CHAPTER VII.
"I Swear," cried my uncle, "that it shall be so." And with a big frown
and a truculent air he seized the fatal instrument.
"Indeed, brother, it must not," said my father, laying one pale, scholar-
like hand mildly on Captain Roland's brown, bellicose, and bony fist, and
with the other, outstretched, protecting the menaced, palpitating victim.
Not a word had my uncle heard of our losses until they had been adjusted
and the sum paid; for we all knew that the old Tower would have been gone
--sold to some neighboring squire or jobbing attorney--at the first
impetuous impulse of Uncle Roland's affectionate generosity. Austin
endangered! Austin ruined!--he would never have rested till he came,
cash in hand, to his deliverance. Therefore, I say, not till all was
settled did I write to the Captain and tell him gayly what had chanced.
And however light I made of our misfortunes, the letter brought the
Captain to the red brick house the same evening on which I myself
reached it, and about an hour later. My uncle had not sold the Tower,
but he came prepared to carry us off to it vi et armis. We must live
with him and on him, let or sell the brick house, and put out the
remnant of my father's income to nurse and accumulate. And it was on
finding my father's resistance stubborn, and that hitherto he had made
no way, that my uncle, stepping back into the hall, in which he had
left his carpet bag, etc., returned with an old oak case, and, touching
a spring roller, out flew the Canton pedigree.
Out it flew, covering all the table, and undulating, Nile-like, till it
had spread over books, papers, my mother's work-box, and the tea-service
(for the table was large and compendious, emblematic of its owner's
mind); and then, flowing on the carpet, dragged its slow length along
till it was stopped by the fender.
"Now," said my uncle, solemnly, "there never have been but two causes of
difference between you and me, Austin. One is over: why should the other
last? Aha! I know why you hang back: you think that we may quarrel about
it!"
"About what, Roland?"
"About it, I say; and I'll be d--d if we do!" cried my uncle, reddening.
"And I have been thinking a great deal upon the matter, and I have no
doubt you are right. So I brought the old parchment with me, and you
shall see me fill up the blank just as you would have it. Now, then, you
will come and live with me, and we can never quarrel any more." Thus
saying, Uncle Roland looked round for pen and ink; and having found
them,--not without difficulty, for they had been submerged under the
overflow of the pedigree,--he was about to fill up the lacuna, or hiatus,
which had given rise to such memorable controversy, with the name of
"William Caxton, printer in the Sanctuary," when my father, slowly
recovering his breath, and aware of his brother's purpose, intervened.
It would have done your heart good to hear them, so completely, in the
inconsistency of human nature, had they changed sides upon the question,
--my father now all for Sir William de Caxton, the hero of Bosworth; my
uncle all for the immortal printer. And in this discussion they grew
animated their eyes sparkled, their voices rose,--Roland's voice deep and
thunderous, Austin's sharp and piercing. Mr. Squills stopped his ears.
Thus it arrived at that point, when my uncle doggedly came to the end of
all argumentation,--"I swear that it shall be so;" and my father, trying
the last resource of pathos, looked pleadingly into Roland's eyes, and
said, with a tone soft as mercy, "Indeed, brother, it must not."
Meanwhile the dry parchment crisped, creaked, and trembled in every pore
of its yellow skin.
"But," said I, coming in opportunely, like the Horatian deity, "I don't
see that either of you gentlemen has a right so to dispose of my
ancestry. It is quite clear that a man has no possession in posterity.
Posterity may possess him; but deuce a bit will he ever be the better for
his great great-grandchildren!"
Squills.--"Hear, hear!"
Pisistratus (warming).--"But a man's ancestry is a positive property to
him. How much, not only of acres, but of his constitution, his temper,
his conduct, character, and nature, he may inherit from some progenitor
ten times removed! Nay, without that progenitor would he ever have been
born,--would a Squills ever have introduced him into the world, or a
nurse ever have carried him upo kolpo!"
Squills.--"Hear, hear!"
