My uncle did not leave his room for three days, but he was much
closeted with a lawyer; and my father dropped some words which
seemed to imply that the deceased had incurred debts, and that the
poor Captain was making some charge on his small property. As Roland
had said that he had seen the remains of his son, I took it at first
for granted that we should attend a funeral, but no word of this was
said. On the fourth day, Roland, in deep mourning, entered a hackney
coach with the lawyer, and was absent about two hours. I did not
doubt that he had thus quietly fulfilled the last mournful offices.
On his return, he shut himself up again for the rest of the day,
and would not see even my father. But the next morning he made his
appearance as usual, and I even thought that he seemed more cheerful
than I had yet known him--whether he played a part, or whether the
worst was now over, and the grave was less cruel than uncertainty.
On the following day, we all set out for Cumberland.
In the interval, Uncle Jack had been almost constantly at the house,
and, to do him justice, he had seemed unaffectedly shocked at the
calamity that had befallen Roland. There was, indeed, no want of
heart in Uncle Jack, whenever you went straight at it; but it was
hard to find if you took a circuitous route towards it through the
pockets. The worthy speculator had indeed much business to transact
with my father before we left town. The _Anti-Publisher Society_
had been set up, and it was through the obstetric aid of that
fraternity that the Great Book was to be ushered into the world. The
new journal, the _Literary Times_, was also far advanced--not yet
out, but my father was fairly in for it. There were preparations for
its debut on a vast scale, and two or three gentlemen in black--one
of whom looked like a lawyer, and another like a printer, and a
third uncommonly like a Jew--called twice, with papers of a very
formidable aspect. All these preliminaries settled, the last thing
I heard Uncle Jack say, with a slap on my father's back, was, "Fame
and fortune both made now!--you may go to sleep in safety, for you
leave me wide awake. Jack Tibbets never sleeps!"
I had thought it strange that, since my abrupt exodus from
Trevanion's house, no notice had been taken of any of us by himself
or Lady Ellinor. But on the very eve of our departure, came a kind
note from Trevanion to me, dated from his favourite country seat,
(accompanied by a present of some rare books to my father,) in which
he said briefly that there had been illness in his family, which had
obliged him to leave town for a change of air, but that Lady Ellinor
expected to call on my mother the next week. He had found amongst
his books some curious works of the Middle Ages, amongst others a
complete set of Cardan, which he knew my father would like to have,
and so sent them. There was no allusion to what had passed between
us.
In reply to this note, after due thanks on my father's part, who
seized upon the Cardan (Lyons edition, 1663, ten volumes folio) as
a silkworm does upon a mulberry leaf, I expressed our joint regrets
that there was no hope of our seeing Lady Ellinor, as we were just
leaving town. I should have added something on the loss my uncle had
sustained, but my father thought that, since Roland shrank from any
mention of his son, even by his nearest kindred, it would be his
obvious wish not to parade his affliction beyond that circle.
And there had been illness in Trevanion's family! On whom had it
fallen? I could not rest satisfied with that general expression, and
I took my answer myself to Trevanion's house, instead of sending it
by the post. In reply to my inquiries, the porter said that all the
family were expected at the end of the week; that he had heard both
Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion had been rather poorly, but that
they were now better. I left my note, with orders to forward it; and
my wounds bled afresh as I came away.
We had the whole coach to ourselves in our journey, and a silent
journey it was, till we arrived at a little town about eight miles
from my uncle's residence, to which we could only get through a
cross-road. My uncle insisted on preceding us that night, and,
though he had written, before we started, to announce our coming, he
was fidgety lest the poor tower should not make the best figure it
could;--so he went alone, and we took our ease at our inn.
Betimes the next day we hired a fly-coach--for a chaise could never
have held us and my father's books--and jogged through a labyrinth
of villanous lanes, which no Marshal Wade had ever reformed from
their primal chaos. But poor Mrs Primmins and the canary-bird
alone seemed sensible of the jolts; the former, who sate opposite
to us, wedged amidst a medley of packages, all marked "care, to
be kept top uppermost," (why I know not, for they were but books,
and whether they lay top or bottom it could not materially affect
their value,)--the former, I say, contrived to extend her arms over
those _disjecta membra_, and, griping a window-sill with the right
hand, and a window-sill with the left, kept her seat rampant, like
the split eagle of the Austrian Empire--in fact it would be well,
now-a-days, if the split eagle were as firm as Mrs Primmins! As for
the canary, it never failed to respond, by an astonished chirp, to
every "Gracious me!" and "Lord save us!" which the delve into a rut,
or the bump out of it, sent forth from Mrs Primmins's lips, with all
the emphatic dolor of thἂe "Ἂῖ, ἂῖ" in a Greek chorus.
