The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray (good english books to read TXT) 📕

Lyndon.” And well he might like him, for many a time, at the dear angel’s intercession of “Papa, don’t flog Bully today!” I have held my hand, and saved him a horsing, which he richly deserved.

With his mother, at first, he would scarcely deign to have any communication. He said she was no longer one of the family. Why should he love her, as she had never been a mother to him? But it will give the reader an idea of the dogged obstinacy and surliness of the lad’s character, when I mention one trait regarding him. It has been made a matter of complaint against 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 think of (and which I promise you I returned with interest): and it was at the age of sixteen, I think, that the impudent young hangdog, on my return from Parliament one summer, and on my proposing to cane him as usual, gave me to understand that he would submit to no farther chastisement from me, and said, grinding his teeth, that he would shoot me if I laid hands on him. I looked at him; he was grown, in fact, to be a tall young man, and I gave up that necessary part of his education.

It was about this time that I raised the company which was to serve in America; and my enemies in the country (and since my victory over the Tiptoffs I scarce need say I had many of them) began to propagate the most shameful reports regarding my conduct to that precious young scapegrace my stepson, and to insinuate that I actually wished to get rid of him. Thus my loyalty to my Sovereign was actually construed into a horrid unnatural attempt on my part on Bullingdon’s life; and it was said that I had raised the American corps for the sole purpose of getting the young Viscount to command it, and so of getting rid of him. I am not sure that they had not fixed upon the name of the very man in the company who was ordered to despatch him at the first general action, and the bribe I was to give him for this delicate piece of service.

But the truth is, I was of opinion then (and though the fulfilment of my prophecy has been delayed, yet I make no doubt it will be brought to pass ere long), that my Lord Bullingdon needed none of my aid in sending him into the other world; but had a happy knack of finding the way thither himself, which he would be sure to pursue. In truth, he began upon this way early: of all the violent, daring, disobedient scapegraces that ever caused an affectionate parent pain, he was certainly the most incorrigible; there was no beating him, or coaxing him, or taming him.

For instance, with my little son, when his governor brought him into the room as we were over the bottle after dinner, my Lord would begin his violent and undutiful sarcasms at me.

“Dear child,” he would say, beginning to caress and fondle him, “what a pity it is I am not dead for thy sake! The Lyndons would then have a worthier representative, and enjoy all the benefit of the illustrious blood of