Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

"We can knock up shelves for your books in no time," said my uncle, rubbing his hands.

"It would be a charity," quoth my father, "for they have been very long in a recumbent position, and would like to stretch themselves, poor things. My dear Roland, this room is made for books – so round and so deep. I shall sit here like Truth in a well."

"And there is a room for you, sister, just out of it," said my uncle, opening a little low prison-like door into a charming room, for its window was low, and it had an iron balcony; "and out of that is the bed-room. For you, Pisistratus, my boy, I am afraid that it is soldier's quarters, indeed, with which you will have to put up. But never mind; in a day or two we shall make all worthy a general of your illustrious name – for he was a great general, Pisistratus the First – was he not, brother?"

"All tyrants are," said my father: "the knack of soldiering is indispensable to them."

"Oh, you may say what you please here!" said Roland, in high good humour, as he drew me down stairs, still apologising for my quarters, and so earnestly that I made up my mind that I was to be put into an oubliette. Nor were my suspicions much dispelled on seeing that we had to leave the keep, and pick our way into what seemed to me a mere heap of rubbish, on the dexter side of the court. But I was agreeably surprised to find, amidst these wrecks, a room with a noble casement commanding the whole country, and placed immediately over a plot of ground cultivated as a garden. The furniture was ample, though homely; the floors and walls well matted; and, altogether, despite the inconvenience of having to cross the courtyard to get to the rest of the house, and being wholly without the modern luxury of a bell, I thought that I could not be better lodged.

"But this is a perfect bower, my dear uncle! Depend on it, it was the bower-chamber of the Dames de Caxton – heaven rest them!"

"No," said my uncle, gravely; "I suspect it must have been the chaplain's room, for the chapel was to the right of you. An earlier chapel, indeed, formerly existed in the keep tower – for, indeed, it is scarcely a true keep without chapel, well, and hall. I can show you part of the roof of the first, and the two last are entire; the well is very curious, formed in the substance of the wall at one angle of the hall. In Charles the First's time, our ancestor lowered his only son down in a bucket, and kept him there six hours, while a Malignant mob was storming the tower. I need not say that our ancestor himself scorned to hide from such a rabble, for he was a grown man. The boy lived to be a sad spendthrift, and used the well for cooling his wine. He drank up a great many good acres."

"I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I were you. But, pray, have you not discovered the proper chamber of that great Sir William, about whom my father is so shamefully sceptical?"

"To tell you a secret," answered the Captain, giving me a sly poke in the ribs, "I have put your father into it! There are the initial letters W. C. let into the cusp of the York rose, and the date, three years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chimneypiece."

I could not help joining my uncle's grim low laugh at this characteristic pleasantry; and after I had complimented him on so judicious a mode of proving his point, I asked him how he could possibly have contrived to fit up the ruin so well, especially as he had scarcely visited it since his purchase.

"Why," said he, "about twelve years ago, that poor fellow you now see as my servant, and who is gardener, bailiff, seneschal, butler, and anything else you can put him to, was sent out of the army on the invalid list. So I placed him here; and as he is a capital carpenter, and has had a very fair education, I told him what I wanted, and put by a small sum every year for repairs and furnishing. It is astonishing how little it cost me, for Bolt, poor fellow, (that is his name,) caught the right spirit of the thing, and most of the furniture, (which you see is ancient and suitable,) he picked up at different cottages and farmhouses in the neighbourhood. As it is, however, we have plenty more rooms here and there – only, of late," continued my uncle, slightly changing colour, "I had no money to spare. But come," he resumed, with an evident effort – "come and see my barrack: it is on the other side of the hall, and made out of what no doubt were the butteries."

We reached the yard, and found the fly-coach had just crawled to the door. My father's head was buried deep in the vehicle, – he was gathering up his packages, and sending out, oracle-like, various muttered objurgations and anathemas upon Mrs Primmins and her vacuum; which Mrs Primmins, standing by, and making a lap with her apron to receive the packages and anathemas simultaneously, bore with the mildness of an angel, lifting up her eyes to heaven and murmuring something about "poor old bones." Though, as for Mrs Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years, and you might as soon have found a Plesiosaurus in the fat lands of Romney Marsh as a bone amidst those layers of flesh in which my poor father thought he had so carefully cottoned up his Cardan.

