CHAPTER V
“Brother,” said Mr. Caxton, “I will walk with you to the Roman encampment.”
The Captain felt that this proposal was meant as the greatest peace-offering my father could think of; for, first, it was a very long walk, and my father detested long walks; secondly, it was the sacrifice of a whole day’s labor at the Great Work. And yet, with that quick sensibility which only the generous possess, Uncle Roland accepted at once the proposal. If he had not done so, my father would have had a heavier heart for a month to come. And how could the Great Work have got on while the author was every now and then disturbed by a twinge of remorse?
Half an hour after breakfast, the brothers set off arm-in-arm; and I followed, a little apart, admiring how sturdily the old soldier got over the ground, in spite of the cork leg. It was pleasant enough to listen to their conversation, and notice the contrasts between these two eccentric stamps from Dame Nature’s ever-variable mould,—Nature, who casts nothing in stereotype; for I do believe that not even two fleas can be found identically the same.
My father was not a quick or minute observer of rural beauties. He had so little of the organ of locality that I suspect he could have lost his way in his own garden. But the Captain was exquisitely alive to external impressions,—not a feature in the landscape escaped him. At every fantastic gnarled pollard he halted to gaze; his eye followed the lark soaring up from his feet; when a fresher air came from the hill-top his nostrils dilated, as if voluptuously to inhale its delight. My father, with all his learning, and though his study had been in the stores of all language, was very rarely eloquent. The Captain had a glow and a passion in his words which, what with his deep, tremulous voice and animated gestures, gave something poetic to half of what he uttered. In every sentence of Roland’s, in every tone of his voice and every play of his face, there was some outbreak of pride; but unless you set him on his hobby of that great ancestor the printer, my father had not as much pride as a homeopathist could have put into a globule. He was not proud even of not being proud. Chafe all his feathers, and still you could rouse but the dove. My father was slow and mild, my uncle quick and fiery; my father reasoned, my uncle imagined; my father was very seldom wrong, my uncle never quite in the right; but, as my father once said of him, “Roland beats about the bush till he sends out the very bird that we went to search for. He is never in the wrong without suggesting to us what is the right.” All in my uncle was stern, rough, and angular; all in my father was sweet, polished, and rounded into a natural grace. My uncle’s character cast out a multiplicity of shadows, like a Gothic pile in a northern sky. My father stood serene in the light, like a Greek temple at mid-day in a southern clime. Their persons corresponded with their natures. My uncle’s high, aquiline features, bronzed hue, rapid fire of eye, and upper lip that always quivered, were a notable contrast to my father’s delicate profile, quiet, abstracted gaze, and the steady sweetness that rested on his musing smile. Roland’s forehead was singularly high, and rose to a peak in the summit where phrenologists place the organ of veneration; but it was narrow, and deeply furrowed. Augustine’s might be as high, but then soft, silky hair waved carelessly over it, concealing its height, but not its vast breadth, on which not a wrinkle was visible. And yet, withal, there was a great family likeness between the two brothers. When some softer sentiment subdued him, Roland caught the very look of Augustine; when some high emotion animated my father, you might have taken him for Roland. I have often thought since, in the greater experience of mankind which life has afforded me, that if, in early years, their destinies had been exchanged,—if Roland had taken to literature, and my father had been forced into action,—each would have had greater worldly success. For Roland’s passion and energy would have given immediate and forcible effect to study; he might have been a historian or a poet. It is not study alone that produces a writer, it is intensity. In the mind, as in yonder chimney, to make the fire burn hot and quick, you must narrow the draught. Whereas, had my father been forced into the practical world, his calm depth of comprehension, his clearness of reason, his general accuracy in such notions as he once entertained and pondered over, joined to a temper that crosses and losses could never ruffle, and utter freedom from vanity and self-love, from prejudice and passion, might have made him a very wise and enlightened counsellor in the great affairs of life,—a lawyer, a diplomatist, a statesman, for what I know, even a great general, if his tender humanity had not stood in the way of his military mathematics.
But as it was,—with his slow pulse never stimulated by action, and too little stirred by even scholarly ambition,—my father’s mind went on widening and widening till the circle was lost in the great ocean of contemplation; and Roland’s passionate energy, fretted into fever by every let and hindrance in the struggle with his kind, and narrowed more and more as it was curbed within the channels of active discipline and duty, missed its due career altogether, and what might have been the poet, contracted into the humorist.
Yet who that had ever known ye, could have wished you other than ye were, ye guileless, affectionate, honest, simple creatures?—simple both, in spite of all the learning of the one, all the prejudices, whims, irritabilities, and crotchets of the other. There you are, seated on the height of the old Roman camp, with a volume of the Stratagems of Polyaenus (or is it Frontinus?) open on my father’s lap; the sheep grazing in the furrows of the circumvallations; the curious steer gazing at you where it halts in the space whence the Roman cohorts glittered forth; and your boy-biographer standing behind you with folded arms, and—as the scholar read, or the soldier pointed his cane to each fancied post in the war—filling up the pastoral landscape with the eagles of Agricola and the scythed cars of Boadicea!
