The Caxtons: A Family Picture Part 43

"Well, my young Athenian," said he, after congratulating me on the result of the negotiations, and endeavoring again in vain to bear at least some share in my father's losses, "well, I see I cannot press this further; but at least I can press on you any little interest I may have in obtaining some appointment for yourself in one of the public offices.

Trevanion could of course be more useful; but I can understand that he is not the kind of man you would like to apply to."

"Shall I own to you, my dear Sir Sedley, that I have no taste for official employment? I am too fond of my liberty. Since I have been at my uncle's old Tower, I account for half my character by the Borderer's blood that is in me. I doubt if I am meant for the life of cities; and I have odd floating notions in my head that will serve to amuse me when I get home, and may settle into schemes. And now to change the subject: may I ask what kind of person has succeeded me as Mr. Trevanion's secretary?"

"Why, he has got a broad-shouldered, stooping fellow, in spectacles and cotton stockings, who has written upon 'Rent,' I believe,--an imaginative treatise in his case, I fear, for rent is a thing he could never have received, and not often been trusted to pay. However, he is one of your political economists, and wants Trevanion to sell his pictures, as 'unproductive capital.' Less mild than Pope's Narcissa, 'to make a wash,' he would certainly 'stew a child.' Besides this official secretary, Trevanion trusts, however, a good deal to a clever, good-looking young gentleman who is a great favorite with him."

"What is his name?"

"His name? Oh! Gower,--a natural son, I believe, of one of the Gower family."

Here two of Sir Sedley's fellow fine gentlemen lounged in, and my visit ended.

CHAPTER VII.

"I Swear," cried my uncle, "that it shall be so." And with a big frown and a truculent air he seized the fatal instrument.

"Indeed, brother, it must not," said my father, laying one pale, scholar-like hand mildly on Captain Roland's brown, bellicose, and bony fist, and with the other, outstretched, protecting the menaced, palpitating victim.

Not a word had my uncle heard of our losses until they had been adjusted and the sum paid; for we all knew that the old Tower would have been gone--sold to some neighboring squire or jobbing attorney--at the first impetuous impulse of Uncle Roland's affectionate generosity. Austin endangered! Austin ruined!--he would never have rested till he came, cash in hand, to his deliverance. Therefore, I say, not till all was settled did I write to the Captain and tell him gayly what had chanced.

And however light I made of our misfortunes, the letter brought the Captain to the red brick house the same evening on which I myself reached it, and about an hour later. My uncle had not sold the Tower, but he came prepared to carry us off to it vi et armis. We must live with him and on him, let or sell the brick house, and put out the remnant of my father's income to nurse and acc.u.mulate. And it was on finding my father's resistance stubborn, and that hitherto he had made no way, that my uncle, stepping back into the hall, in which he had left his carpet bag, etc., returned with an old oak case, and, touching a spring roller, out flew the Canton pedigree.

Out it flew, covering all the table, and undulating, Nile-like, till it had spread over books, papers, my mother's work-box, and the tea-service (for the table was large and compendious, emblematic of its owner's mind); and then, flowing on the carpet, dragged its slow length along till it was stopped by the fender.

"Now," said my uncle, solemnly, "there never have been but two causes of difference between you and me, Austin. One is over: why should the other last? Aha! I know why you hang back: you think that we may quarrel about it!"

"About what, Roland?"

"About it, I say; and I'll be d--d if we do!" cried my uncle, reddening.

"And I have been thinking a great deal upon the matter, and I have no doubt you are right. So I brought the old parchment with me, and you shall see me fill up the blank just as you would have it. Now, then, you will come and live with me, and we can never quarrel any more."