Leaving these parties to adjust matters between them, we stepped under the low doorway, and entered Rowland's room. Oh, certainly Bolt had caught the spirit of the thing! – certainly he had penetrated down even to the very pathos that lay within the deeps of Roland's character. Buffon says "the style is the man;" there, the room was the man. That nameless, inexpressible, soldier-like, methodical neatness which belonged to Roland – that was the first thing that struck one – that was the general character of the whole. Then, in details, there, in stout oak shelves, were the books on which my father loved to jest his more imaginative brother, – there they were, Froissart, Barante, Joinville, the Mort d'Arthur, Amadis of Gaul, Spenser's Fairy Queen, a noble copy of Strutt's Horda, Mallet's Northern Antiquities, Percy's Reliques, Pope's Homer, books on gunnery, archery, hawking, fortification – old chivalry and modern war together cheek by jowl.

Old chivalry and modern war! – look to that tilting helmet with the tall Caxton crest, and look to that trophy near it, a French cuirass – and that old banner (a knight's pennon) surmounting those crossed bayonets. And over the chimneypiece there – bright, clean, and, I warrant you, dusted daily – are Roland's own sword, his holsters, and pistols, yea, the saddle, pierced and lacerated, from which he had reeled when that leg – I gasped – I felt it all at a glance, and I stole softly to the spot, and, had Roland not been there, I could have kissed that sword as reverently as if it had been a Bayard's or a Sidney's.

My uncle was too modest to guess my emotion; he rather thought I had turned my face to conceal a smile at his vanity, and said, in a deprecating tone of apology – "It was all Bolt's doing, foolish fellow."

CHAPTER XLIX

Our host regaled us with a hospitality that notably contrasted his economical thrifty habits in London. To be sure, Bolt had caught the great pike which headed the feast; and Bolt, no doubt, had helped to rear those fine chickens ab ovo; Bolt, I have no doubt, made that excellent Spanish omelette; and for the rest, the products of the sheepwalk and the garden came in as volunteer auxiliaries – very different from the mercenary recruits by which those metropolitan Condottieri, the butcher and green-grocer, hasten the ruin of that melancholy commonwealth called "genteel poverty."

Our evening passed cheerfully; and Roland, contrary to his custom, was talker in chief. It was eleven o'clock before Bolt appeared with a lantern to conduct me through the court-yard to my dormitory, among the ruins – a ceremony which, every night, shine or dark, he insisted upon punctiliously performing.

It was long before I could sleep – before I could believe that but so few days had elapsed since Roland heard of his son's death – that son whose fate had so long tortured him; and yet, never had Roland appeared so free from sorrow! Was it natural – was it effort? Several days passed before I could answer that question, and then not wholly to my satisfaction. Effort there was, or rather resolute systematic determination. At moments Roland's head drooped, his brows met, and the whole man seemed to sink. Yet these were only moments; he would rouse himself up like a dozing charger at the sound of a trumpet, and shake off the creeping weight. But, whether from the vigour of his determination, or from some aid in other trains of reflection, I could not but perceive that Roland's sadness really was less grave and bitter than it had been, or than it was natural to suppose. He seemed to transfer, daily more and more, his affections from the dead to those around him, especially to Blanche and myself. He let it be seen that he looked on me now as his lawful successor – as the future supporter of his name – he was fond of confiding to me all his little plans, and consulting me on them. He would walk with me around his domains, (of which I shall say more hereafter,) – point out, from every eminence we climbed, where the broad lands which his forefathers owned stretched away to the horizon; unfold with tender hand the mouldering pedigree, and rest lingeringly on those of his ancestors who had held martial post, or had died on the field. There was a crusader who had followed Richard to Ascalon; there was a knight who had fought at Agincourt; there was a cavalier (whose picture was still extant, with fair lovelocks) who had fallen at Worcester – no doubt the same who had cooled his son in that well which the son devoted to more agreeable associations. But of all these worthies there was none whom my uncle, perhaps from the spirit of contradiction, valued like that apocryphal Sir William: and why? – because, when the apostate Stanley turned the fortunes of the field at Bosworth, and when that cry of despair – "Treason, treason!" burst from the lips of the last Plantagenet, "amongst the faithless," this true soldier "faithful found!" had fallen in that lion-rush which Richard made at his foe. "Your father tells me that Richard was a murderer and usurper," quoth my uncle. "Sir, that might be true or not; but it was not on the field of battle that his followers were to reason on the character of the master who trusted them, especially when a legion of foreign hirelings stood opposed to them. I would not have descended from that turncoat Stanley to be lord of all the lands the Earls of Derby can boast of. Sir, in loyalty, men fight and die for a grand principle, and a lofty passion; and this brave Sir William was paying back to the last Plantagenet the benefits he had received from the first!"

