He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a
giant of his own form whom he had worsted in the combat. "Didn't I pitch
into him, that's all?" says he in the elation of victory; and, when I
asked whence the quarrel arose, he stoutly informed me that "Wolf Minor,
his opponent, had been bullying a little boy, and that he, the gigantic
Newcome, wouldn't stand it."
So, being called away from the school, I said "Farewell and God bless
you," to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars,
where his career and troubles had only just begun, and lost sight of him
for several years. Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man
occupying chambers in the Temple.
Meanwhile the years of Clive's absence had slowly worn away for Colonel
Newcome, and at last the happy time came which he had been longing more
passionately than any prisoner for liberty, or schoolboy for holiday. The
Colonel had taken leave of his regiment. He had travelled to Calcutta;
and the Commander-in-Chief announced that in giving to Lieutenant-Colonel
Thomas Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, leave for the first time, after no
less than thirty-four years' absence from home, he could not refrain from
expressing his sense of the great services of this most distinguished
officer, who had left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline
and efficiency.
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