But my father, with his broad hat over his brows, was in deep
thought. The scenes of his youth were rising before him, and his
memory went, smooth as a spirit's wing, over delve and bump. And
my mother, who sat next him, had her arm on his shoulder, and was
watching his face jealously. Did she think that, in that thoughtful
face, there was regret for the old love? Blanche, who had been
very sad, and had wept much and quietly since they put on her the
mourning, and told her that she had no brother, (though she had no
remembrance of the lost), began now to evince infantine curiosity
and eagerness to catch the first peep of her father's beloved tower.
And Blanche sat on my knee, and I shared her impatience. At last
there came in view a church spire--a church--a plain square building
near it, the parsonage, (my father's old home)--a long straggling
street of cottages and rude shops, with a better kind of house here
and there--and in the hinder ground, a gray deformed mass of wall
and ruin, placed on one of those eminences on which the Danes loved
to pitch camp or build fort, with one high, rude, Anglo-Norman tower
rising from the midst. Few trees were round it, and those either
poplars or firs, save, as we approached, one mighty oak--integral
and unscathed. The road now wound behind the parsonage, and up a
steep ascent. Such a road!--the whole parish ought to have been
flogged for it! If I had sent up a road like that, even on a map, to
Dr Herman, I should not have sat down in comfort for a week to come!
The fly-coach came to a full stop.
"Let us get out," cried I, opening the door and springing to the
ground to set the example.
Blanche followed, and my respected parents came next. But when Mrs
Primmins was about to heave herself into movement,
"_Papæ!_" said my father. "I think, Mrs Primmins, you must remain
in, to keep the books steady."
"Lord love you!" cried Mrs Primmins, aghast.
"The subtraction of such a mass, or _moles_--supple and elastic
as all flesh is, and fitting into the hard corners of the inert
matter--such a subtraction, Mrs Primmins, would leave a vacuum which
no natural system, certainly no artificial organisation, could
sustain. There would be a regular dance of atoms, Mrs Primmins; my
books would fly here, there, on the floor, out of the window!
"_Corporis officium est quoniam omnia deorsum._"
The business of a body like yours, Mrs Primmins, is to press all
things down--to keep them tight, as you will know one of these
days--that is, if you will do me the favour to read Lucretius,
and master that material philosophy, of which I may say, without
flattery, my dear Mrs Primmins, that you are a living illustration."
These, the first words my father had spoken since we set out
from the inn, seemed to assure my mother that she need have no
apprehension as to the character of his thoughts, for her brow
cleared, and she said, laughing,
"Only look at poor Primmins, and then at that hill!"
"You may subtract Primmins, if you will be answerable for the
remnant, Kitty. Only, I warn you that it is against all the laws of
physics."
So saying, he sprang lightly forward, and, taking hold of my arm,
paused and looked round, and drew the loud free breath with which we
draw native air.
"And yet," said my father, after that grateful and affectionate
inspiration--"and yet, it must be owned, that a more ugly country
one cannot see out of Cambridgeshire."[5]
[5] This certainly cannot be said of Cumberland generally, one of
the most beautiful counties in Great Britain. But the immediate
district to which Mr Caxton's exclamation refers; if not ugly, is at
least savage, bare, and rude.
"Nay," said I, "it is bold and large, it has a beauty of its own.
Those immense, undulating, uncultivated, treeless tracks have
surely their charm of wildness and solitude! And how they suit the
character of the ruin! All is feudal there: I understand Roland
better now."
"I hope in heaven Cardan will come to no harm!" cried my father; "he
is very handsomely bound; and he fitted beautifully just into the
fleshiest part of that fidgety Primmins."
Blanche, meanwhile, had run far before us, and I followed fast.
