The Caxtons: A Family Picture Part 6

My father scratched his eyebrow with his fore-finger, as he was apt to do when doubtful; the rest of the company--a silent set-looked up.

"Fellow-creatures!" said Mr. Rollick,--"fellow-fiddlesticks!"

Uncle Jack was clearly in the wrong box. He drew out of it cautiously,--"I mean," said he, "our respectable fellow-creatures;" and then suddenly it occurred to him that a "County Mercury" would naturally represent the agricultural interest, and that if Mr. Rollick said that the "'County Mercury' ought to be hanged," he was one of those politicians who had already begun to call the agricultural interest "a Vampire." Flushed with that fancied discovery, Uncle Jack rushed on, intending to bear along with the stream, thus fortunately directed, all the "rubbish" (1) subsequently shot into Covent Garden and Hall of Commerce.

"Yes, respectable fellow-creatures, men of capital and enterprise! For what are these country squires compared to our wealthy merchants? What is this agricultural interest that professes to be the prop of the land?"

"Professes!" cried Squire Rollick,--"it is the prop of the land; and as for those manufacturing fellows who have bought up the 'Mercury'--"

"Bought up the 'Mercury,' have they, the villains?" cried Uncle Jack, interrupting the Squire, and now bursting into full scent. "Depend upon it, sir, it is a part of a diabolical system of buying up,--which must be exposed manfully. Yes, as I was saying, what is that agricultural interest which they desire to ruin; which they declare to be so bloated; which they call 'a Vampire!'--they the true blood-suckers, the venomous millocrats? Fellow-creatures, Sir! I may well call distressed fellow-creatures the members of that much-suffering cla.s.s of which you yourself are an ornament. What can be more deserving of our best efforts for relief than a country gentleman like yourself, we'll say,--of a nominal L5,000 a-year,--compelled to keep up an establishment, pay for his fox-hounds, support the whole population by contributions to the poor-rates, support the whole church by t.i.thes; all justice, jails, and prosecutions of the county-rates; all thoroughfares by the highway-rates; ground down by mortgages, Jews, or jointures; having to provide for younger children; enormous expenses for cutting his woods, manuring his model farm, and fattening huge oxen till every pound of flesh costs him five pounds sterling in oil-cake; and then the lawsuits necessary to protect his rights,--plundered on all hands by poachers, sheep-stealers, dog-stealers, churchwardens, overseers, gardeners, gamekeepers, and that necessary rascal, his steward. If ever there was a distressed fellow-creature in the world, it is a country gentleman with a great estate."

My father evidently thought this an exquisite piece of banter, for by the corner of his mouth I saw that he chuckled inly.

Squire Rollick, who had interrupted the speech by sundry approving exclamations, particularly at the mention of poor-rates, t.i.thes, county-rates, mortgages, and poachers, here pushed the bottle to Uncle Jack, and said, civilly: "There's a great deal of truth in what you say, Mr. Tibbets. The agricultural interest is going to ruin; and when it does, I would not give that for Old England!" and Mr. Rollick snapped his finger and thumb. "But what is to be done,--done for the county?

There's the rub."

"I was just coming to that," quoth Uncle Jack. "You say that you have not a county paper that upholds your cause and denounces your enemies."

"Not since the Whigs bought the '--shire Mercury.'"

"Why, good heavens! Mr. Rollick, how can you suppose that you will have justice done you if at this time of day you neglect the Press?

The Press, sir--there it is--air we breathe! What you want is a great national--no, not a national--A Provincial proprietary weekly journal, supported liberally and steadily by that mighty party whose very existence is at stake. Without such a paper you are gone, you are dead,--extinct, defunct, buried alive; with such a paper,--well conducted, well edited by a man of the world, of education, of practical experience in agriculture and human nature, mines, corn, manure, insurances, Acts of Parliament, cattle-shows, the state of parties, and the best interests of society,--with such a man and such a paper, you will carry all before you. But it must be done by subscription, by a.s.sociation, by co-operation,--by a Grand Provincial Benevolent Agricultural Anti-innovating Society."

"Egad, sir, you are right!" said Mr. Rollick, slapping his thigh; "and I'll ride over to our Lord-Lieutenant to-morrow. His eldest son ought to carry the county."

"And he will, if you encourage the Press and set up a journal," said Uncle Jack, rubbing his hands, and then gently stretching them out and drawing them gradually together, as if he were already enclosing in that airy circle the unsuspecting guineas of the unborn a.s.sociation.

All happiness dwells more in the hope than the possession; and at that moment I dare be sworn that Uncle Jack felt a livelier rapture circ.u.m proecordia, warming his entrails, and diffusing throughout his whole frame of five feet eight the prophetic glow of the Magna Diva Moneta, than if he had enjoyed for ten years the actual possession of King Croesus's privy purse.

