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On the forenoon of the day that followed Mat's return to Kirk Street, the ordinarily dull aspect of Baregrove Square was enlivened by a procession of three handsome private carriages which stopped at Mr. Thorpe's door. From each carriage there descended gentlemen of highly respectable appearance, clothed in shining black garments, and wearing, for the most part, white cravats.
Goodworth's announcement of his benevolent intentions towards Zack seemed to have very little effect on Mrs. Thorpe; but she said nothing on that subject or any other during the rest of the dreary walk home, through rain, fog, and mud, to Baregrove Square. Rooms have their mysterious peculiarities of physiognomy as well as men. Now, the parlor of Mr.
Zachary Thorpe the younger that is to say, in the year 1837 Baregrove Square was the farthest square from the city, and the nearest to the country, of any then existing in the north-western suburb of London.
Never was suburb more impervious to any faint influences of this sort, than that especial suburb which grew up between Baregrove Square and the country; removing a walk among the hedge-rows a mile off from the resident families, with a ruthless rapidity at which sufferers on all sides stared aghast.
Would she like a thimble? or an almanack? or a pair of cuffs? or a pot of bear's grease? Here Zack suddenly paused in his mental interrogatories; for he had arrived within sight of his home in Baregrove Square. A change passed over his handsome face: he frowned, and his color deepened as he looked up at the light in his father's window.
"Now, Zack," said Valentine, after he had related the result of his visit to Baregrove Square, and had faithfully reported the contents of Mrs. Thorpe's letter, "I shall only add that whatever has happened between your father and me, makes no difference in the respect I have always felt for your mother, and in my earnest desire to do her every service in my power.
He paused, looking through the damp, foggy atmosphere at the door which he had just left never, it might be, to approach it again; then moved away, buttoned his coat over his chest with trembling, impatient fingers, and saying to himself, "I've done it, and nothing can undo it now," turned his back resolutely on Baregrove Square.
Regardless of the rain, Mat walked slowly up and down the streets round Baregrove Square, peering every now and then, from afar off, through the misty shower, to see if the carriages were still drawn up at Mr. Thorpe's door. The ceremony of presenting the Testimonial was evidently a protracted one; for the vehicles were long kept waiting for their owners.
Finding that all menaces and reproofs only ended in making the lad ill-tempered and insubordinate for days together, Mr. Thorpe so far distrusted his own powers of correction as to call in the aid of his prime clerical adviser, the Reverend Aaron Yollop; under whose ministry he sat, and whose portrait, in lithograph, hung in the best light on the dining-room wall at Baregrove Square. Mr.
Alas for the tranquillity of parents with pleasure-loving sons! alas for Mr. Valentine Blyth's idea of teaching his pupil to be steady, by teaching him to draw! this furious young gentleman was no other than Mr. Zachary Thorpe, Junior, of Baregrove Square. "Damn you all, you cowardly counter-jumping scoundrels!" roared Zack, his eyes aflame with valor, generosity, and gin-and-water.
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