Pisistratus (with dignified emotion).--"No man, therefore, has a right to
rob another of a forefather, with a stroke of his pen, from any motive,
howsoever amiable. In the present instance you will say, perhaps, that
the ancestor in question is apocryphal,--it may be the printer, it may be
the knight. Granted; but here, where history is in fault, shall a mere
sentiment decide? While both are doubtful, my imagination appropriates
both. At one time I can reverence industry and learning in the printer;
at another, valor and devotion in the knight. This kindly doubt gives me
two great forefathers; and, through them, two trains of idea that
influence my conduct under different circumstances. I will not permit
you, Captain Roland, to rob me of either forefather, either train of
idea. Leave, then, this sacred void unfilled, unprofaned, and accept
this compromise of chivalrous courtesy while my father lives with the
Captain, we will believe in the printer; when away from the Captain, we
will stand firm to the knight."
"Good!" cried Uncle Roland, as I paused, a little out of breath.
"And," said my mother, softly, "I do think, Austin, there is a way of
settling the matter which will please all parties. It is quite sad to
think that poor Roland and dear little Blanche should be all alone in the
Tower; and I am sure that we should be much happier all together."
"There!" cried Roland, triumphantly. "If you are not the most obstinate,
hard-hearted, unfeeling brute in the world,--which I don't take you to
be,--brother Austin, after that really beautiful speech of your wife's,
there is not a word to be said further."
"But we have not yet heard Kitty to the end, Roland."
"I beg your pardon a thousand times, ma'am--sister," said the Captain,
bowing.
"Well, I was going to add," said my mother, "that we will go and live
with you, Roland, and club our little fortunes together. Blanche and I
will take care of the house, and we shall be just twice as rich together
as we are separately."
"Pretty sort of hospitality that!" grunted the Captain. "I did not
expect you to throw me over in that way. No, no; you must lay by for the
boy there. What's to become of him?"
"But we shall all lay by for him," said my mother, simply,--"you as well
as Austin. We shall have more to save, if we have more to spend."
"Ah, save!--that is easily said; there would be a pleasure in saving,
then," said the Captain, mournfully.
"And what's to become of me?" cried Squills, very petulantly. "Am I to
be left here in my old age, not a rational soul to speak to, and no other
place in the village where there's a drop of decent punch to be had? 'A
plague on both your houses!' as the chap said at the theatre the other
night."
"There's room for a doctor in our neighborhood, Mr. Squills," said the
Captain. "The gentleman in your profession who does for us, wants, I
know, to sell the business."
"Humph," said Squills,--"a horribly healthy neighborhood, I suspect!"
"Why, it has that misfortune, Mr. Squills; but with your help," said my
uncle, slyly, "a great alteration for the better may be effected in that
respect."
Mr. Squills was about to reply when ring--a--ting--ring--ting! there
came such a brisk, impatient, make-one's-self-at home kind of
tintinnabular alarum at the great gate that we all started up and looked
at each other in surprise. Who could it possibly be? We were not kept
long in suspense; for in another moment Uncle Jack's voice, which was
always very clear and distinct, pealed through the hall, and we were
still staring at each other when Mr. Tibbets, with a bran-new muffler
round his neck, and a peculiarly comfortable greatcoat,--best double
Saxony, equally new,--dashed into the room, bringing with him a very
considerable quantity of cold air, which he hastened to thaw, first in my
father's arms, next in my mother's. He then made a rush at the Captain,
who ensconced himself behind the dumb-waiter with a "Hem! Mr.--sir--
Jack--sir--hem, hem!" Failing there, Mr. Tibbets rubbed off the
remaining frost upon his double Saxony against your humble servant,
patted Squills affectionately on the back, and then proceeded to occupy
his favorite position before the fire.
"Took you by surprise, eh?" said Uncle Jack, unpeeling himself by the
hearth-rug. "But no,--not by surprise; you must have known Jack's heart:
you at least, Austin Caxton, who know everything,--you must have seen
that it overflowed with the tenderest and most brotherly emotions; that
once delivered from that cursed Fleet (you have no idea what a place it
is, sir!), I could not rest, night or day, till I had flown here,--here,
to the dear family nest,--poor wounded dove that I am," added Uncle Jack,
pathetically, and taking out his pocket-handkerchief from the double
Saxony, which he had now flung over my father's arm-chair.