"I thought Uncle Jack was not a Tory," said I to my father the next day.

My father, who cared nothing for politics, opened his eyes. "Are you a Tory or a Whig, papa?"

"Um!" said my father, "there's a great deal to be said on both sides of the question. You see, my boy, that Mrs. Primmins has a great many moulds for our b.u.t.ter-pats: sometimes they come up with a crown on them, sometimes with the more popular impress of a cow. It is all very well for those who dish up the b.u.t.ter to print it according to their taste or in proof of their abilities; it is enough for us to b.u.t.ter our bread, say grace, and pay for the dairy. Do you understand?"

"Not a bit, sir."

"Your namesake Pisistratus was wiser than you, then," said my father.

"And now let us feed the duck. Where's your uncle?"

"He has borrowed Mr. Squills's mare, sir, and gone with Squire Rollick to the great lord they were talking of."

"Oho!" said my father; "brother Jack is going to print his b.u.t.ter!"

And indeed Uncle Jack played his cards so well on this occasion, and set before the Lord-Lieutenant, with whom he had a personal interview, so fine a prospectus and so nice a calculation that before my holidays were over, he was installed in a very handsome office in the county town, with private apartments over it, and a salary of L500 a-year, for advocating the cause of his distressed fellow-creatures, including n.o.blemen, squires, yeomanry, farmers, and all yearly subscribers in the New Proprietary Agricultural Anti-Innovating-Shire Weekly Gazette. At the head of his newspaper Uncle Jack caused to be engraved a crown, supported by a flail and a crook, with the motto, "Pro rege et grege."

And that was the way in which Uncle Jack printed his pats of b.u.t.ter.

(1) "We talked sad rubbish when we first began," says Mr. Cobden, in one of his speeches.

CHAPTER V.

I seemed to myself to have made a leap in life when I returned to school. I no longer felt as a boy. Uncle Jack, out of his own purse, had presented me with my first pair of Wellington boots; my mother had been coaxed into allowing me a small tail to jackets. .h.i.therto tail-less; my collars, which had been wont, spaniel-like, to flap and fall about my neck, now, terrier-wise, stood erect and rampant, encompa.s.sed with a circ.u.mvallation of whalebone, buckram, and black silk. I was, in truth, nearly seventeen, and I gave myself the airs of a man. Now, be it observed that that crisis in adolescent existence wherein we first pa.s.s from Master Sisty into Mr. Pisistratus, or Pisistratus Caxton, Esq.; wherein we arrogate, and with tacit concession from our elders, the long-envied t.i.tle of young man,--always seems a sudden and imprompt upshooting and elevation. We do not mark the gradual preparations thereto; we remember only one distinct period, in which all the signs and symptoms burst and effloresced together,--Wellington boots, coat-tail, cravat, down on the upper lip, thoughts on razors, reveries on young ladies, and a new kind of sense of poetry.

I began now to read steadily, to understand what I did read, and to cast some anxious looks towards the future, with vague notions that I had a place to win in the world, and that nothing is to be won without perseverance and labor; and so I went on till I was seventeen and at the head of the school, when I received the two letters I subjoin.

1.--FROM AUGUSTINE CAXTON, Esq.

My Dear Son,--I have informed Dr. Herman that you will not return to him after the approaching holidays. You are old enough now to look forward to the embraces of our beloved Alma Mater, and I think studious enough to hope for the honors she bestows on her worthier sons. You are already entered at Trinity,--and in fancy I see my youth return to me in your image. I see you wandering where the Cam steals its way through those n.o.ble gardens; and, confusing you with myself, I recall the old dreams that haunted me when the chiming bells swung over the placid waters. Verum secretumque Mouseion, quam multa dictatis, quam multa invenitis! There at that ill.u.s.trious college, unless the race has indeed degenerated, you will measure yourself with young giants. You will see those who, in the Law, the Church, the State, or the still cloisters of Learning, are destined to become the eminent leaders of your age.

To rank amongst them you are not forbidden to aspire; he who in youth "can scorn delights, and love laborious days," should pitch high his ambition.

Your Uncle Jack says he has done wonders with his newspaper; though Mr. Rollick grumbles, and declares that it is full of theories, and that it puzzles the farmers. Uncle Jack, in reply, contends that he creates an audience, not addresses one, and sighs that his genius is thrown away in a provincial town. In fact, he really is a very clever man, and might do much in London, I dare say. He often comes over to dine and sleep, returning the next morning.

