The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Complete

That refining fastidiousness, that scrupulosity of political conscience, which had characterized him as an independent member, and often served, in the opinion both of friend and of foe, to give the attribute of general impracticability to a mind that, in all details, was so essentially and laboriously practical, might perhaps have founded Trevanion’s reputation as a minister if he could have been a minister without colleagues,—if, standing alone, and from the necessary height, he could have placed, clear and single, before the world, his exquisite honesty of purpose and the width of a statesmanship marvellously accomplished and comprehensive. But Trevanion could not amalgamate with others, nor subscribe to the discipline of a cabinet in which he was not the chief, especially in a policy which must have been thoroughly abhorrent to such a nature,—a policy that, of late years, has distinguished not one faction alone, but has seemed so forced upon the more eminent political leaders on either side that they who take the more charitable view of things may perhaps hold it to arise from the necessity of the age, fostered by the temper of the public: I mean the policy of Expediency. Certainly not in this book will I introduce the angry elements of party politics; and how should I know much about them? All that I have to say is that, right or wrong, such a policy must have been at war, every moment, with each principle of Trevanion’s statesmanship, and fretted each fibre of his moral constitution. The aristocratic combinations which his alliance with the Castleton interest had brought to his aid served perhaps to fortify his position in the Cabinet; yet aristocratic combinations were of small avail against what seemed the atmospherical epidemic of the age. I could see how his situation had preyed on his mind when I read a paragraph in the newspapers, “that it was reported, on good authority, that Mr. Trevanion had tendered his resignation, but had been prevailed upon to withdraw it, as his retirement at that moment would break up the government.” Some months afterwards came another paragraph, to the effect “that Mr. Trevanion was taken suddenly ill, and that it was feared his illness was of a nature to preclude his resuming his official labors.” Then Parliament broke up. Before it met again, Mr. Trevanion was gazetted as Earl of Ulverstone,—a title that had been once in his family,—and had left the Administration, unable to encounter the fatigues of office. To an ordinary man the elevation to an earldom, passing over the lesser honors in the peerage, would have seemed no mean close to a political career; but I felt what profound despair of striving against circumstance for utility—what entanglements with his colleagues, whom he could neither conscientiously support, nor, according to his high old-fashioned notions of party honor and etiquette, energetically oppose—had driven him to abandon that stormy scene in which his existence had been passed. The House of Lords, to that active intellect, was as the retirement of some warrior of old into the cloisters of a convent. The gazette that chronicled the earldom of Ulverstone was the proclamation that Albert Trevanion lived no more for the world of public men. And, indeed, from that date his career vanished out of sight. Trevanion died,—the Earl of Ulverstone made no sign.

I had hitherto written but twice to Lady Ellinor during my exile,—once upon the marriage of Fanny with Lord Castleton, which took place about six months after I sailed from England, and again when thanking her husband for some rare animals, equine, pastoral, and bovine, which he had sent as presents to Bolding and myself. I wrote again after Trevanion’s elevation to the peerage, and received, in due time, a reply confirming all my impressions; for it was full of bitterness and gall, accusations of the world, fears for the country,—Richelieu himself could not have taken a gloomier view of things when his levees were deserted and his power seemed annihilated before the “Day of Dupes.” Only one gleam of comfort appeared to visit Lady Ulverstone’s breast, and thence to settle prospectively over the future of the world,—a second son had been born to Lord Castleton; to that son would descend the estates of Ulverstone and the representation of that line distinguished by Trevanion and enriched by Trevanion’s wife. Never was there a child of such promise! Not Virgil himself, when he called on the Sicilian Muses to celebrate the advent of a son to Pollio, ever sounded a loftier strain. Here was one, now, perchance, engaged on words of two syllables, called:

“By laboring Nature to sustain The nodding frame of heaven and earth and main, See to their base restored, earth, sea, and air, And joyful ages from behind in crowding ranks   appear!”

Happy dream which Heaven sends to grandparents,—rebaptism of Hope in the font whose drops sprinkle the grandchild!