Not a word replied to this eloquent address, with its touching
peroration. My mother hung down her pretty head and looked ashamed. My
uncle retreated quite into the corner and drew the dumb-waiter after him,
so as to establish a complete fortification. Mr. Squills seized the pen
that Roland had thrown down, and began mending it furiously,--that is,
cutting it into slivers,--thereby denoting, symbolically, how he would
like to do with Uncle Jack, could he once get him safe and snug under his
manipular operations. I bent over the pedigree, and my father rubbed his
spectacles.
The silence would have been appalling to another man nothing appalled
Uncle Jack.
Uncle Jack turned to the fire, and warmed first one foot, then the other.
This comfortable ceremony performed, he again faced the company, and
resumed, musingly, and as if answering some imaginary observations,--
"Yes, yes, you are right there; and a deuced unlucky speculation it
proved too. But I was overruled by that fellow Peck. Says I to him,
says I, "Capitalist"!--pshaw! no popular interest there; it don't address
the great public! Very confined class the capitalists, better throw
ourselves boldly on the people. Yes,' said I, 'call it the "Anti-
Capitalist."' By Jove! sir, we should have carried all before us! but I
was overruled. The 'Anti-Capitalist'!--what an idea! Address the whole
reading world, there, sir: everybody hates the capitalist--everybody
would have his neighbor's money. The 'Anti-Capitalist'!--sir, we should
have gone off, in the manufacturing towns, like wildfire. But what could
I do?--"
"John Tibbets," said my father, solemnly, "Capitalist 'or' Anti-
Capitalist,' thou hadst a right to follow thine own bent in either,--but
always provided it had been with thine own money. Thou seest not the
thing, John Tibbets, in the right point of view; and a little repentance
in the face of those thou hast wronged, would not have misbecome thy
father's son and thy sister's brother!"
Never had so severe a rebuke issued from the mild lips of Austin Caxton;
and I raised my eyes with a compassionate thrill, expecting to see John
Tibbets gradually sink and disappear through the carpet.
"Repentance!" cried Uncle Jack, bounding up as if ha had been shot. "And
do you think I have a heart of stone, of pumice-stone? Do you think I
don't repent? I have done nothing but repent; I shall repent to my dying
day."
"Then there is no more to be said, Jack," cried my father, softening, and
holding out his hand.
"Yes!" cried Mr. Tibbets, seizing the hand and pressing it to the heart
he had thus defended from the suspicion of being pumice, "yes,--that I
should have trusted that dunderheaded, rascally curmudgeon Peck; that I
should have let him call it 'The Capitalist,' despite all my convictions,
when the Anti--'"
"Pshaw!" interrupted my father, drawing away his hand.
"John," said my mother, gravely, and with tears in her voice, "you forget
who delivered you from prison; you forget whom you have nearly consigned
to prison yourself; you forg--"
"Hush, hush!" said my father, "this will never do; and it is you who
forget, my dear, the obligations I owe to Jack. He has reduced my
fortune one half, it is true; but I verily think he has made the three
hearts, in which he my real treasures, twice as large as they were
before. Pisistratus, my boy, ring the bell."
"My dear Kitty," cried Jack, whimperingly, and stealing up to my mother,
"don't be so hard on me; I thought to make all your fortunes,--I did
indeed."
Here the servant entered.
"See that Mr. Tibbets's things are taken up to his room, and that there
is a good fire," said my father.
"And," continued Jack, loftily, "I will, make all your fortunes yet. I
have it here!" and he struck his head.
"Stay a moment!" said my father to the servant, who had got back to the
door. "Stay a moment," said my father, looking extremely frightened,--
"perhaps Mr. Tibbets may prefer the inn!"
"Austin," said Uncle Jack, with emotion, "if I were a dog, with no home
but a dog-kennel, and you came to me for shelter, I would turn out--to
give you the best of the straw!"
My father was thoroughly melted this time.
"Primmins will be sure to see everything is made comfortable for Mr.
Tibbets," said he, waving his hand to the servant. "Something nice for
supper, Kitty, my dear,--and the largest punch-bowl. You like punch,
Jack?"
"Punch, Austin!" said Uncle Jack, putting his handkerchief to his eyes.
The Captain pushed aside the dumb-waiter, strode across the room, and
shook hands with Uncle Jack; my mother buried her face in her apron, and
fairly ran off; and Squills said in my ear, "It all comes of the biliary
secretions. Nobody could account for this who did not know the
peculiarly fine organization of your father's--liver!"
