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Then came the birth of Mrs. Newcome’s twin boys, Hobson and Bryan, and now there was no reason why young Newcome, their step-brother, should not go to school, and to Grey Friars Thomas Newcome was accordingly sent, exchanging–O ye gods! with what delight–the splendour of Clapham for the rough, plentiful fare of the new place. The pleasures of school-life were such to him that he did not care to go home for a holiday; for by playing tricks and breaking windows, by taking the gardener’s peaches and the housekeeper’s jam, by upsetting his two little brothers in a go-cart (of which injury the Baronet’s nose bore marks to his dying day), by going to sleep during the sermons, and treating reverend gentlemen with levity, he drew down on himself the merited anger of his step-mother; and many punishments. To please Mrs. Newcome, his father whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the go-cart; but, upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other prank, Mr. Newcome refused, saying that the boy got flogging enough at school, with which opinion Master Tommy fully agreed. His step-mother, however, determined to make the young culprit smart for his offences, and one day, when Mr. Newcome was absent, and Tommy refractory as usual, summoned the butler and footman to flog the young criminal. But he dashed so furiously against the butler’s shins as to cause that menial to limp and suffer for many days after; and, seizing the decanter, he threatened to discharge it at Mrs. Newcome’s head before he would submit to the punishment she desired administered. When Mr. Newcome returned, he was indignant at his wife’s treatment of Tommy, and said so, to her great displeasure. This affair, indeed, almost caused a break in their relations, and friends and clergy were obliged to interfere to allay the domestic quarrel. At length Mrs. Newcome, who was not unkind, and could be brought to own that she was sometimes in fault, was induced to submit to the decrees of her husband, whom she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill of scarlet fever she nursed him through his illness, and uttered no reproach to her husband when the twins took the disease. And even though Tommy in his delirium vowed that he would put on his clothes and run away to his old nurse Sarah, Mrs. Newcome’s kindness to him never faltered. What the boy threatened in his delirium, a year later he actually achieved. He ran away from home, and appeared one morning, gaunt and hungry, at Sarah’s cottage two hundred miles away from Clapham. She housed the poor prodigal with many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep; from which slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcome’s intelligence, had made him at once aware whither the young runaway had fled. Seeing a horsewhip in his parent’s hand, Tommy, scared out of a sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket, knew his fate; and getting out of bed, received his punishment without a word. Very likely the father suffered more than the child; for, when the punishment was over, the little man yet quivering with the pain, held out his little bleeding hand, and said, “I can–I can take it from you, sir,” saying which his face flushed, and his eyes filled, whereupon the father burst into a passion of tears, and embraced the boy, and kissed him, besought him to be rebellious no more, flung the whip away from him, and swore, come what would, he would never strike him again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy reconciliation. But the truce was only a temporary one. War very soon broke out again between the impetuous lad and his rigid, domineering step-mother. It was not that he was very bad, nor she so very stern, but the two could not agree. The boy sulked and was miserable at home, and, after a number of more serious escapades than he had before indulged in, he was sent to a tutor for military instruction, where he was prepared for the army and received a fairly good professional education. He cultivated mathematics and fortification, and made rapid progress in his study of the French language. But again did our poor Tommy get into trouble, and serious trouble indeed this time, for it involved his French master’s pretty young daughter as well as himself. Frantic with wrath and despair at the unfortunate climax of events, young Newcome embarked for India, and quitted the parents whom he was never more to see. His name was no more mentioned at Clapham, but he wrote constantly to his father, who sent Tom liberal private remittances to India, and was in turn made acquainted with the fact of his son’s marriage, and later received news of the birth of his grandson, Clive.