"
Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by his strange reception. Here was
a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next
Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was
a beardless young sprig, who patronised him and asked him whether he
found London was changed. As soon as possible he ended the interview with
his step-brothers, and drove back to Ludgate Hill, where he dismissed his
cab and walked across the muddy pavements of Smithfield, on his way back
to the old school where his son was, a way which he had trodden many a
time in his own early days. There was Cistercian Street, and the Red Cow
of his youth; there was the quaint old Grey Friars Square, with its
blackened trees and garden, surrounded by ancient houses of the build of
the last century, now slumbering like pensioners in the sunshine.
Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic
building; and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet
square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses of
the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient
buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping
forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the
schoolboys' windows; their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely
with the quiet of those old men, creeping along in their black gowns
under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose
hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm.
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