Each had
a room plainly furnished, about one hundred and fifty dollars a year,
rations, and a dinner every day in the great hall. The boys, who did
not often know their names, gave them nicknames by which they became
generally known. Thus three were called "Battle," "Murder" and
"Sudden Death;" another "Larky," in consequence of a certain levity
of demeanor at divine service. These old gentlemen were expected to
attend chapel daily. Every evening at nine o'clock the chapel bell
tolled the exact number of them, just as Great Tom at Christ Church,
Oxford, nightly rings out the number of the students. Being for
the most part aged men, soured by misfortune and failure, they are
naturally enough often hard to please and difficult to deal with.
No passage in Thackeray's writings is more deeply pathetic than
that in which he records the last scene of one "poor brother," that
Bayard of fiction, Colonel Newcome: "At the usual evening hour the
chapel-bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed
feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet
smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and
quickly said, 'Adsum!' and fell back. It was the word he used at
school when names, were called; and lo, he whose heart was as that of
a little child had answered to his name and stood in the presence of
the Master.
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