"And yet it may be doubted," said I maliciously, "whether William Caxton the printer did not – "

"Plague, pestilence, and fire seize William Caxton the printer, and his invention too!" cried my uncle barbarously. "When there were only a few books, at least they were good ones; and now they are so plentiful, all they do is to confound the judgment, unsettle the reason, drive the good books out of cultivation, and draw a ploughshare of innovation over every ancient landmark; seduce the women, womanize the men, upset states, thrones, and churches; rear a race of chattering, conceited, coxcombs, who can always find books in plenty to excuse them from doing their duty; make the poor discontented, the rich crotchety and whimsical, refine away the stout old virtues into quibbles and sentiments! All imagination formerly was expended in noble action, adventure, enterprise, high deeds and aspirations; now a man can but be imaginative by feeding on the false excitement of passions he never felt, dangers he never shared; and he fritters away all there is of life to spare in him upon the fictitious love-sorrows of Bond Street and St James's. Sir, chivalry ceased when the press rose! And to fasten upon me, as a forefather, out of all men who have ever lived and sinned, the very man who has most destroyed what I most valued – who, by the Lord! with his cursed invention has wellnigh got rid of respect for forefathers altogether – is a cruelty of which my brother had never been capable, if that printer's devil had not got hold of him!"

That a man in this blessed nineteenth century should be such a Vandal! and that my uncle Roland should talk in a strain that Totila would have been ashamed of, within so short a time after my father's scientific and erudite oration on the Hygeiana of Books, was enough to make one despair of the progress of intellect and the perfectibility of our species. And I have no manner of doubt that, all the while, my uncle had a brace of books in his pockets, Robert Hall one of them! In truth, he had talked himself into a passion, and did not know what nonsense he was saying, poor man. But this explosion of Captain Roland's has shattered the thread of my matter. Pouff! I must take breath and begin again!

Yes, in spite of my sauciness, the old soldier evidently took to me more and more. And, besides our critical examination of the property and the pedigree, he carried me with him on long excursions to distant villages, where some memorial of a defunct Caxton, a coat of arms, or an epitaph on a tombstone, might be still seen. And he made me pore over topographical works and county histories, (forgetful, Goth that he was, that for those very authorities he was indebted to the repudiated printer!) to find some anecdote of his beloved dead! In truth, the county for miles round bore the vestigia of those old Caxtons; their handwriting was on many a broken wall. And, obscure as they all were, compared to that great operative of the Sanctuary at Westminster, whom my father clung to – still, that the yesterdays that had lighted them the way to dusty death had cast no glare on dishonoured scutcheons seemed clear, from the popular respect and traditional affection in which I found that the name was still held in hamlet and homestead. It was pleasant to see the veneration with which this small hidalgo of some three hundred a-year was held, and the patriarchal affection with which he returned it. Roland was a man who would walk into a cottage, rest his cork leg on the hearth, and talk for the hour together upon all that lay nearest to the hearts of the owners. There is a peculiar spirit of aristocracy amongst agricultural peasants: they like old names and families; they identify themselves with the honours of a house, as if of its clan. They do not care so much for wealth as townsfolk and the middle class do; they have a pity, but a respectful one, for wellborn poverty. And then this Roland, too – who would go and dine in a cook shop, and receive change for a shilling, and shun the ruinous luxury of a hack cabriolet – could be positively extravagant in his liberalities to those around him. He was altogether another being in his paternal acres. The shabby-genteel, half-pay captain, lost in the whirl of London, here luxuriated into a dignified case of manner that Chesterfield might have admired. And, if to please is the true sign of politeness, I wish you could have seen the faces that smiled upon Captain Roland, as he walked down the village, nodding from side to side.

