The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Complete

“Ah! uncle. But what would they say? Do you think I should not like to be a soldier? Don’t tempt me!”

My uncle had recourse to his snuff-box; and at that moment—unfortunately, perhaps, for the laurels that might otherwise have wreathed the brows of Pisistratus of England—private conversation was stopped by the sudden and noisy entrance of Uncle Jack. No apparition could have been more unexpected.

“Here I am, my dear friends. How d’ye do; how are you all? Captain de Caxton, yours heartily. Yes, I am released, thank Heaven! I have given up the drudgery of that pitiful provincial paper. I was not made for it. An ocean in a tea cup! I was indeed! Little, sordid, narrow interests; and I, whose heart embraces all humanity,—you might as well turn a circle into an isolated triangle.”

“Isosceles!” said my father, sighing as he pushed aside his notes, and very slowly becoming aware of the eloquence that destroyed all chance of further progress that night in the Great Book. “‘Isosceles’ triangle, Jack Tibbets, not ‘isolated.”’

“‘Isosceles’ or ‘isolated,’ it is all one,” said Uncle Jack, as he rapidly performed three evolutions, by no means consistent with his favorite theory of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,”—first, he emptied into the cup which he took from my mother’s hands half the thrifty contents of a London cream-jug; secondly, he reduced the circle of a muffin, by the abstraction of three triangles, to as nearly an isosceles as possible; and thirdly, striding towards the fire, lighted in consideration of Captain de Caxton, and hooking his coat-tails under his arms while he sipped his tea, he permitted another circle peculiar to humanity wholly to eclipse the luminary it approached.

“‘Isolated’ or ‘isosceles,’ it is all the same thing. Man is made for his fellow-creatures. I had long been disgusted with the interference of those selfish Squirearchs. Your departure decided me. I have concluded negotiations with a London firm of spirit and capital and extended views of philanthropy. On Saturday last I retired from the service of the oligarchy.

“I am now in my true capacity of protector of the million. My prospectus is printed,—here it is in my pocket. Another cup of tea, sister; a little more cream, and another muffin. Shall I ring?” Having disembarrassed himself of his cup and saucer, Uncle Jack then drew forth from his pocket a damp sheet of printed paper. In large capitals stood out “The Anti-Monopoly Gazette; or Popular Champion.” He waved it triumphantly before my father’s eyes.

“Pisistratus,” said my father, “look here. This is the way your Uncle Jack now prints his pats of butter,—a cap of liberty growing out of an open book! Good, Jack! good! good!”

“It is Jacobinical!” exclaimed the Captain.

“Very likely,” said my father; “but knowledge and freedom are the best devices in the world to print upon pats of butter intended for the market.”

“Pats of butter! I don’t understand,” said Uncle Jack. “The less you understand, the better will the butter sell, Jack,” said my father, settling back to his notes.

CHAPTER III

Uncle Jack had made up his mind to lodge with us, and my mother found some difficulty in inducing him to comprehend that there was no bed to spare.

“That’s unlucky,” said he. “I had no sooner arrived in town than I was pestered with invitations; but I refused them all, and kept myself for you.”

“So kind in you, so like you!” said my mother; “but you see—”

“Well, then, I must be off and find a room. Don’t fret; you know I can breakfast and dine with you all the same,—that is, when my other friends will let me. I shall be dreadfully persecuted.” So saying, Uncle Jack repocketed his prospectus and wished us good-night.

The clock had struck eleven, my mother had retired, when my father looked up from his books and returned his spectacles to their case. I had finished my work, and was seated over the fire, thinking now of Fanny Trevanion’s hazel eyes, now, with a heart that beat as high at the thought, of campaigns, battle-fields, laurels, and glory; while, with his arms folded on his breast and his head drooping, Uncle Roland gazed into the low clear embers. My father cast his eyes round the room, and after surveying his brother for some moments he said, almost in a whisper,—

“My son has seen the Trevanions. They remember us, Roland.”

The Captain sprang to his feet and began whistling,—a habit with him when he was much disturbed.

“And Trevanion wishes to see us. Pisistratus promised to give him our address: shall he do so, Roland?”

“If you like it,” answered the Captain, in a military attitude, and drawing himself up till he looked seven feet high.

“I should like it,” said my father, mildly. “Twenty years since we met.”

“More than twenty,” said my uncle, with a stern smile; “and the season was—the fall of the leaf!”

“Man renews the fibre and material of his body every seven years,” said my father; “in three times seven years he has time to renew the inner man. Can two passengers in yonder street be more unlike each other than the soul is to the soul after an interval of twenty years? Brother, the plough does not pass over the soil in vain, nor care over the human heart. New crops change the character of the land; and the plough must go deep indeed before it stirs up the mother stone.”

“Let us see Trevanion,” cried my uncle; then, turning to me, he said abruptly, “What family has he?”

“One daughter.”

“No son?”

“No.”

“That must vex the poor, foolish, ambitious man. Oho! you admire this Mr. Trevanion much, eh? Yes, that fire of manner, his fine words, and bold thoughts, were made to dazzle youth.”

“Fine words, my dear uncle,—fire! I should have said, in hearing Mr. Trevanion, that his style of conversation was so homely you would wonder how he could have won such fame as a public speaker.”

“Indeed!”

“The plough has passed there,” said my father.

“But not the plough of care: rich, famous, Ellinor his wife, and no son!”

“It is because his heart is sometimes sad that he would see us.”

