CHAPTER II.
"Mr. Caxton, how on earth did you ever come to marry?" asked Mr.
Squills, abruptly, with his feet on the hob, while stirring up his
punch.
That was a home question, which many men might reasonably resent; but my
father scarcely knew what resentment was.
"Squills," said he, turning round from his books, and laying one finger
on the surgeon's arm confidentially,--"Squills," said he, "I myself
should be glad to know how I came to be married."
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!"
