For a ghastly bankruptcy overwhelmed the Bundeleund Bank, and with its failure went all Colonel Newcome's savings, and all Mrs. Mackenzie's money and her daughter's. Even the Colonel's pension and annuities were swallowed up in the general ruin, for the old man would pay every shilling of his debts.
When I ventured to ask the Colonel why Mrs. Mackenzie should continue to live with them--"She has a right to live in the house," he said, "it is I who have no right in it. I am a poor old pensioner, don't you see, subsisting on Rosey's bounty. We live on the hundred a year secured to her at her marriage, and Mrs. Mackenzie has her forty pounds of pension which she adds to the common stock. They put their little means together, and they keep us--me and Clive. What can we do for a living? Great God! What can we do?"
But Clive was getting on tolerably well, at his painting, and many sitters came to him from amongst his old friends; he had work, scantily paid it is true, but work sufficient. "I am pretty easy in my mind, since I have become acquainted with a virtuous dealer," the painter assured me one day. "I sell myself to him, body and soul, for some half dozen pounds a week. I know I can get my money, and he is regularly supplied with his pictures. But for Rosey's illness we might carry on well enough."
Rosey's illness? I was sorry to hear of that; and poor Clive, entering into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors rather more than a fourth of his year's earnings.
IV.--The Colonel Says "Adsum" When His Name is Called
Mention has been made of the Grey Friars school--where the Colonel and Clive and I had been brought up, an ancient foundation still subsisting at Smithfield.
On the 12th of December, the Founder's Day, a goodly company of old Cistercians is generally brought together, to hear a sermon in chapel; after which we adjourn to a great dinner, where old condisciples meet, and speeches are made. In the chapel sit some three-score old gentlemen pensioners of the hospital, listening to the prayers and the psalms.
The service for Founder's Day is a special one, and we hear--
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord
upholdeth him with his hand.
I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.
As we came to this verse in the psalms I chanced to look up from my book towards the black-coated pensioners, and amongst them--amongst them--sat Thomas Newcome.