Our host regaled us with a hospitality that notably contrasted his
economical thrifty habits in London. To be sure, Bolt had caught the
great pike which headed the feast; and Bolt, no doubt, had helped
to rear those fine chickens _ab ovo_; Bolt, I have no doubt, made
that excellent Spanish omelette; and for the rest, the products of
the sheepwalk and the garden came in as volunteer auxiliaries--very
different from the mercenary recruits by which those metropolitan
_Condottieri_, the butcher and green-grocer, hasten the ruin of that
melancholy commonwealth called "genteel poverty."
Our evening passed cheerfully; and Roland, contrary to his custom,
was talker in chief. It was eleven o'clock before Bolt appeared with
a lantern to conduct me through the court-yard to my dormitory,
among the ruins--a ceremony which, every night, shine or dark, he
insisted upon punctiliously performing.
It was long before I could sleep--before I could believe that but
so few days had elapsed since Roland heard of his son's death--that
son whose fate had so long tortured him; and yet, never had Roland
appeared so free from sorrow! Was it natural--was it effort? Several
days passed before I could answer that question, and then not wholly
to my satisfaction. Effort there was, or rather resolute systematic
determination. At moments Roland's head drooped, his brows met, and
the whole man seemed to sink. Yet these were only moments; he would
rouse himself up like a dozing charger at the sound of a trumpet,
and shake off the creeping weight. But, whether from the vigour of
his determination, or from some aid in other trains of reflection, I
could not but perceive that Roland's sadness really was less grave
and bitter than it had been, or than it was natural to suppose. He
seemed to transfer, daily more and more, his affections from the
dead to those around him, especially to Blanche and myself. He let
it be seen that he looked on me now as his lawful successor--as the
future supporter of his name--he was fond of confiding to me all
his little plans, and consulting me on them. He would walk with me
around his domains, (of which I shall say more hereafter,)--point
out, from every eminence we climbed, where the broad lands which
his forefathers owned stretched away to the horizon; unfold with
tender hand the mouldering pedigree, and rest lingeringly on those
of his ancestors who had held martial post, or had died on the
field. There was a crusader who had followed Richard to Ascalon;
there was a knight who had fought at Agincourt; there was a cavalier
(whose picture was still extant, with fair lovelocks) who had fallen
at Worcester--no doubt the same who had cooled his son in that
well which the son devoted to more agreeable associations. But of
all these worthies there was none whom my uncle, perhaps from the
spirit of contradiction, valued like that apocryphal Sir William:
and why?--because, when the apostate Stanley turned the fortunes
of the field at Bosworth, and when that cry of despair--"Treason,
treason!" burst from the lips of the last Plantagenet, "amongst
the faithless," this true soldier "faithful found!" had fallen in
that lion-rush which Richard made at his foe. "Your father tells
me that Richard was a murderer and usurper," quoth my uncle. "Sir,
that might be true or not; but it was not on the field of battle
that his followers were to reason on the character of the master
who trusted them, especially when a legion of foreign hirelings
stood opposed to them. I would not have descended from that turncoat
Stanley to be lord of all the lands the Earls of Derby can boast
of. Sir, in loyalty, men fight and die for a grand principle, and
a lofty passion; and this brave Sir William was paying back to the
last Plantagenet the benefits he had received from the first!"
"And yet it may be doubted," said I maliciously, "whether William
Caxton the printer did not--"
"Plague, pestilence, and fire seize William Caxton the printer, and
his invention too!" cried my uncle barbarously. "When there were
only a few books, at least they were good ones; and now they are
so plentiful, all they do is to confound the judgment, unsettle
the reason, drive the good books out of cultivation, and draw a
ploughshare of innovation over every ancient landmark; seduce the
women, womanize the men, upset states, thrones, and churches; rear
a race of chattering, conceited, coxcombs, who can always find
books in plenty to excuse them from doing their duty; make the poor
discontented, the rich crotchety and whimsical, refine away the
stout old virtues into quibbles and sentiments! All imagination
formerly was expended in noble action, adventure, enterprise, high
deeds and aspirations; now a man can but be imaginative by feeding
on the false excitement of passions he never felt, dangers he never
shared; and he fritters away all there is of life to spare in him
upon the fictitious love-sorrows of Bond Street and St James's.
