The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

Chapter XXIV

Volume One, Chapter XXIV 113 chapter xxiv. Trunnion is enraged at the conduct of Pickle. Peregrine resents the injustice of his mother, to whom he explains his sentiments in a letter. Is entered at the University of Oxford, where he signalizes himself as a youth of an enterprising genius. Unspeakable were the transports of rage to which Trunnion was incensed by this absurd renunciation: he tore the letter with his gums, (teeth he had none) spit with furious grimaces, in token of the contempt he entertained for the author, whom he not only damned as a lousy, scabby, nasty, scurvy, sculking, lubberly noodle,1 but resolved to challenge to single combat with fire and sword; but he was dissuaded from this violent measure, and appeased by the intervention and advice of the lieutenant and Mr. Jolter, who represented the message as the effect of the poor man’s infirmity, for which he was rather an object of pity than of resentment; and turned the stream of his indignation against the wife, whom he reviled accordingly. Nor did Peregrine himself bear with patience this injurious declaration, the nature of which he no sooner understood from Hatchway, than equally shocked and exasperated, he retired to his apartment , and in the first emotions of his ire, produced the following epistle, which was immediately conveyed to his mother. Madam, Had nature formed me a bugbear to the sight, and inspired me with a soul as vicious as my body was detestable, perhaps I might have enjoyed particular marks of your affection and applause; seeing you have persecuted me with such unnatural aversion, for no other visible reason than that of my differing so widely in shape as well as disposition, from that deformed urchin who is the object of your tenderness and care. If those be the terms on which alone I can obtain your favour, I pray God you may never cease to hate, Madam, Your most injured son Peregrine Pickle. This letter, which nothing but his passion and inexperience could excuse, had such an effect upon his mother, as may be easily conceived. She was enraged to a degree of frenzy against the writer; though at the same time she considered the whole as the production of Mrs. Trunnion’s particular pique, and represented it to her husband as an insult, that he was bound in honour to resent, by breaking off all correspondence with the commodore and his family. This was a bitter pill to Gamaliel, who, through a long course of years, was so habituated to Trunnion’s company, that he could as easily have parted with a limb, as have relinquished the club all at once. He therefore ventured to represent his own incapacity to follow her advice, and begged that he might at least be allowed to drop the connexion gradually; protesting that he would do his endeavour to give her all manner of satisfaction.2 114 The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle Mean while preparations were made for Peregrine’s departure to the university, and in a few weeks he set out in the seventeenth year of his age, accompanied by the same attendants who lived with him at Winchester, after his uncle had laid strong injunctions upon him to avoid the company of immodest women,3 to mind his learning, to let him hear of his welfare as often as he could spare time to write, and had settled his appointments at the rate of five hundred a year, including his governor’s salary, which was one fifth part of the sum. The heart of our young gentleman dilated at the prospect of the figure he should make with such an handsome annuity, the management of which was left to his own discretion; and he amused his imagination with the most agreeable reveries during his journey to Oxford,4 which he performed in two days. Here being introduced to the head of the college, to whom he had been recommended, accommodated with genteel apartments, entered as a gentleman commoner in the books, and provided with a judicious tutor, instead of returning to the study of Greek and Latin, in which he thought himself already sufficiently instructed; he renewed his acquaintance with some of his old school-fellows, whom he found in the same situation, and was by them initiated in all the fashionable diversions of the place. It was not long before he made himself remarkable for his spirit and humour, which were so acceptable...