Time flies on; affairs continue to prosper. I am just leaving the bank at Adelaide with a satisfied air when I am stopped in the street by bowing acquaintances who never shook me by the hand before. They shake me by the hand now, and cry, “I wish you joy, sir. That brave fellow, your namesake, is of course your near relation.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you not seen the papers? Here they are.”

“Gallant Conduct of Ensign De Caxton! Promoted to a  Lieutenancy on the Field!”

I wipe my eyes, and cry: “Thank Heaven,—it is my cousin!” Then new hand-shakings, new groups gather round. I feel taller by the head than I was before! We grumbling English, always quarrelling with each other,—the world not wide enough to hold us; and yet, when in the far land some bold deed is done by a countryman, how we feel that we are brothers; how our hearts warm to each other! What a letter I wrote home, and how joyously I went back to the Bush! The Will-o’-the-Wisp has attained to a cattle station of his own. I go fifty miles out of my way to tell him the news and give him the newspaper; for he knows now that his old master, Vivian, is a Cumberland man,—a Caxton. Poor Will-o’-the-Wisp! The tea that night tasted uncommonly like whiskey-punch! Father Mathew, forgive us; but if you had been a Cumberland man, and heard the Will-o’-the-Wisp roaring out, “Blue Bonnets over the Borders,” I think your tea, too, would not have come out of the—caddy!

CHAPTER V

A great change has occurred in our household. Guy’s father is dead,—his latter years cheered by the accounts of his son’s steadiness and prosperity, and by the touching proofs thereof which Guy has exhibited; for he insisted on repaying to his father the old college debts and the advance of the L1,500, begging that the money might go towards his sister’s portion. Now, after the old gentleman’s death, the sister resolved to come out and live with her dear brother Guy. Another wing is built to the hut. Ambitious plans for a new stone house, to be commenced the following year, are entertained; and Guy has brought back from Adelaide not only a sister, but, to my utter astonishment, a wife, in the shape of a fair friend by whom the sister is accompanied.

The young lady did quite right to come to Australia if she wanted to be married. She was very pretty, and all the beaux in Adelaide were round her in a moment. Guy was in love the first day, in a rage with thirty rivals the next, in despair the third, put the question the fourth, and before the fifteenth was a married man, hastening back with a treasure, of which he fancied all the world was conspiring to rob him. His sister was quite as pretty as her friend, and she, too, had offers enough the moment she landed,—only she was romantic and fastidious; and I fancy Guy told her that “I was just made for her.”

However, charming though she be,—with pretty blue eyes and her brother’s frank smile,—I am not enchanted. I fancy she lost all chance of my heart by stepping across the yard in a pair of silk shoes. If I were to live in the Bush, give me a wife as a companion who can ride well, leap over a ditch, walk beside me when I go forth, gun in hand, for a shot at the kangaroos. But I dare not go on with the list of a Bush husband’s requisites. This change, however, serves, for various reasons, to quicken my desire of return. Ten years have now elapsed, and I have already obtained a much larger fortune than I had calculated to make. Sorely to Guy’s honest grief, I therefore wound up our affairs and dissolved partnership; for he had decided to pass his life in the colony,—and with his pretty wife, who has grown very fond of him, I don’t wonder at it. Guy takes my share of the station and stock off my hands; and, all accounts squared between us, I bid farewell to the Bush. Despite all the motives that drew my heart homeward, it was not without participation in the sorrow of my old companions that I took leave of those I might never see again on this side the grave. The meanest man in my employ had grown a friend; and when those hard hands grasped mine, and from many a breast that once had waged fierce war with the world came the soft blessing to the Homeward-bound,—with a tender thought for the Old England that had been but a harsh stepmother to them,—I felt a choking sensation which I suspect is little known to the friendships of Mayfair and St. James’s. I was forced to get off with a few broken words, when I had meant to part with a long speech,—perhaps the broken words pleased the audience better. Spurring away, I gained a little eminence and looked back. There were the poor faithful fellows gathered in a ring, watching me, their hats off, their hands shading their eyes from the sun. And Guy had thrown himself on the ground, and I heard his loud sobs distinctly. His wife was leaning over his shoulder, trying to soothe. Forgive him, fair helpmate; you will be all the world to him—to-morrow! And the blue-eyed sister, where was she? Had she no tears for the rough friend who laughed at the silk shoes, and taught her how to hold the reins and never fear that the old pony would run away with her? What matter? If the tears were shed, they were hidden tears. No shame in them, fair Ellen! Since then thou hast wept happy tears over thy first-born,—those tears have long ago washed away all bitterness in the innocent memories of a girl’s first fancy.

