PART III.
CHAPTER I.
It was a beautiful summer afternoon when the coach set me down at my
father's gate. Mrs. Primmins herself ran out to welcome me; and I had
scarcely escaped from the warm clasp of her friendly hand before I was
in the arms of my mother.
As soon as that tenderest of parents was convinced that I was not
famished, seeing that I had dined two hours ago at Dr. Herman's, she led
me gently across the garden towards the arbor. "You will find your
father so cheerful," said she, wiping away a tear. "His brother is with
him."
I stopped. His brother! Will the reader believe it? I had never heard
that he had a brother, so little were family affairs ever discussed in
my hearing.
"His brother!" said I. "Have I then an Uncle Caxton as well as an Uncle
Jack?"
"Yes, my love," said my mother. And then she added, "Your father and he
were not such good friends as they ought to have been, and the Captain
has been abroad. However, thank Heaven! they are now quite reconciled."
We had time for no more,--we were in the arbor. There, a table was
spread with wine and fruit,--the gentlemen were at their dessert; and
those gentlemen were my father, Uncle Jack, Mr. Squills, and--tall,
lean, buttoned-to-the-chin--an erect, martial, majestic, and imposing
personage, who seemed worthy of a place in my great ancestor's "Boke of
Chivalrie."
All rose as I entered; but my poor father, who was always slow in his
movements, had the last of me. Uncle Jack had left the very powerful
impression of his great seal-ring on my fingers; Mr. Squills had patted
me on the shoulder and pronounced me "wonderfully grown;" my new-found
relative had with great dignity said, "Nephew, your hand, sir,--I am
Captain de Caxton;" and even the tame duck had taken her beak from her
wing and rubbed it gently between my legs, which was her usual mode of
salutation, before my father placed his pale hand on my forehead, and
looking at me for a moment with unutterable sweetness, said, "More and
more like your mother,--God bless you!"
A chair had been kept vacant for me between my father and his brother.
I sat down in haste, and with a tingling color on my cheeks and a rising
at my throat, so much had the unusual kindness of my father's greeting
affected me; and then there came over me a sense of my new position. I
was no longer a schoolboy at home for his brief holiday: I had returned
to the shelter of the roof-tree to become myself one of its supports. I
was at last a man, privileged to aid or solace those dear ones who had
ministered, as yet without return, to me. That is a very strange crisis
in our life when we come home for good. Home seems a different thing;
before, one has been but a sort of guest after all, only welcomed and
indulged, and little festivities held in honor of the released and happy
child. But to come home for good,--to have done with school and
boyhood,--is to be a guest, a child no more. It is to share the
everyday life of cares and duties; it is to enter into the confidences
of home. Is it not so? I could have buried my face in my hands and
wept!
My father, with all his abstraction and all his simplicity, had a knack
now and then of penetrating at once to the heart. I verily believe he
read all that was passing in mine as easily as if it had been Greek. He
stole his arm gently round my waist and whispered, "Hush!" Then,
lifting his voice, he cried aloud, "Brother Roland, you must not let
Jack have the best of the argument."
"Brother Austin," replied the Captain, very formally, "Mr. Jack, if I
may take the liberty so to call him--"
"You may indeed," cried Uncle Jack.
"Sir," said the Captain, bowing, "it is a familiarity that does me
honor. I was about to say that Mr. Jack has retired from the field."
"Far from it," said Squills, dropping an effervescing powder into a
chemical mixture which he had been preparing with great attention,
composed of sherry and lemon-juice--"far from it. Mr. Tibbets--whose
organ of combativeness is finely developed, by the by--was saying--"
"That it is a rank sin and shame in the nineteenth century," quoth Uncle
Jack, "that a man like my friend Captain Caxton--"
"De Caxton, sir--Mr. Jack."
"De Caxton,--of the highest military talents, of the most illustrious
descent,--a hero sprung from heroes,--should have served so many years,
and with such distinction, in his Majesty's service, and should now be
only a captain on half-pay. This, I say, comes of the infamous system
of purchase, which sets up the highest honors for sale, as they did in
the Roman empire--"
My father pricked up his ears; but Uncle jack pushed on before my father
could get ready the forces of his meditated interruption.
"A system which a little effort, a little union, can so easily
terminate. Yes, sir," and Uncle Jack thumped the table, and two
cherries bobbed up and smote Captain de Caxton on the nose, "yes, sir, I
will undertake to say that I could put the army upon a very different
footing. If the poorer and more meritorious gentlemen, like Captain de
Caxton, would, as I was just observing, but unite in a grand anti-
aristocratic association, each paying a small sum quarterly, we could
realize a capital sufficient to out-purchase all these undeserving
individuals, and every man of merit should have his fair chance of
promotion."
"Egad! sir," said Squills, "there is something grand in that, eh,
Captain?"
"No, sir," replied the Captain, quite seriously; "there is in monarchies
but one fountain of honor. It would be an interference with a soldier's
first duty,--his respect for his sovereign."
"On the contrary," said Mr. Squills, "it would still be to the
sovereigns that one would owe the promotion."
"Honor," pursued the Captain, coloring up, and unheeding this witty
interruption, "is the reward of a soldier. What do I care that a young
jackanapes buys his colonelcy over my head? Sir, he does not buy from
me my wounds and my services. Sir, he does not buy from me the medal I
won at Waterloo. He is a rich man, and I am a poor man; he is called--
colonel, because he paid money for the name. That pleases him; well and
good. It would not please me; I had rather remain a captain, and feel
my dignity, not in my title, but in the services by which it has been
won. A beggarly, rascally association of stock-brokers, for aught I
know, buy me a company! I don't want to be uncivil, or I would say damn
'em--Mr.--sir--Jack!"
A sort of thrill ran through the Captain's audience; even Uncle Jack
seemed touched, for he stared very hard at the grim veteran, and said
nothing. The pause was awkward; Mr. Squills broke it. "I should like,"
quoth he, "to see your Waterloo medal,--you have it not about you?"
"Mr. Squills," answered the Captain, "it lies next to my heart while I
live. It shall be buried in my coffin, and I shall rise with it, at the
word of command, on the day of the Grand Review!" So saying, the
Captain leisurely unbuttoned his coat, and detaching from a piece of
striped ribbon as ugly a specimen of the art of the silversmith (begging
its pardon) as ever rewarded merit at the expense of taste, placed the
medal on the table.
The medal passed round, without a word, from hand to hand.
"It is strange," at last said my father, "how such trifles can be made
of such value,--how in one age a man sells his life for what in the next
age he would not give a button! A Greek esteemed beyond price a few
leaves of olive twisted into a circular shape and set upon his head,--a
very ridiculous head-gear we should now call it. An American Indian
prefers a decoration of human scalps, which, I apprehend, we should all
agree (save and except Mr. Squills, who is accustomed to such things) to
be a very disgusting addition to one's personal attractions; and my
brother values this piece of silver, which may be worth about five
shillings, more than Jack does a gold mine, or I do the library of the
London Museum. A time will come when people will think that as idle a
decoration as leaves and scalps."
"Brother," said the Captain, "there is nothing strange in the matter.
It is as plain as a pike-staff to a man who understands the principles
of honor."
"Possibly," said my father, mildly. "I should like to hear what you
have to say upon honor. I am sure it would very much edify us all."
