The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Complete

Mr. Squills was a jovial, good-hearted man,—stout, fat, and with fine teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr. Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way,—studied human nature in curing its diseases; and was accustomed to say that Mr. Caxton was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr. Squills laughed, and rubbed his hands.

My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralizes:—

“There are three great events in life, sir,—birth, marriage, and death. None know how they are born, few know how they die; but I suspect that many can account for the intermediate phenomenon—I cannot.”

“It was not for money, it must have been for love,” observed Mr. Squills; “and your young wife is as pretty as she is good.”

“Ha!” said my father, “I remember.”

“Do you, sir?” exclaimed Squills, highly amused. “How was it?”

My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr. Squills.

“The kindest, the best of men,” he murmured,—“Abyssus Eruditionis. And to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave, instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty,—all, at least, that I could grasp, deficiente manu, of his Latin, his Greek, his Orientals. What do I not owe to him?”

“To whom?” asked Squills. “Good Lord! what’s the man talking about?”

“Yes, sir,” said my father, rousing himself, “such was Giles Tibbets, M. A., Sol Scientiarum, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and father to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his orphan daughter.”

“Oh! as a wife—”

“No, as a ward. So she came to live in my house. I am sure there was no harm in it. But my neighbors said there was, and the widow Weltraum told me the girl’s character would suffer. What could I do?—Oh, yes, I recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend’s child might have a roof to her head, and come to no harm. You see I was forced to do her that injury; for, after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot for her. A dull bookworm like me,—cochlea vitam agens, Mr. Squills,—leading the life of a snail! But my shell was all I could offer to my poor friend’s orphan.”

“Mr. Caxton, I honor you,” said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father’s legs. “You have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you. You seem a cold man, but you have tears in your eyes at this moment.”

“I dare say I have,” said my father, rubbing his shins; “it was boiling!”

“And your son will be a comfort to you both,” said Mr. Squills, reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; “he will be a dove of peace to your ark.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said my father, ruefully; “only those doves, when they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds—non talium avium cantos somnum reducent. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins.”

“So had Mrs. Barnabas last week,” rejoined the accoucheur. “Who knows what may be in store for you yet? Here’s a health to Master Caxton, and lots of brothers and sisters to him.”

“Brothers and sisters! I am sure Mrs. Caxton will never think of such a thing, sir,” said my father, almost indignantly; “she’s much too good a wife to behave so. Once in a way it is all very well; but twice—and as it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days: I, too, who can only write cuspide duriuscula,—and the baker coming twice to me for his bill, too! The Ilithyiae, are troublesome deities, Mr. Squills.”

“Who are the Ilithyiae?” asked the accoucheur.

“You ought to know,” answered my father, smiling,—“the female daemons who presided over the Neogilos, or New-born. They take the name from Juno. See Homer, Book XI. By the by, will my Neogilos be brought up like Hector, or Astyanax—videlicet, nourished by its mother, or by a nurse?”

“Which do you prefer, Mr. Caxton?” asked Mr. Squills, breaking the sugar in his tumbler. “In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes of the gentleman.”

“A nurse by all means, then,” said my father. “And let her carry him upo kolpo, next to her bosom. I know all that has been said about mothers nursing their own infants, Mr. Squills; but poor Kitty is so sensitive that I think a stout, healthy peasant woman will be the best for the boy’s future nerves, and his mother’s nerves, present and future too. Heigh-ho! I shall miss the dear woman very much. When will she be up, Mr. Squills?”

“Oh, in less than a fortnight!”

“And then the Neogilos shall go to school,—upo kolpo,—the nurse with him, and all will be right again,” said my father, with a look of sly, mysterious humor which was peculiar to him.

“School! when he’s just born?”

“Can’t begin too soon,” said my father, positively; “that’s Helvetius’ opinion, and it is mine too!”

CHAPTER III

That I was a very wonderful child, I take for granted; but nevertheless it was not of my own knowledge that I came into possession of the circumstances set down in my former chapters. But my father’s conduct on the occasion of my birth made a notable impression upon all who witnessed it; and Mr. Squills and Mrs. Primmins have related the facts to me sufficiently often to make me as well acquainted with them as those worthy witnesses themselves. I fancy I see my father before me, in his dark-gray dressing-gown, and with his odd, half-sly, half-innocent twitch of the mouth, and peculiar puzzling look, from two quiet, abstracted, indolently handsome eyes, at the moment he agreed with Helvetius on the propriety of sending me to school as soon as I was born. Nobody knew exactly what to make of my father,—his wife excepted. The people of Abdera sent for Hippocrates to cure the supposed insanity of Democritus, “who at that time,” saith Hippocrates, dryly, “was seriously engaged in philosophy.” That same people of Abdera would certainly have found very alarming symptoms of madness in my poor father; for, like Democritus, “he esteemed as nothing the things, great or small, in which the rest of the world were employed.” Accordingly, some set him down as a sage, some as a fool. The neighboring clergy respected him as a scholar, “breathing libraries;” the ladies despised him as an absent pedant who had no more gallantry than a stock or a stone. The poor loved him for his charities, but laughed at him as a weak sort of man, easily taken in. Yet the squires and farmers found that, in their own matters of rural business, he had always a fund of curious information to impart; and whoever, young or old, gentle or simple, learned or ignorant, asked his advice, it was given with not more humility than wisdom. In the common affairs of life he seemed incapable of acting for himself; he left all to my mother; or, if taken unawares, was pretty sure to be the dupe. But in those very affairs, if another consulted him, his eye brightened, his brow cleared, the desire of serving made him a new being,—cautious, profound, practical. Too lazy or too languid where only his own interests were at stake, touch his benevolence, and all the wheels of the clock-work felt the impetus of the master-spring. No wonder that, to others, the nut of such a character was hard to crack! But in the eyes of my poor mother, Augustine (familiarly Austin) Caxton was the best and the greatest of human beings; and she ought to have known him well, for she studied him with her whole heart, knew every trick of his face, and, nine times out of ten, divined what he was going to say before he opened his lips. Yet certainly there were deeps in his nature which the plummet of her tender woman’s wit had never sounded; and certainly it sometimes happened that, even in his most domestic colloquialisms, my mother was in doubt whether he was the simple, straightforward person he was mostly taken for. There was, indeed, a kind of suppressed, subtle irony about him, too unsubstantial to be popularly called humor, but dimly implying some sort of jest, which he kept all to himself; and this was only noticeable when he said something that sounded very grave, or appeared to the grave very silly and irrational.

