawdon
his fag, shoe-black, and breakfast toaster; initiated him into the
mysteries of the Latin Grammar; and thrashed him three or four times,
but not severely. The little chap's good-natured honest face won his
way for him. He only got that degree of beating which was, no doubt,
good for him; and as for blacking shoes, toasting bread, and fagging in
general, were these offices not deemed to be necessary parts of every
young English gentleman's education?
Our business does not lie with the second generation and Master
Rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present tale might be carried to
any indefinite length. The Colonel went to see his son a short time
afterwards and found the lad sufficiently well and happy, grinning and
laughing in his little black gown and little breeches.