As soon as I was dressed, I hastened down stairs, for I longed to
revisit my old haunts--the little plot of garden I had sown with
anemones and cresses; the walk by the peach wall; the pond wherein I
had angled for roach and perch.
Entering the hall, I discovered my Uncle Roland in a great state of
embarrassment. The maid-servant was scrubbing the stones at the hall
door; she was naturally plump, and it is astonishing how much more
plump a female becomes when she is on all fours!--the maid servant
then was scrubbing the stones, her face turned from the Captain, and
the Captain evidently meditating a sortie, stood ruefully gazing at
the obstacle before him, and hemming loud. Alas, the maid servant was
deaf! I stopped, curious to see how Uncle Roland would extricate
himself from the dilemma.
Finding that his hems were in vain, my uncle made himself as small as
he could, and glided close to the left of the wall: at that instant,
the maid turned abruptly round towards the right, and completely
obstructed, by this manœuvre, the slight crevice through which hope
had dawned on her captive. My uncle stood stock-still,--and to say the
truth, he could not have stirred an inch without coming into personal
contact with the rounded charms which blockaded his movements. My
uncle took off his hat and scratched his forehead in great perplexity.
Presently, by a slight turn of the flanks, the opposing party, while
leaving him the opportunity of return, entirely precluded all chance
of egress in that quarter. My uncle retreated in haste, and now
presented himself to the right wing of the enemy. He had scarcely done
so, when, without looking behind her, the blockading party shoved
aside the pail that crippled the range of her operations, and so
placed it that it formed a formidable barricade, which my uncle's cork
leg had no chance of surmounting. Therewith Captain Roland lifted his
eyes appealingly to heaven, and I heard him distinctly ejaculate--
"Would to God she was a creature in breeches!"
But happily at this moment the maid-servant turned her head sharply
round, and seeing the Captain, rose in an instant, moved away the
pail, and dropped a frightened curtsey.
My Uncle Roland touched his hat. "I beg you a thousand pardons, my
good girl," said he; and, with a half bow, he slid into the open air.
"You have a soldier's politeness, uncle," said I, tucking my arm into
Captain Roland's.
"Tush, my boy," said he, smiling seriously, and colouring up to the
temples; "tush, say a gentleman's! To us, sir, every woman is a lady,
in right of her sex."
Now, I had often occasion later to recall that aphorism of my uncle's;
and it served to explain to me, how a man, so prejudiced on the score
of family pride, never seemed to consider it an offence in my father
to have married a woman whose pedigree was as brief as my dear
mother's. Had she been a Montmorenci, my uncle could not have been
more respectful and gallant than he was to that meek descendant of the
Tibbettses. He held, indeed, a doctrine which I never knew any other
man, vain of family, approve or support,--a doctrine deduced from the
following syllogisms: 1st, That birth was not valuable in itself, but
as a transmission of certain qualities which descent from a race of
warriors should perpetuate, viz., truth, courage, honour; 2dly, That,
whereas from the woman's side we derive our more intellectual
faculties, from a man we derive our moral; a clever and witty man
generally has a clever and witty mother; a brave and honourable man, a
brave and honourable father. Therefore, all the qualities which
attention to race should perpetuate are the manly qualities traceable
only from the _father's_ side. Again, he held, that while the
aristocracy have higher and more chivalrous notions, the people
generally have shrewder and livelier ideas. Therefore, to prevent
gentlemen from degenerating into complete dunderheads, an admixture
with the people, provided always it was on the female side, was not
only excusable but expedient; and, finally, my uncle held, that,
whereas a man is a rude, coarse, sensual animal, and requires all
manner of associations to dignify and refine him, woman is so
naturally susceptible of every thing beautiful in sentiment, and
generous in purpose, that she has only to be a true woman to be a fit
peer for a king. Odd and preposterous notions, no doubt, and capable
of much controversy, so far as the doctrine of race (if that be any
way tenable) is concerned; but, then, the plain fact is, that my Uncle
Roland was as eccentric and contradictory a gentleman--as--as--why, as
you and I are, if we once venture to think for ourselves.
"Well, sir, and what profession are you meant for?" asked my uncle.
"Not the army, I fear?"
"I have never thought of the subject, uncle."
"Thank heaven," said Captain Roland, "we have never yet had a lawyer
in the family! nor a stockbroker; nor a tradesm--ahem!"
I saw that my great ancestor the printer suddenly rose up in that hem!
"Why, uncle, there are honourable men in all callings."
"Certainly, sir. But in all callings honour is not the first principle
of action."
"But it may be, sir, if a man of honour pursue it! There are some
soldiers who have been great rascals!"
My uncle looked posed, and his black brows met thoughtfully.
"You are right, boy, I dare say," he answered somewhat mildly. "But do
you think that it ought to give me as much pleasure to look on my old
ruined tower, if I knew it had been bought by some herring-dealer,
like the first ancestor of the Poles, as I do now, when I know it was
given to a knight and gentleman, (who traced his descent from an
Anglo-Dane in the time of King Alfred,) for services done in Aquitaine
and Gascony, by Henry the Plantagenet? And do you mean to tell me,
that I should have been the same man, if I had not from a boy
associated that old tower with all ideas of what its owners were, and
should be, as knights and gentlemen? Sir, you would have made a
different being of me, if at the head of my pedigree you had clapped a
herring-dealer; though, I dare say, the herring-dealer might have been
as good a man as ever the Anglo-Dane was! God rest him!"