There were still the remains of that deep trench (surrounding the
ruins on three sides, leaving a ragged hill-top at the fourth) which
made the favourite fortification of all the Teutonic tribes. A
causeway, raised on brick arches, now, however, supplied the place
of the drawbridge, and the outer gate was but a mass of picturesque
ruin. Entering into the courtyard or bailey, the old castle mound,
from which justice had been dispensed, was in full view, rising
higher than the broken walls around it, and partially overgrown with
brambles. And there stood, comparatively whole, the tower or keep,
and from its portals emerged the veteran owner.
His ancestors might have received us in more state, but certainly
they could not have given us a warmer greeting. In fact, in his
own domain, Roland appeared another man. His stiffness, which
was a little repulsive to those who did not understand it, was
all gone. He seemed less proud, precisely because he and his
pride, on that ground, were on good terms with each other. How
gallantly he extended--not his arm, in our modern Jack-and-Jill
sort of fashion--but his right hand, to my mother; how carefully
he led her over "brake, bush, and scaur," through the low vaulted
door, where a tall servant, who, it was easy to see, had been a
soldier--in the precise livery, no doubt, warranted by the heraldic
colours, (his stockings were red!)--stood upright as a sentry.
And, coming into the hall, it looked absolutely cheerful--it took
us by surprise. There was a great fire-place, and, though it was
still summer, a great fire! It did not seem a bit too much, for
the walls were stone, the lofty roof open to the rafters, while
the windows were small and narrow, and so high and so deep sunk
that one seemed in a vault. Nevertheless, I say the room looked
sociable and cheerful--thanks principally to the fire, and partly
to a very ingenious medley of old tapestry at one end, and matting
at the other, fastened to the lower part of the walls, seconded
by an arrangement of furniture which did credit to my uncle's
taste for the Picturesque. After we had looked about and admired
to our hearts' content, Roland took us--not up one of those noble
staircases you see in the later manorial residences--but a little
winding stone stair, into the rooms he had appropriated to his
guests. There was first a small chamber, which he called my father's
study--in truth, it would have done for any philosopher or saint who
wished to shut out the world--and might have passed for the interior
of such a column as Stylites inhabited; for you must have climbed a
ladder to have looked out of the window, and then the vision of no
short-sighted man could have got over the interval in the wall made
by the narrow casement, which, after all, gave no other prospect
than a Cumberland sky, with an occasional rook in it. But my father,
I think I have said before, did not much care for scenery, and he
looked round with great satisfaction upon the retreat assigned him.
"We can knock up shelves for your books in no time," said my uncle,
rubbing his hands.
"It would be a charity," quoth my father, "for they have been very
long in a recumbent position, and would like to stretch themselves,
poor things. My dear Roland, this room is made for books--so round
and so deep. I shall sit here like Truth in a well."
"And there is a room for you, sister, just out of it," said my
uncle, opening a little low prison-like door into a charming room,
for its window was low, and it had an iron balcony; "and out of that
is the bed-room. For you, Pisistratus, my boy, I am afraid that it
is soldier's quarters, indeed, with which you will have to put up.
But never mind; in a day or two we shall make all worthy a general
of your illustrious name--for he was a great general, Pisistratus
the First--was he not, brother?"
"All tyrants are," said my father: "the knack of soldiering is
indispensable to them."
"Oh, you may say what you please here!" said Roland, in high
good humour, as he drew me down stairs, still apologising for my
quarters, and so earnestly that I made up my mind that I was to be
put into an _oubliette_. Nor were my suspicions much dispelled on
seeing that we had to leave the keep, and pick our way into what
seemed to me a mere heap of rubbish, on the dexter side of the
court. But I was agreeably surprised to find, amidst these wrecks,
a room with a noble casement commanding the whole country, and
placed immediately over a plot of ground cultivated as a garden.
The furniture was ample, though homely; the floors and walls well
matted; and, altogether, despite the inconvenience of having to
cross the courtyard to get to the rest of the house, and being
wholly without the modern luxury of a bell, I thought that I could
not be better lodged.
"But this is a perfect bower, my dear uncle! Depend on it, it was
the bower-chamber of the Dames de Caxton--heaven rest them!"