CHAPTER VI

Dated From Adelaide.

Imagine my wonder! Uncle Jack has just been with me, and—But hear the dialogue.

Uncle Jack.—“So you are positively going back to that smoky, fusty Old England, just when you are on your high road to a plum,—a plum, sir, at least! They all say there is not a more rising young man in the colony. I think Bullion would take you into partnership. What are you in such a hurry for?”

Pisistratus.—“To see my father and mother and Uncle Roland, and—” (was about to name some one else, but stops). “You see, my dear uncle, I came out solely with the idea of repairing my father’s losses in that unfortunate speculation of ‘The Capitalist’!”

Uncle Jack (coughs and ejaculates).—“That villain Peck!”

Pisistratus.—“And to have a few thousands to invest in poor Roland’s acres. The object is achieved: why should I stay?”

Uncle Jack.—“A few paltry thousands, when in twenty years more, at the farthest, you would wallow in gold!”

Pisistratus.—“A man learns in the Bush how happy life can be with plenty of employment and very little money. I shall practise that lesson in England.”

Uncle Jack.—“Your mind’s made up?”

Pisistratus.—“And my place in the ship taken.”

Uncle Jack.—“Then there’s no more to be said.” (Hums, haws, and examines his nails,—filbert-nails, not a speck on them. Then suddenly, and jerking up his head) “That ‘Capitalist’! it has been on my conscience, nephew, ever since; and, somehow or other, since I have abandoned the cause of my fellow-creatures, I think I have cared more for my relations.”

Pisistratus (smiling as he remembers his father’s shrewd predictions thereon).—“Naturally, my dear uncle; any child who has thrown a stone into a pond knows that a circle disappears as it widens.”

Uncle Jack.—“Very true,—I shall make a note of that, applicable to my next speech in defence of what they call the ‘land monopoly.’ Thank you,—stone, circle! [Jots down notes in his pocket-book.] But to return to the point: I am well off now, I have neither wife nor child, and I feel that I ought to bear my share in your father’s loss,—it was our joint speculation. And your father—good, dear Austin!—paid my debts into the bargain. And how cheering the punch was that night, when your mother wanted to scold poor Jack! And the L300 Austin lent me when I left him: nephew, that was the remaking of me,—the acorn of the oak I have planted. So here they are [added Uncle Jack, with a heroical effort, and he extracted from the pocket-book bills for a sum between three and four thousand pounds]. There, it is done; and I shall sleep better for it!” With that Uncle Jack got up, and bolted out of the room.

Ought I to take the money? Why, I think yes,—it is but fair. Jack must be really rich, and can well spare the money; besides, if he wants it again, I know my father will let him have it. And, indeed, Jack caused the loss of the whole sum lost on “The Capitalist,” etc.: and this is not quite the half of what my father paid away. But is it not fine in Uncle Jack? Well, my father was quite right in his milder estimate of Jack’s scalene conformation, and it is hard to judge of a man when he is needy and down in the world. When one grafts one’s ideas on one’s neighbor’s money, they are certainly not so grand as when they spring from one’s own.

Uncle Jack (popping his head into the room).—“And, you see, you can double that money if you will just leave it in my hands for a couple of years,—you have no notion what I shall make of the Tibbets’ Wheal! Did I tell you? The German was quite right; I have been offered already seven times the sum which I gave for the land. But I am now looking out for a company: let me put you down for shares to the amount at least of those trumpery bills. Cent per cent,—I guarantee cent per cent!” And Uncle Jack stretches out those famous smooth hands of his, with a tremulous motion of the ten eloquent fingers.

Pisistratus.—“Ah! my dear uncle, if you repent—”

Uncle Jack.—“Repent, when I offer you cent per cent, on my personal guarantee!”