"And for the same reason, I suppose, sir, that you think my father
never would have been quite the same being he is, if he had not made
that notable discovery touching our descent from the great William
Caxton, the printer!"
My uncle bounded as if he had been shot; bounded so uncautiously,
considering the materials of which one leg was composed, that he would
have fallen into a strawberry-bed if I had not caught him by the arm.
"Why, you--you--you young jackanapes," cried the Captain, shaking me
off as soon as he had regained his equilibrium. "You do not mean to
inherit that infamous crotchet my brother has got into his head? You
do not mean to exchange Sir William de Caxton, who fought and fell at
Bosworth, for the mechanic who sold blackletter pamphlets in the
sanctuary at Westminster?"
"That depends on the evidence, uncle!"
"No, sir, like all noble truths, it depends upon _faith_. Men,
now-a-days," continued my uncle, with a look of ineffable disgust,
"actually require that truths should be proved."
"It is a sad conceit on their part, no doubt, my dear uncle. But till
a truth is proved, how can we know that it is a truth?"
I thought that in that very sagacious question I had effectually
caught my uncle. Not I. He slipped through it like an eel.
"Sir," said he, "whatever, in Truth, makes a man's heart warmer, and
his soul purer, is a belief, not a knowledge. Proof, sir, is a
handcuff--belief is a wing! Want proof as to an ancestor in the reign
of King Richard! Sir, you cannot even prove to the satisfaction of a
logician that you are the son of your own father. Sir, a religious man
does not want to reason about his religion--religion is not
mathematics. Religion is to be felt, not proved. There are a great
many things in the religion of a good man which are not in the
catechism. Proof!" continued my uncle, growing violent--"Proof, sir,
is a low, vulgar, levelling, rascally Jacobin--Belief is a loyal,
generous, chivalrous gentleman! No, no--prove what you please, you
shall never rob me of one belief, that has made me--"
"The finest hearted creature that ever talked nonsense," said my
father, who came up like Horace's deity just at the right moment.
"What is it you must believe in, brother, no matter what the proof
against you?"
My uncle was silent; and with great energy dug the point of his cane
into the gravel.
"He will not believe in our great ancestor the printer," said I,
maliciously.
My father's calm brow was overcast in a moment.
"Brother," said the Captain loftily, "you have a right to your own
ideas, but you should take care how they contaminate your child."
"Contaminate!" said my father; and for the first time I saw an angry
sparkle flash from his eyes, but he checked himself on the instant;
"change the word, my dear brother."
"No, sir, I will not change it! to bely the records of the family!"
"Records! A brass plate in a village church against all the books of
the College of Arms!"
"To renounce, as your ancestor, a knight who died in the field!"
"For the worst cause that man ever fought for!"
"On behalf of his king!"
"Who had murdered his nephews!"
"A knight! with our crest on his helmet!"
"And no brains underneath it, or he would never have had them knocked
out for so bloody a villain!"
"A rascally, drudging, money-making printer!"
"The wise and glorious introducer of the art that has enlightened a
world. Prefer, for an ancestor, to one whom scholar and sage never
name but in homage, a worthless, obscure, jolter-headed booby in mail,
whose only record to men is a brass plate in a church in a village!"
My uncle turned round perfectly livid. "Enough, sir! enough! I am
insulted sufficiently. I ought to have expected it. I wish you and
your son a very good day."
My father stood aghast. The Captain was hobbling off to the iron gate;
in another moment he would have been out of our precincts. I ran up
and hung upon him. "Uncle, it is all my fault. Between you and me, I
am quite of your side; pray, forgive us both. What could I have been
thinking of, to vex you so! And my father, whom your visit has made so
happy!"
My uncle paused, feeling for the latch of the gate. My father had now
come up, and caught his hand. "What are all the printers that ever
lived, and all the books they ever printed, to one wrong to thy fine
heart, brother Roland? Shame on me! A bookman's weak point, you know!
It is very true, I should never have taught the boy one thing to give
you pain, brother Roland;--though I don't remember," continued my
father, with a perplexed look, "that I ever did teach it him either!
Pisistratus, as you value my blessing, respect, as your ancestor, Sir
William de Caxton, the hero of Bosworth. Come, come, brother!"
"I am an old fool," said Uncle Roland, "whichever way we look at it.
Ah, you young dog! you are laughing at us both!"
"I have ordered breakfast on the lawn," said my mother, coming out
from the porch, with her cheerful smile on her lips; "and I think the
devil will be done to your liking to-day, brother Roland."
"We have had enough of the devil already, my love," said my father,
wiping his forehead.
So, while the birds sang overhead, or hopped familiarly across the
sward for the crumbs thrown forth to them, while the sun was still
cool in the east, and the leaves yet rustled with the sweet air of
morning, we all sate down to our table, with hearts as reconciled to
each other, and as peaceably disposed to thank God for the fair world
around us, as if the river had never run red through the field of
Bosworth, and that excellent Mr Caxton had never set all mankind by
the ears with an irritating invention, a thousand times more
provocative of our combative tendencies than the blast of the trumpet
and the gleam of the banner!