Thus saying, Uncle Roland looked round for pen and ink; and having found them,--not without difficulty, for they had been submerged under the overflow of the pedigree,--he was about to fill up the lacuna, or hiatus, which had given rise to such memorable controversy, with the name of "William Caxton, printer in the Sanctuary," when my father, slowly recovering his breath, and aware of his brother's purpose, intervened. It would have done your heart good to hear them, so completely, in the inconsistency of human nature, had they changed sides upon the question,--my father now all for Sir William de Caxton, the hero of Bosworth; my uncle all for the immortal printer. And in this discussion they grew animated their eyes sparkled, their voices rose,--Roland's voice deep and thunderous, Austin's sharp and piercing.

Mr. Squills stopped his ears. Thus it arrived at that point, when my uncle doggedly came to the end of all argumentation,--"I swear that it shall be so;" and my father, trying the last resource of pathos, looked pleadingly into Roland's eyes, and said, with a tone soft as mercy, "Indeed, brother, it must not." Meanwhile the dry parchment crisped, creaked, and trembled in every pore of its yellow skin.

"But," said I, coming in opportunely, like the Horatian deity, "I don't see that either of you gentlemen has a right so to dispose of my ancestry. It is quite clear that a man has no possession in posterity.

Posterity may possess him; but deuce a bit will he ever be the better for his great great-grandchildren!"

Squills.--"Hear, hear!"

Pisistratus (warming).--"But a man's ancestry is a positive property to him. How much, not only of acres, but of his const.i.tution, his temper, his conduct, character, and nature, he may inherit from some progenitor ten times removed! Nay, without that progenitor would he ever have been born,--would a Squills ever have introduced him into the world, or a nurse ever have carried him upo kolpo!"

Squills.--"Hear, hear!"

Pisistratus (with dignified emotion).--"No man, therefore, has a right to rob another of a forefather, with a stroke of his pen, from any motive, howsoever amiable. In the present instance you will say, perhaps, that the ancestor in question is apocryphal,--it may be the printer, it may be the knight. Granted; but here, where history is in fault, shall a mere sentiment decide? While both are doubtful, my imagination appropriates both. At one time I can reverence industry and learning in the printer; at another, valor and devotion in the knight.

This kindly doubt gives me two great forefathers; and, through them, two trains of idea that influence my conduct under different circ.u.mstances.

I will not permit you, Captain Roland, to rob me of either forefather, either train of idea. Leave, then, this sacred void unfilled, unprofaned, and accept this compromise of chivalrous courtesy while my father lives with the Captain, we will believe in the printer; when away from the Captain, we will stand firm to the knight."

"Good!" cried Uncle Roland, as I paused, a little out of breath.

"And," said my mother, softly, "I do think, Austin, there is a way of settling the matter which will please all parties. It is quite sad to think that poor Roland and dear little Blanche should be all alone in the Tower; and I am sure that we should be much happier all together."

"There!" cried Roland, triumphantly. "If you are not the most obstinate, hard-hearted, unfeeling brute in the world,--which I don't take you to be,--brother Austin, after that really beautiful speech of your wife's, there is not a word to be said further."

"But we have not yet heard Kitty to the end, Roland."

"I beg your pardon a thousand times, ma'am--sister," said the Captain, bowing.

"Well, I was going to add," said my mother, "that we will go and live with you, Roland, and club our little fortunes together. Blanche and I will take care of the house, and we shall be just twice as rich together as we are separately."

"Pretty sort of hospitality that!" grunted the Captain. "I did not expect you to throw me over in that way. No, no; you must lay by for the boy there. What's to become of him?"

"But we shall all lay by for him," said my mother, simply,--"you as well as Austin. We shall have more to save, if we have more to spend."

"Ah, save!--that is easily said; there would be a pleasure in saving, then," said the Captain, mournfully.

"And what's to become of me?" cried Squills, very petulantly. "Am I to be left here in my old age, not a rational soul to speak to, and no other place in the village where there's a drop of decent punch to be had? 'A plague on both your houses!' as the chap said at the theatre the other night."

"There's room for a doctor in our neighborhood, Mr. Squills," said the Captain. "The gentleman in your profession who does for us, wants, I know, to sell the business."

"Humph," said Squills,--"a horribly healthy neighborhood, I suspect!"