Pisistratus (carefully putting the bills into his breast coat-pocket).—“Then if you don’t repent, my dear uncle, allow me to shake you by the hand and say that I will not consent to lessen my esteem and admiration for the high principle which prompts this restitution, by confounding it with trading associations of loans, interests, and copper-mines. And, you see, since this sum is paid to my father, I have no right to invest it without his permission.”

Uncle Jack (with emotion). “‘Esteem, admiration, high principle!’—these are pleasant words from you, nephew. [Then, shaking his head, and smiling] You sly dog! you are quite right; get the bills cashed at once. And hark ye, sir, just keep out of my way, will you? And don’t let me coax from you a farthing.” Uncle Jack slams the door and rushes out. Pisistratus draws the bills warily from his pocket, half suspecting they must already have turned into withered leaves, like fairy money; slowly convinces himself that the bills are good bills; and by lively gestures testifies his delight and astonishment. Scene changes.

PART XVIII

CHAPTER I

Adieu, thou beautiful land, Canaan of the exiles, and Ararat to many a shattered ark! Fair cradle of a race for whom the unbounded heritage of a future that no sage can conjecture, no prophet divine, lies afar in the golden promise—light of Time!—destined, perchance, from the sins and sorrows of a civilization struggling with its own elements of decay, to renew the youth of the world, and transmit the great soul of England through the cycles of Infinite Change. All climates that can best ripen the products of earth or form into various character and temper the different families of man is “rain influences” from the heaven that smiles so benignly on those who had once shrunk, ragged, from the wind, or scowled on the thankless sun. Here, the hard air of the chill Mother Isle,—there, the mild warmth of Italian autumns or the breathless glow of the tropics. And with the beams of every climate, glides subtle Hope. Of her there, it may be said, as of Light itself, in those exquisite lines of a neglected poet,—

“Through the soft ways of heaven and air and sea, Which open all their pores to thee, Like a clear river thou dost glide. All the world’s bravery that delights our eyes Is but thy several liveries; Thou the rich dye on them bestowest; Thy nimble pencil paints the landscape as thou goest.”16

Adieu, my kind nurse and sweet foster-mother,—a long and a last adieu! Never had I left thee but for that louder voice of Nature which calls the child to the parent, and wooes us from the labors we love the best by the chime in the sabbath-bells of Home.

No one can tell how dear the memory of that wild Bush life becomes to him who has tried it with a fitting spirit. How often it haunts him in the commonplace of more civilized scenes! Its dangers, its risks, its sense of animal health, its bursts of adventure, its intervals of careless repose,—the fierce gallop through a very sea of wide, rolling plains; the still saunter, at night, through woods never changing their leaves, with the moon, clear as sunshine, stealing slant through their clusters of flowers. With what an effort we reconcile ourselves to the trite cares and vexed pleasures, “the quotidian ague of frigid impertinences,” to which we return! How strong and black stands my pencil-mark in this passage of the poet from whom I have just quoted before—!

“We are here among the vast and noble scenes of Nature,—we are there among the pitiful shifts of policy; we walk here in the light and open ways of the Divine Bounty,—we grope there in the dark and confused labyrinth of human malice.”17

But I weary you, reader. The New World vanishes,—now a line, now a speck; let us turn away, with the face to the Old. Amongst my fellow-passengers how many there are returning home disgusted, disappointed, impoverished, ruined, throwing themselves again on those unsuspecting poor friends who thought they had done with the luckless good-for-noughts forever. For don’t let me deceive thee, reader, into supposing that every adventurer to Australia has the luck of Pisistratus. Indeed, though the poor laborer, and especially the poor operative from London and the great trading towns (who has generally more of the quick knack of learning,—the adaptable faculty,—required in a new colony, than the simple agricultural laborer), are pretty sure to succeed, the class to which I belong is one in which failures are numerous and success the exception,—I mean young men with scholastic education and the habits of gentlemen; with small capital and sanguine hopes. But this, in ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is not the fault of the colony, but of the emigrants. It requires not so much intellect as a peculiar turn of intellect, and a fortunate combination of physical qualities, easy temper, and quick mother-wit, to make a small capitalist a prosperous Bushman.18 And if you could see the sharks that swim round a man just dropped at Adelaide or Sydney, with one or two thousand pounds in his pocket! Hurry out of the towns as fast as you can, my young emigrant; turn a deaf ear, for the present at least, to all jobbers and speculators; make friends with some practised old Bushman; spend several months at his station before you hazard your capital; take with you a temper to bear everything and sigh for nothing; put your whole heart in what you are about; never call upon Hercules when your cart sticks in the rut,—and whether you feed sheep or breed cattle, your success is but a question of time.