Sir, chivalry ceased when the press rose! And to fasten upon me, as
a forefather, out of all men who have ever lived and sinned, the
very man who has most destroyed what I most valued--who, by the
Lord! with his cursed invention has wellnigh got rid of respect for
forefathers altogether--is a cruelty of which my brother had never
been capable, if that printer's devil had not got hold of him!"
That a man in this blessed nineteenth century should be such a
Vandal! and that my uncle Roland should talk in a strain that
Totila would have been ashamed of, within so short a time after my
father's scientific and erudite oration on the Hygeiana of Books,
was enough to make one despair of the progress of intellect and the
perfectibility of our species. And I have no manner of doubt that,
all the while, my uncle had a brace of books in his pockets, Robert
Hall one of them! In truth, he had talked himself into a passion,
and did not know what nonsense he was saying, poor man. But this
explosion of Captain Roland's has shattered the thread of my matter.
Pouff! I must take breath and begin again!
Yes, in spite of my sauciness, the old soldier evidently took to me
more and more. And, besides our critical examination of the property
and the pedigree, he carried me with him on long excursions to
distant villages, where some memorial of a defunct Caxton, a coat of
arms, or an epitaph on a tombstone, might be still seen. And he made
me pore over topographical works and county histories, (forgetful,
Goth that he was, that for those very authorities he was indebted
to the repudiated printer!) to find some anecdote of his beloved
dead! In truth, the county for miles round bore the _vestigia_ of
those old Caxtons; their handwriting was on many a broken wall.
And, obscure as they all were, compared to that great operative
of the Sanctuary at Westminster, whom my father clung to--still,
that the yesterdays that had lighted them the way to dusty death
had cast no glare on dishonoured scutcheons seemed clear, from the
popular respect and traditional affection in which I found that
the name was still held in hamlet and homestead. It was pleasant
to see the veneration with which this small hidalgo of some three
hundred a-year was held, and the patriarchal affection with which
he returned it. Roland was a man who would walk into a cottage,
rest his cork leg on the hearth, and talk for the hour together
upon all that lay nearest to the hearts of the owners. There is
a peculiar spirit of aristocracy amongst agricultural peasants:
they like old names and families; they identify themselves with the
honours of a house, as if of its clan. They do not care so much for
wealth as townsfolk and the middle class do; they have a pity, but a
respectful one, for wellborn poverty. And then this Roland, too--who
would go and dine in a cook shop, and receive change for a shilling,
and shun the ruinous luxury of a hack cabriolet--could be positively
extravagant in his liberalities to those around him. He was
altogether another being in his paternal acres. The shabby-genteel,
half-pay captain, lost in the whirl of London, here luxuriated into
a dignified case of manner that Chesterfield might have admired.
And, if to please is the true sign of politeness, I wish you could
have seen the faces that smiled upon Captain Roland, as he walked
down the village, nodding from side to side.
One day a frank, hearty, old woman, who had known Roland as a boy,
seeing him lean on my arm, stopped us, as she said bluffly, to take
a "geud luik" at me.
Fortunately I was stalwart enough to pass muster, even in the eyes
of a Cumberland matron; and, after a compliment at which Roland
seemed much pleased, she said to me, but pointing to the Captain--
"Hegh, sir, now you ha the bra time before you; you maun een try and
be as geud as _he_. And if life last, ye wull too--for there never
waur a bad ane of that stock. Wi' heads kindly stup'd to the least,
and lifted manfu' oop to the heighest--that ye all war' sin ye came
from the Ark. Blessins on the ould name--though little pelf goes
with it--it sounds on the peur man's ear like a bit o' gould!"
"Do you not see now," said Roland, as we turned away, "what we owe
to a name, and what to our forefathers?--do you not see why the
remotest ancestor has a right to our respect and consideration--for
he was a parent? 'Honour your parents'--the law does not say,
'Honour your children!' If a child disgrace us, and the dead,
and the sanctity of this great heritage of their virtues--_the
name_;--if he does--" Roland stopped short, and added fervently,
"But you are my heir now--I have no fear! What matters one foolish
old man's sorrow?--the name, that property of generations, is saved,
thank Heaven--the name!"
Now the riddle was solved, and I understood why, amidst all his
natural grief for a son's loss, that proud father was consoled.
For he was less himself a father than a son--son to the long dead.
From every grave, where a progenitor slept, he had heard a parent's
voice. He could bear to be bereaved, if the forefathers were not
dishonoured. Roland was more than half a Roman--the son might still
cling to his household affections, but the _lares_ were a part of
his religion.