One day a frank, hearty, old woman, who had known Roland as a boy, seeing him lean on my arm, stopped us, as she said bluffly, to take a "geud luik" at me.

Fortunately I was stalwart enough to pass muster, even in the eyes of a Cumberland matron; and, after a compliment at which Roland seemed much pleased, she said to me, but pointing to the Captain —

"Hegh, sir, now you ha the bra time before you; you maun een try and be as geud as he. And if life last, ye wull too – for there never waur a bad ane of that stock. Wi' heads kindly stup'd to the least, and lifted manfu' oop to the heighest – that ye all war' sin ye came from the Ark. Blessins on the ould name – though little pelf goes with it – it sounds on the peur man's ear like a bit o' gould!"

"Do you not see now," said Roland, as we turned away, "what we owe to a name, and what to our forefathers? – do you not see why the remotest ancestor has a right to our respect and consideration – for he was a parent? 'Honour your parents' – the law does not say, 'Honour your children!' If a child disgrace us, and the dead, and the sanctity of this great heritage of their virtues —the name; – if he does – " Roland stopped short, and added fervently, "But you are my heir now – I have no fear! What matters one foolish old man's sorrow? – the name, that property of generations, is saved, thank Heaven – the name!"

Now the riddle was solved, and I understood why, amidst all his natural grief for a son's loss, that proud father was consoled. For he was less himself a father than a son – son to the long dead. From every grave, where a progenitor slept, he had heard a parent's voice. He could bear to be bereaved, if the forefathers were not dishonoured. Roland was more than half a Roman – the son might still cling to his household affections, but the lares were a part of his religion.

CHAPTER L

But I ought to be hard at work, preparing myself for Cambridge. The deuce! – how can I? The point in academical education on which I require most preparation is Greek composition. I come to my father, who, one might think, was at home enough in this. But rare indeed is it to find a great scholar who is a good teacher.

My dear father! if one is content to take you in your own way, there never was a more admirable instructor for the heart, the head, the principles, or the tastes – in your own way, when you have discovered that there is some one sore to be healed – one defect to be repaired; and you have rubbed your spectacles, and got your hand fairly into that recess between your frill and your waistcoat. But to go to you, cut and dry, monotonously, regularly – book and exercise in hand – to see the mournful patience with which you tear yourself from that great volume of Cardan in the very honeymoon of possession – and then to note those mild eyebrows gradually distend themselves into perplexed diagonals, over some false quantity or some barbarous collocation – till there steal forth that horrible "Papæ!" which means more on your lips than I am sure it ever did when Latin was a live language, and "Papæ!" a natural and unpedantic ejaculation! – no, I would sooner blunder through the dark by myself a thousand times, than light my rush-light at the lamp of that Phlegethonian "Papæ!"

And then my father would wisely and kindly, but wondrous slowly, erase three-fourths of one's pet verses, and intercalate others that one saw were exquisite, but could not exactly see why. And then one asked why; and my father shook his head in despair, and said – "But you ought to feel why!"

