But I ought to be hard at work, preparing myself for Cambridge. The
deuce!--how can I? The point in academical education on which I
require most preparation is Greek composition. I come to my father,
who, one might think, was at home enough in this. But rare indeed is
it to find a great scholar who is a good teacher.
My dear father! if one is content to take you in your own way,
there never was a more admirable instructor for the heart, the
head, the principles, or the tastes--in your own way, when you have
discovered that there is some one sore to be healed--one defect
to be repaired; and you have rubbed your spectacles, and got your
hand fairly into that recess between your frill and your waistcoat.
But to go to you, cut and dry, monotonously, regularly--book and
exercise in hand--to see the mournful patience with which you tear
yourself from that great volume of Cardan in the very honeymoon of
possession--and then to note those mild eyebrows gradually distend
themselves into perplexed diagonals, over some false quantity or
some barbarous collocation--till there steal forth that horrible
"Papæ!" which means more on your lips than I am sure it ever did
when Latin was a live language, and "Papæ!" a natural and unpedantic
ejaculation!--no, I would sooner blunder through the dark by myself
a thousand times, than light my rush-light at the lamp of that
Phlegethonian "Papæ!"
And then my father would wisely and kindly, but wondrous slowly,
erase three-fourths of one's pet verses, and intercalate others that
one saw were exquisite, but could not exactly see why. And then one
asked why; and my father shook his head in despair, and said--"But
you ought to _feel_ why!"
In short, scholarship to him was like poetry: he could no more teach
it you than Pindar could have taught you how to make an ode. You
breathed the aroma, but you could no more seize and analyse it,
than, with the opening of your naked hand, you could carry off the
scent of a rose. I soon left my father in peace to Cardan, and to
the Great Book, which last, by the way, advanced but slowly. For
Uncle Jack had now insisted on its being published in quarto, with
illustrative plates; and those plates took an immense time, and
were to cost an immense sum--but that cost was the affair of the
Anti-Publisher Society. But how can I settle to work by myself?
No sooner have I got into my room--_penitus ab orbe divisus_, as
I rashly think--than there is a tap at the door. Now, it is my
mother, who is benevolently engaged upon making curtains to all
the windows, (a trifling superfluity that Bolt had forgotten or
disdained,) and who wants to know how the draperies are fashioned
at Mr Trevanion's: a pretence to have me near her, and see with her
own eyes that I am not fretting;--the moment she hears I have shut
myself up in my room, she is sure that it is for sorrow. Now it
is Bolt, who is making book-shelves for my father, and desires to
consult me at every turn, especially as I have given him a Gothic
design, which pleases him hugely. Now it is Blanche, whom, in an
evil hour, I undertook to teach to draw, and who comes in on tiptoe,
vowing she'll not disturb me, and sits so quiet that she fidgets me
out of all patience. Now, and much more often, it is the Captain,
who wants me to walk, to ride, to fish. And, by St Hubert! (saint
of the chase,) bright August comes--and there is moor-game on those
barren wolds--and my uncle has given me the gun he shot with at my
age--single-barrelled, flint lock--but you would not have laughed at
it if you had seen the strange feats it did in Roland's hands--while
in mine, I could always lay the blame on the flint lock! Time, in
short, passed rapidly; and if Roland and I had our dark hours, we
chased them away before they could settle--shot them on the wing as
they got up.
Then, too, though the immediate scenery around my uncle's was so
bleak and desolate, the country within a few miles was so full of
objects of interest--of landscapes so poetically grand or lovely;
and occasionally we coaxed my father from the Cardan, and spent
whole days by the margin of some glorious lake.
Amongst these excursions, I made one by myself to that house in
which my father had known the bliss and the pangs of that stern
first love that still left its scars fresh on my own memory. The
house, large and imposing, was shut up--the Trevanions had not been
there for years--the pleasure-grounds had been contracted into the
smallest possible space. There was no positive decay or ruin--that
Trevanion would never have allowed; but there was the dreary look of
absenteeship everywhere. I penetrated into the house with the help
of my card and half-a-crown. I saw that memorable boudoir--I could
fancy the very spot in which my father had heard the sentence that
had changed the current of his life. And when I returned home, I
looked with new tenderness on my father's placid brow--and blessed
anew that tender helpmate, who, in her patient love, had chased from
it every shadow.
I had received one letter from Vivian a few days after our arrival.
It had been redirected from my father's house, at which I had given
him my address. It was short, but seemed cheerful. He said, that
he believed he had at last hit on the right way, and should keep
to it--that he and the world were better friends than they had
been--and that the only way to keep friends with the world was to
treat it as a tamed tiger, and have one hand on a crow-bar while one
fondled the beast with the other. He enclosed me a bank-note which
somewhat more than covered his debt to me, and bade me pay him the
surplus when he should claim it as a millionnaire. He gave me no
address in his letter, but it bore the post-mark of Godalming. I had
the impertinent curiosity to look into an old topographical work
upon Surrey, and in a supplemental itinerary I found this passage,
"To the left of the beech-wood, three miles from Godalming, you
catch a glimpse of the elegant seat of Francis Vivian, Esq." To
judge by the date of the work, the said Francis Vivian might be the
grandfather of my friend, his namesake. There could no longer be any
doubt as to the parentage of this prodigal son.
The long vacation was now nearly over, and all his guests were to
leave the poor Captain. In fact, we had made a long trespass on
his hospitality. It was settled that I was to accompany my father
and mother to their long-neglected _penates_, and start thence for
Cambridge.
Our parting was sorrowful--even Mrs Primmins wept as she shook hands
with Bolt. But Bolt, an old soldier, was of course a lady's man. The
brothers did not shake hands only--they fondly embraced, as brothers
of that time of life rarely do now-a-days, except on the stage.
And Blanche, with one arm round my mother's neck, and one round
mine, sobbed in my ear,--"But I will be your little wife, I will."
Finally, the fly-coach once more received us all--all but poor
Blanche, and we looked round and missed her.