"No," said my uncle, gravely; "I suspect it must have been the
chaplain's room, for the chapel was to the right of you. An earlier
chapel, indeed, formerly existed in the keep tower--for, indeed, it
is scarcely a true keep without chapel, well, and hall. I can show
you part of the roof of the first, and the two last are entire; the
well is very curious, formed in the substance of the wall at one
angle of the hall. In Charles the First's time, our ancestor lowered
his only son down in a bucket, and kept him there six hours, while
a Malignant mob was storming the tower. I need not say that our
ancestor himself scorned to hide from such a rabble, for _he_ was a
grown man. The boy lived to be a sad spendthrift, and used the well
for cooling his wine. He drank up a great many good acres."
"I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I were you. But,
pray, have you not discovered the proper chamber of that great Sir
William, about whom my father is so shamefully sceptical?"
"To tell you a secret," answered the Captain, giving me a sly poke
in the ribs, "I have put your father into it! There are the initial
letters W. C. let into the cusp of the York rose, and the date,
three years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chimneypiece."
I could not help joining my uncle's grim low laugh at this
characteristic pleasantry; and after I had complimented him on so
judicious a mode of proving his point, I asked him how he could
possibly have contrived to fit up the ruin so well, especially as he
had scarcely visited it since his purchase.
"Why," said he, "about twelve years ago, that poor fellow you
now see as my servant, and who is gardener, bailiff, seneschal,
butler, and anything else you can put him to, was sent out of the
army on the invalid list. So I placed him here; and as he is a
capital carpenter, and has had a very fair education, I told him
what I wanted, and put by a small sum every year for repairs and
furnishing. It is astonishing how little it cost me, for Bolt,
poor fellow, (that is his name,) caught the right spirit of the
thing, and most of the furniture, (which you see is ancient and
suitable,) he picked up at different cottages and farmhouses in the
neighbourhood. As it is, however, we have plenty more rooms here and
there--only, of late," continued my uncle, slightly changing colour,
"I had no money to spare. But come," he resumed, with an evident
effort--"come and see my barrack: it is on the other side of the
hall, and made out of what no doubt were the butteries."
We reached the yard, and found the fly-coach had just crawled to
the door. My father's head was buried deep in the vehicle,--he was
gathering up his packages, and sending out, oracle-like, various
muttered objurgations and anathemas upon Mrs Primmins and her
vacuum; which Mrs Primmins, standing by, and making a lap with her
apron to receive the packages and anathemas simultaneously, bore
with the mildness of an angel, lifting up her eyes to heaven and
murmuring something about "poor old bones." Though, as for Mrs
Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years, and you
might as soon have found a Plesiosaurus in the fat lands of Romney
Marsh as a bone amidst those layers of flesh in which my poor father
thought he had so carefully cottoned up his Cardan.
Leaving these parties to adjust matters between them, we stepped
under the low doorway, and entered Rowland's room. Oh, certainly
Bolt _had_ caught the spirit of the thing!--certainly he had
penetrated down even to the very pathos that lay within the deeps
of Roland's character. Buffon says "the style is the man;" there,
the room was the man. That nameless, inexpressible, soldier-like,
methodical neatness which belonged to Roland--that was the first
thing that struck one--that was the general character of the whole.
Then, in details, there, in stout oak shelves, were the books on
which my father loved to jest his more imaginative brother,--there
they were, Froissart, Barante, Joinville, the _Mort d'Arthur_,
_Amadis of Gaul_, Spenser's _Fairy Queen_, a noble copy of Strutt's
_Horda_, Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, Percy's _Reliques_, Pope's
_Homer_, books on gunnery, archery, hawking, fortification--old
chivalry and modern war together cheek by jowl.
Old chivalry and modern war!--look to that tilting helmet with
the tall Caxton crest, and look to that trophy near it, a French
cuirass--and that old banner (a knight's pennon) surmounting those
crossed bayonets. And over the chimneypiece there--bright, clean,
and, I warrant you, dusted daily--are Roland's own sword, his
holsters, and pistols, yea, the saddle, pierced and lacerated, from
which he had reeled when that leg----I gasped--I felt it all at a
glance, and I stole softly to the spot, and, had Roland not been
there, I could have kissed that sword as reverently as if it had
been a Bayard's or a Sidney's.
My uncle was too modest to guess my emotion; he rather thought I
had turned my face to conceal a smile at his vanity, and said, in
a deprecating tone of apology--"It was all Bolt's doing, foolish
fellow."