In short, scholarship to him was like poetry: he could no more teach it you than Pindar could have taught you how to make an ode. You breathed the aroma, but you could no more seize and analyse it, than, with the opening of your naked hand, you could carry off the scent of a rose. I soon left my father in peace to Cardan, and to the Great Book, which last, by the way, advanced but slowly. For Uncle Jack had now insisted on its being published in quarto, with illustrative plates; and those plates took an immense time, and were to cost an immense sum – but that cost was the affair of the Anti-Publisher Society. But how can I settle to work by myself? No sooner have I got into my room —penitus ab orbe divisus, as I rashly think – than there is a tap at the door. Now, it is my mother, who is benevolently engaged upon making curtains to all the windows, (a trifling superfluity that Bolt had forgotten or disdained,) and who wants to know how the draperies are fashioned at Mr Trevanion's: a pretence to have me near her, and see with her own eyes that I am not fretting; – the moment she hears I have shut myself up in my room, she is sure that it is for sorrow. Now it is Bolt, who is making book-shelves for my father, and desires to consult me at every turn, especially as I have given him a Gothic design, which pleases him hugely. Now it is Blanche, whom, in an evil hour, I undertook to teach to draw, and who comes in on tiptoe, vowing she'll not disturb me, and sits so quiet that she fidgets me out of all patience. Now, and much more often, it is the Captain, who wants me to walk, to ride, to fish. And, by St Hubert! (saint of the chase,) bright August comes – and there is moor-game on those barren wolds – and my uncle has given me the gun he shot with at my age – single-barrelled, flint lock – but you would not have laughed at it if you had seen the strange feats it did in Roland's hands – while in mine, I could always lay the blame on the flint lock! Time, in short, passed rapidly; and if Roland and I had our dark hours, we chased them away before they could settle – shot them on the wing as they got up.

Then, too, though the immediate scenery around my uncle's was so bleak and desolate, the country within a few miles was so full of objects of interest – of landscapes so poetically grand or lovely; and occasionally we coaxed my father from the Cardan, and spent whole days by the margin of some glorious lake.

Amongst these excursions, I made one by myself to that house in which my father had known the bliss and the pangs of that stern first love that still left its scars fresh on my own memory. The house, large and imposing, was shut up – the Trevanions had not been there for years – the pleasure-grounds had been contracted into the smallest possible space. There was no positive decay or ruin – that Trevanion would never have allowed; but there was the dreary look of absenteeship everywhere. I penetrated into the house with the help of my card and half-a-crown. I saw that memorable boudoir – I could fancy the very spot in which my father had heard the sentence that had changed the current of his life. And when I returned home, I looked with new tenderness on my father's placid brow – and blessed anew that tender helpmate, who, in her patient love, had chased from it every shadow.

I had received one letter from Vivian a few days after our arrival. It had been redirected from my father's house, at which I had given him my address. It was short, but seemed cheerful. He said, that he believed he had at last hit on the right way, and should keep to it – that he and the world were better friends than they had been – and that the only way to keep friends with the world was to treat it as a tamed tiger, and have one hand on a crow-bar while one fondled the beast with the other. He enclosed me a bank-note which somewhat more than covered his debt to me, and bade me pay him the surplus when he should claim it as a millionnaire. He gave me no address in his letter, but it bore the post-mark of Godalming. I had the impertinent curiosity to look into an old topographical work upon Surrey, and in a supplemental itinerary I found this passage, "To the left of the beech-wood, three miles from Godalming, you catch a glimpse of the elegant seat of Francis Vivian, Esq." To judge by the date of the work, the said Francis Vivian might be the grandfather of my friend, his namesake. There could no longer be any doubt as to the parentage of this prodigal son.

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1

"It must be admitted that Russian officers are second to those of no other nation, in thirst for distinction, and in honourable ambition, to awaken and stimulate which, innumerable means are employed. In no other army are the rewards for those officers who distinguish themselves in the field of so many kinds, and so lavishly dealt out. There are all manner of medals and marks for good service – crosses and stars of Saints George, Stanislaus, Vladimir, Andrew, Anna, and other holy personages; some with crowns, some with diamonds, peculiar distinctions on the epaulets and uniforms, &c. &c. I was once in a distinguished society, composed almost entirely of officers of the army of the Caucasus. Not finding very much amusement, I had the patience to count all the orders and decorations in the room, and found that upon the breasts of the thirty-five military guests, there glittered more than two hundred stars, crosses, and medals; on some of the generals' coats were more orders than buttons. As it usually happens, the desire for these distinctions increases with their possession. The Russian who has obtained a medal leaves no stone unturned to get a knight's cross, and when the cross is at his button-hole, he is ravenous for the glittering star, and ready to make any sacrifice to obtain it." —Der Kaukasus, &c., vol. ii. p. 98.