"Why, it has that misfortune, Mr. Squills; but with your help," said my uncle, slyly, "a great alteration for the better may be effected in that respect."

Mr. Squills was about to reply when ring--a--ting--ring--ting!

there came such a brisk, impatient, make-one's-self-at home kind of tintinnabular alarum at the great gate that we all started up and looked at each other in surprise. Who could it possibly be? We were not kept long in suspense; for in another moment Uncle Jack's voice, which was always very clear and distinct, pealed through the hall, and we were still staring at each other when Mr. Tibbets, with a bran-new m.u.f.fler round his neck, and a peculiarly comfortable greatcoat,--best double Saxony, equally new,--dashed into the room, bringing with him a very considerable quant.i.ty of cold air, which he hastened to thaw, first in my father's arms, next in my mother's. He then made a rush at the Captain, who ensconced himself behind the dumb-waiter with a "Hem!

Mr.--sir--Jack--sir--hem, hem!" Failing there, Mr. Tibbets rubbed off the remaining frost upon his double Saxony against your humble servant, patted Squills affectionately on the back, and then proceeded to occupy his favorite position before the fire.

"Took you by surprise, eh?" said Uncle Jack, unpeeling himself by the hearth-rug. "But no,--not by surprise; you must have known Jack's heart: you at least, Austin Caxton, who know everything,--you must have seen that it overflowed with the tenderest and most brotherly emotions; that once delivered from that cursed Fleet (you have no idea what a place it is, sir!), I could not rest, night or day, till I had flown here,--here, to the dear family nest,--poor wounded dove that I am," added Uncle Jack, pathetically, and taking out his pocket-handkerchief from the double Saxony, which he had now flung over my father's arm-chair.

Not a word replied to this eloquent address, with its touching peroration. My mother hung down her pretty head and looked ashamed. My uncle retreated quite into the corner and drew the dumb-waiter after him, so as to establish a complete fortification. Mr. Squills seized the pen that Roland had thrown down, and began mending it furiously,--that is, cutting it into slivers,--thereby denoting, symbolically, how he would like to do with Uncle Jack, could he once get him safe and snug under his manipular operations. I bent over the pedigree, and my father rubbed his spectacles.

The silence would have been appalling to another man nothing appalled Uncle Jack.

Uncle Jack turned to the fire, and warmed first one foot, then the other. This comfortable ceremony performed, he again faced the company, and resumed, musingly, and as if answering some imaginary observations,--

"Yes, yes, you are right there; and a deuced unlucky speculation it proved too. But I was overruled by that fellow Peck. Says I to him, says I, 'Capitalist!--pshaw! no popular interest there; it don't address the great public! Very confined cla.s.s the capitalists, better throw ourselves boldly on the people. Yes,' said I, 'call it the "Anti-Capitalist."' By Jove! sir, we should have carried all before us!

but I was overruled. The 'Anti-Capitalist'!--what an idea! Address the whole reading world, there, sir: everybody hates the capitalist--everybody would have his neighbor's money. The 'Anti-Capitalist'!--sir, we should have gone off, in the manufacturing towns, like wildfire. But what could I do?--"

"John Tibbets," said my father, solemnly, "Capitalist 'or'

Anti-Capitalist,' thou hadst a right to follow thine own bent in either,--but always provided it had been with thine own money. Thou seest not the thing, John Tibbets, in the right point of view; and a little repentance in the face of those thou hast wronged, would not have misbecome thy father's son and thy sister's brother!"

Never had so severe a rebuke issued from the mild lips of Austin Caxton; and I raised my eyes with a compa.s.sionate thrill, expecting to see John Tibbets gradually sink and disappear through the carpet.

"Repentance!" cried Uncle Jack, bounding up as if ha had been shot. "And do you think I have a heart of stone, of pumice-stone? Do you think I don't repent? I have done nothing but repent; I shall repent to my dying day."

"Then there is no more to be said, Jack," cried my father, softening, and holding out his hand.