His energy is wonderful--and contagious. Can you imagine that he has actually stirred up the flame of my vanity, by constantly poking at the bars? Metaphor apart, I find myself collecting all my notes and commonplaces, and wondering to see how easily they fall into method, and take shape in chapters and books. I cannot help smiling when I add, that I fancy I am going to become an author; and smiling more when I think that your Uncle Jack should have provoked me into so egregious an ambition. However, I have read some pa.s.sages of my book to your mother, and she says, "it is vastly fine," which is encouraging. Your mother has great good sense, though I don't mean to say that she has much learning,-- which is a wonder, considering that Pic de la Mirandola was nothing to her father. Yet he died, dear great man, and never printed a line; while I--positively I blush to think of my temerity! Adieu, my son; make the best of the time that remains with you at the Philh.e.l.lenic. A full mind is the true Pantheism, plena Jovis. It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door, my son, be able to say, "No room for your ladyship; pa.s.s on." Your affectionate father, A. CAXTON.

2.--FROM Mrs. CAXTON.

My Dearest Sisty,--You are coming home! My heart is so full of that thought that it seems to me as if I could not write anything else. Dear child, you are coming home; you have done with school, you have done with strangers,--you are our own, all our own son again! You are mine again, as you were in the cradle, the nursery, and the garden, Sisty, when we used to throw daisies at each other!

You will laugh at me so when I tell you that as soon as I heard you were coming home for good, I crept away from the room, and went to my drawer where I keep, you know, all my treasures. There was your little cap that I worked myself, and your poor little nankeen jacket that you were so proud to throw off--oh! and many other relies of you when you were little Sisty, and I was not the cold, formal "Mother" you call me now, but dear "Mamma." I kissed them, Sisty, and said, "My little child is coming back to me again!" So foolish was I, I forgot all the long years that have pa.s.sed, and fancied I could carry you again in my arms, and that I should again coax you to say "G.o.d bless papa." Well, well! I write now between laughing and crying. You cannot be what you were, but you are still my own dear son,--your father's son; dearer to me than all the world,--except that father.

I am so glad, too, that you will come so soon,--come while your father is really warm with his book, and while you can encourage and keep him to it. For why should he not be great and famous?

Why should not all admire him as we do? You know how proud of him I always was; but I do so long to let the world know why I was so proud. And yet, after all, it is not only because he is so wise and learned, but because he is so good, and has such a large, n.o.ble heart. But the heart must appear in the book too, as well as the learning. For though it is full of things I don't understand, every now and then there is something I do understand,--that seems as if that heart spoke out to all the world.

Your uncle has undertaken to get it published, and your father is going up to town with him about it, as soon as the first volume is finished.

All are quite well except poor Mrs. Jones, who has the ague very bad indeed; Primmins has made her wear a charm for it, and Mrs.

Jones actually declares she is already much better. One can't deny that there may be a great deal in such things, though it seems quite against the reason. Indeed your father says, "Why not? A charm must be accompanied by a strong wish on the part of the charmer that it may succeed,--and what is magnetism but a wish?" I don't quite comprehend this; but, like all your father says, it has more than meets the eye, I am quite sure.

Only three weeks to the holidays, and then no more school, Sisty,-- no more school! I shall have your room all done, freshly, and made so pretty; they are coming about it to-morrow.

The duck is quite well, and I really don't think it is quite as lame as it was.

G.o.d bless you, dear, dear child. Your affectionate happy mother.

K.C.

The interval between these letters and the morning on which I was to return home seemed to me like one of those long, restless, yet half-dreamy days which in some infant malady I had pa.s.sed in a sick-bed.

I went through my task-work mechanically, composed a Greek ode in farewell to the Philh.e.l.lenic, which Dr. Herman p.r.o.nounced a chef d'oeuvre, and my father, to whom I sent it in triumph, returned a letter of false English with it, that parodied all my h.e.l.lenic barbarisms by imitating them in my mother-tongue. However, I swallowed the leek, and consoled myself with the pleasing recollection that, after spending six years in learning to write bad Greek, I should never have any further occasion to avail myself of so precious an accomplishment.

And so came the last day. Then alone, and in a kind of delighted melancholy, I revisited each of the old haunts,--the robbers' cave we had dug one winter, and maintained, six of us, against all the police of the little kingdom; the place near the pales where I had fought my first battle; the old beech-stump on which I sat to read letters from home!

With my knife, rich in six blades (besides a cork-screw, a pen-picker, and a b.u.t.ton-hook), I carved my name in large capitals over my desk.

Then night came, and the bell rang, and we went to our rooms. And I opened the window and looked out. I saw all the stars, and wondered which was mine,--which should light to fame and fortune the manhood about to commence. Hope and Ambition were high within me; and yet, behind them stood Melancholy. Ah! who amongst you, readers, can now summon back all those thoughts, sweet and sad,--all that untold, half-conscious regret for the past,--all those vague longings for the future, which made a poet of the dullest on the last night before leaving boyhood and school forever?

PART III.