Roland stared first at my father, next at me. “Then,” quoth my uncle, heartily, “in God’s name, let him come. I can shake him by the hand, as I would a brother soldier. Poor Trevanion! Write to him at once, Sisty.”

I sat down and obeyed. When I had sealed my letter, I looked up, and saw that Roland was lighting his bed-candle at my father’s table; and my father, taking his hand, said something to him in a low voice. I guessed it related to his son, for he shook his head, and answered in a stern, hollow voice, “Renew grief if you please; not shame. On that subject—silence!”

CHAPTER IV

Left to myself in the earlier part of the day, I wandered, wistful and lonely, through the vast wilderness of London. By degrees I familiarized myself with that populous solitude; I ceased to pine for the green fields. That active energy all around, at first saddening, became soon exhilarating, and at last contagious. To an industrious mind, nothing is so catching as industry. I began to grow weary of my golden holiday of unlaborious childhood, to sigh for toil, to look around me for a career. The University, which I had before anticipated with pleasure, seemed now to fade into a dull monastic prospect; after having trod the streets of London, to wander through cloisters was to go back in life. Day by day, my mind grew sensibly within me; it came out from the rosy twilight of boyhood,—it felt the doom of Cain under the broad sun of man.

Uncle Jack soon became absorbed in his new speculation for the good of the human race, and, except at meals (whereat, to do him justice, he was punctual enough, though he did not keep us in ignorance of the sacrifices he made, and the invitations he refused, for our sake), we seldom saw him. The Captain, too, generally vanished after breakfast, seldom dined with us, and it was often late before he returned. He had the latch-key of the house, and let himself in when he pleased. Sometimes (for his chamber was next to mine) his step on the stairs awoke me; and sometimes I heard him pace his room with perturbed strides, or fancied that I caught a low groan. He became every day more care-worn in appearance, and every day the hair seemed more gray. Yet he talked to us all easily and cheerfully; and I thought that I was the only one in the house who perceived the gnawing pangs over which the stout old Spartan drew the decorous cloak.

Pity, blended with admiration, made me curious to learn how these absent days, that brought night so disturbed, were consumed. I felt that, if I could master the Captain’s secret, I might win the right both to comfort and to aid.

I resolved at length, after many conscientious scruples, to endeavor to satisfy a curiosity excused by its motives.

Accordingly, one morning, after watching him from the house, I stole in his track, and followed him at a distance.

And this was the outline of his day: he set off at first with a firm stride, despite his lameness, his gaunt figure erect, the soldierly chest well thrown out from the threadbare but speckless coat. First he took his way towards the purlieus of Leicester Square; several times, to and fro, did he pace the isthmus that leads from Piccadilly into that reservoir of foreigners, and the lanes and courts that start thence towards St. Martin’s. After an hour or two so passed, the step became more slow; and often the sleek, napless hat was lifted up, and the brow wiped. At length he bent his way towards the two great theatres, paused before the play-bills, as if deliberating seriously on the chances of entertainment they severally proffered, wandered slowly through the small streets that surround those temples of the Muse, and finally emerged into the Strand. There he rested himself for an hour at a small cook-shop; and as I passed the window and glanced within, I could see him seated before the simple dinner, which he scarcely touched, and poring over the advertisement columns of the “Times.” The “Times” finished, and a few morsels distastefully swallowed, the Captain put down his shilling in silence, receiving his pence in exchange, and I had just time to slip aside as he reappeared at the threshold. He looked round as he lingered,—but I took care he should not detect me,—and then struck off towards the more fashionable quarters of the town. It was now the afternoon, and, though not yet the season, the streets swarmed with life. As he came into Waterloo Place, a slight but muscular figure buttoned up across the breast like his own cantered by on a handsome bay horse; every eye was on that figure. Uncle Roland stopped short, and lifted his hand to his hat; the rider touched his own with his forefinger, and cantered on; Uncle Roland turned round and gazed.

“Who,” I asked of a shop-boy just before me, also staring with all his eyes, “who is that gentleman on horseback?”

“Why, the Duke to be sure,” said the boy, contemptuously.

“The Duke?”

“Wellington, stu-pid!”

“Thank you,” said I, meekly. Uncle Roland had moved on into Regent Street, but with a brisker step: the sight of the old chief had done the old soldier good. Here again he paced to and fro; till I, watching him from the other side of the way, was ready to drop with fatigue, stout walker though I was. But the Captain’s day was not half done. He took out his watch, put it to his ear, and then, replacing it, passed into Bond Street, and thence into Hyde Park. There, evidently wearied out, he leaned against the rails, near the bronze statue, in an attitude that spoke despondency. I seated myself on the grass near the statue, and gazed at him: the park was empty compared with the streets, but still there were some equestrian idlers, and many foot-loungers. My uncle’s eye turned wistfully on each: once or twice, some gentleman of a military aspect (which I had already learned to detect) stopped, looked at him, approached, and spoke; but the Captain seemed as if ashamed of such greetings. He answered shortly, and turned again.

The day waned,—evening came on; the Captain again looked at his watch, shook his head, and made his way to a bench, where he sat perfectly motionless, his hat over his brows, his arms folded, till up rose the moon. I had tasted nothing since breakfast, I was famished; but I still kept my post like an old Roman sentinel.

At length the Captain rose, and re-entered Piccadilly; but how different his mien and bearing!—languid, stooping; his chest sunk, his head inclined; his limbs dragging one after the other; his lameness painfully perceptible. What a contrast in the broken invalid at night from the stalwart veteran of the morning!