But whatever I owed to Nature, I owed also something to Fortune. I bought my sheep at little more than 7s. each. When I left, none were worth less than 15s., and the fat sheep were worth L1.19 I had an excellent shepherd, and my whole care, night and day, was the improvement of the flock. I was fortunate, too, in entering Australia before the system miscalled “The Wakefield”20 had diminished the supply of labor and raised the price of land. When the change came (like most of those with large allotments and surplus capital), it greatly increased the value of my own property, though at the cost of a terrible blow on the general interests of the colony. I was lucky, too, in the additional venture of a cattle-station, and in the breed of horses and herds, which, in the five years devoted to that branch establishment, trebled the sum invested therein, exclusive of the advantageous sale of the station.21 I was lucky, also, as I have stated, in the purchase and resale of lands, at Uncle Jack’s recommendation. And, lastly, I left in time, and escaped a very disastrous crisis in colonial affairs, which I take the liberty of attributing entirely to the mischievous crotchets of theorists at home who want to set all clocks by Greenwich time, forgetting that it is morning in one part of the world at the time they are tolling the curfew in the other.

CHAPTER II

London once more! How strange, lone, and savage I feel in the streets! I am ashamed to have so much health and strength when I look at those slim forms, stooping backs, and pale faces. I pick my way through the crowd with the merciful timidity of a good-natured giant. I am afraid of jostling against a man, for fear the collision should kill him. I get out of the way of a thread-paper clerk, and ‘t is a wonder I am not run over by the omnibuses,—I feel as if I could run over them! I perceive, too, that there is something outlandish, peregrinate, and lawless about me. Beau Brummel would certainly have denied me all pretension to the simple air of a gentleman, for every third passenger turns back to look at me. I retreat to my hotel; send for boot-maker, hatter, tailor, and hair-cutter. I humanize myself from head to foot. Even Ulysses is obliged to have recourse to the arts of Minerva, and, to speak unmetaphorically, “smarten himself up,” before the faithful Penelope condescends to acknowledge him.

The artificers promise all despatch. Meanwhile I hasten to re-make acquaintance with my mother-country over files of the “Times,” “Post,” “Chronicle,” and “Herald.” Nothing comes amiss to me but articles on Australia; from those I turn aside with the true pshaw supercilious of your practical man.

No more are leaders filled with praise and blame of Trevanion. “Percy’s spur is cold.” Lord Ulverstone figures only in the “Court Circular,” or “Fashionable Movements.” Lord Ulverstone entertains a royal duke at dinner, or dines in turn with a royal duke, or has come to town, or gone out of it. At most (faint Platonic reminiscence of the former life), Lord Ulverstone says in the House of Lords a few words on some question, not a party one, and on which (though affecting perhaps the interests of some few thousands, or millions, as the case may be) men speak without “hears,” and are inaudible in the gallery; or Lord Ulverstone takes the chair at an agricultural meeting, or returns thanks when his health is drunk at a dinner at Guildhall. But the daughter rises as the father sets, though over a very different kind of world.

“First ball of the season at Castleton House,”—long description of the rooms and the company; above all, of the hostess. Lines on the Marchioness of Castleton’s picture in the “Book of Beauty,” by the Hon. Fitzroy Fiddledum, beginning with “Art thou an angel from,” etc.: a paragraph that pleased me more, on “Lady Castleton’s Infant School at Raby Park;” then again, “Lady Castleton, the new patroness at Almack’s;” a criticism, more rapturous than ever gladdened living poet, on Lady Castleton’s superb diamond stomacher, just reset by Storr & Mortimer; Westmacott’s bust of Lady Castleton; Landseer’s picture of Lady Castleton and her children in the costume of the olden time. Not a month in that long file of the “Morning Post” but what Lady Castleton shone forth from the rest of womankind,—