That I did not go to school—at least to what Mr. Squills understood by the word “school”—quite so soon as intended, I need scarcely observe. In fact, my mother managed so well—my nursery, by means of double doors, was so placed out of hearing—that my father, for the most part, was privileged, if he pleased, to forget my existence. He was once vaguely recalled to it on the occasion of my christening. Now, my father was a shy man, and he particularly hated all ceremonies and public spectacles. He became uneasily aware that a great ceremony, in which he might be called upon to play a prominent part, was at hand. Abstracted as he was, and conveniently deaf at times, he had heard such significant whispers about “taking advantage of the bishop’s being in the neighborhood,” and “twelve new jelly-glasses being absolutely wanted,” as to assure him that some deadly festivity was in the wind. And when the question of godmother and godfather was fairly put to hire, coupled with the remark that this was a fine opportunity to return the civilities of the neighborhood, he felt that a strong effort at escape was the only thing left. Accordingly, having, seemingly without listening, heard the day fixed and seen, as they thought, without observing, the chintz chairs in the best drawing-room uncovered (my dear mother was the tidiest woman in the world), my father suddenly discovered that there was to be a great book-sale, twenty miles off, which would last four days, and attend it he must. My mother sighed; but she never contradicted my father, even when he was wrong, as he certainly was in this case. She only dropped a timid intimation that she feared “it would look odd, and the world might misconstrue my father’s absence,—had not she better put off the christening?”

“My dear,” answered my father, “it will be my duty, by and by, to christen the boy,—a duty not done in a day. At present, I have no doubt that the bishop will do very well without me. Let the day stand, or if you put it off, upon my word and honor I believe that the wicked auctioneer will put off the book-sale also. Of one thing I am quite sure, that the sale and the christening will take place at the same time.” There was no getting over this; but I am certain my dear mother had much less heart than before in uncovering the chintz chairs in the best drawing-room. Five years later this would not have happened. My mother would have kissed my father and said, “Stay,” and he would have stayed. But she was then very young and timid; and he, wild man, not of the woods, but the cloisters, not yet civilized into the tractabilities of home. In short, the post-chaise was ordered and the carpetbag packed.

“My love,” said my mother, the night before this Hegira, looking up from her work, “my love, there is one thing you have quite forgot to settle,—I beg pardon for disturbing you, but it is important!—baby’s name: sha’ n’t we call him Augustine?”

“Augustine,” said my father, dreamily,—“why that name’s mine.”

“And you would like your boy’s to be the same?”

“No,” said my father, rousing himself. “Nobody would know which was which. I should catch myself learning the Latin accidence, or playing at marbles. I should never know my own identity, and Mrs. Primmins would be giving me pap.”

My mother smiled; and putting her hand, which was a very pretty one, on my father’s shoulder, and looking at him tenderly, she said: “There’s no fear of mistaking you for any other, even your son, dearest. Still, if you prefer another name, what shall it be?”

“Samuel,” said my father. “Dr. Parr’s name is Samuel.”

“La, my love! Samuel is the ugliest name—”

My father did not hear the exclamation; he was again deep in his books. Presently he started up: “Barnes says Homer is Solomon. Read Omeros backward, in the Hebrew manner—”

“Yes, my love,” interrupted my mother. “But baby’s Christian name?”

“Omeros—Soremo—Solemo—Solomo!”

“Solomo,—shocking!” said my mother.

“Shocking indeed,” echoed my father; “an outrage to common-sense.” Then, after glancing again over his books, he broke out musingly: “But, after all, it is nonsense to suppose that Homer was not settled till his time.”

“Whose?” asked my mother, mechanically. My father lifted up his finger.

My mother continued, after a short pause., “Arthur is a pretty name. Then there ‘s William—Henry—Charles—Robert. What shall it be, love?”

“Pisistratus!” said my father (who had hung fire till then), in a tone of contempt,—“Pisistratus, indeed!”

“Pisistratus! a very fine name,” said my mother, joyfully,—“Pisistratus Caxton. Thank you, my love: Pisistratus it shall be.”

“Do you contradict me? Do you side with Wolfe and Heyne and that pragmatical fellow Vico? Do you mean to say that the Rhapsodists—”

“No, indeed,” interrupted my mother. “My dear, you frighten me.”

My father sighed, and threw himself back in his chair. My mother took courage and resumed.

“Pisistratus is a long name too! Still, one could call him Sisty.”