CHAPTER VI
“It is never the same two hours together in this country,” said my Uncle Roland, as, after dinner, or rather after dessert, we joined my mother in the drawing-room.
Indeed, a cold, drizzling rain had come on within the last two hours, and though it was July, it was as chilly as if it had been October. My mother whispered to me, and I went out; in ten minutes more, the logs (for we live in a wooded country) blazed merrily in the grate. Why could not my mother have rung the bell and ordered the servant to light a fire? My dear reader, Captain Roland was poor, and he made a capital virtue of economy!
The two brothers drew their chairs near to the hearth, my father at the left, my uncle at the right; and I and my mother sat down to “Fox and Geese.”
Coffee came in,—one cup for the Captain, for the rest of the party avoided that exciting beverage. And on that cup was a picture of—His Grace the Duke of Wellington!
During our visit to the Roman camp my mother had borrowed Mr. Squills’s chaise and driven over to our market-town, for the express purpose of greeting the Captain’s eyes with the face of his old chief.
My uncle changed color, rose, lifted my mother’s hand to his lips, and sat himself down again in silence.
“I have heard,” said the Captain after a pause, “that the Marquis of Hastings, who is every inch a soldier and a gentleman,—and that is saying not a little, for he measures seventy-five inches from the crown to the sole,—when he received Louis XVIII. (then an exile) at Donnington, fitted up his apartments exactly like those his Majesty had occupied at the Tuileries. It was a kingly attention (my Lord Hastings, you know, is sprung from the Plantagenets),—a kingly attention to a king. It cost some money and made some noise. A woman can show the same royal delicacy of heart in this bit of porcelain, and so quietly that we men all think it a matter of course, brother Austin.”
“You are such a worshipper of women, Roland, that it is melancholy to see you single. You must marry again!”
My uncle first smiled, then frowned, and lastly sighed somewhat heavily.
“Your time will pass slowly in your old tower, poor brother,” continued my father, “with only your little girl for a companion.”
“And the past!” said my uncle; “the past, that mighty world—”
“Do you still read your old books of chivalry,—Froissart and the Chronicles, Palmerin of England, and Amadis of Gaul?”
“Why,” said my uncle, reddening, “I have tried to improve myself with studies a little more substantial. And,” he added with a sly smile, “there will be your great book for many a long winter to come.”
“Um!” said my father, bashfully.
“Do you know,” quoth my uncle, “that Dame Primmins is a very intelligent woman,—full of fancy, and a capital story-teller?”
“Is not she, uncle?” cried I, leaving my fox in the corner. “Oh, if you could hear her tell the tale of King Arthur and the Enchanted Lake, or the Grim White Woman!”
“I have already heard her tell both,” said my uncle.
“The deuce you have, brother! My dear, we must look to this. These captains are dangerous gentlemen in an orderly household. Pray, where could you have had the opportunity of such private communications with Mrs. Primmins?”
“Once,” said my uncle, readily, “when I went into her room, while she mended my stock; and once—” He stopped short, and looked down.
“Once when? Out with it.”
“When she was warming my bed,” said my uncle, in a half-whisper.
“Dear!” said my mother, innocently, “that’s how the sheets came by that bad hole in the middle. I thought it was the warming-pan.”
“I am quite shocked!” faltered my uncle.
“You well may be,” said my father. “A woman who has been heretofore above all suspicion! But come,” he said, seeing that my uncle looked sad, and was no doubt casting up the probable price of twice six yards of holland, “but come, you were always a famous rhapsodist or tale-teller yourself. Come, Roland, let us have some story of your own,—something which your experience has left strong in your impressions.”
“Let us first have the candles,” said my mother.
The candles were brought, the curtains let down; we all drew our chairs to the hearth. But in the interval my uncle had sunk into a gloomy revery; and when we called upon him to begin, he seemed to shake off with effort some recollections of pain.
“You ask me,” he said, “to tell you some tale which my own experience has left deeply marked in my impressions,—I will tell you one, apart from my own life, but which has often haunted me. It is sad and strange, ma’am.”
“Ma’am, brother?” said my mother, reproachfully, letting her small hand drop upon that which, large and sunburnt, the Captain waved towards her as he spoke.
“Austin, you have married an angel!” said my uncle; and he was, I believe, the only brother-in-law who ever made so hazardous an assertion.
CHAPTER VII. MY UNCLE ROLAND’S TALE
“It was in Spain—no matter where or how—that it was my fortune to take prisoner a French officer of the same rank that I then held,—a lieutenant; and there was so much similarity in our sentiments that we became intimate friends,—the most intimate friend I ever had, sister, out of this dear circle. He was a rough soldier, whom the world had not well treated; but he never railed at the world, and maintained that he had had his deserts. Honor was his idol, and the sense of honor paid him for the loss of all else.
“We were both at that time volunteers in a foreign service,—in that worst of service, civil war,—he on one side, I the other, both, perhaps, disappointed in the cause we had severally espoused. There was something similar, too, in our domestic relationships. He had a son—a boy—who was all in life to him, next to his country and his duty. I too had then such a son, though of fewer years.” (The Captain paused an instant; we exchanged glances, and a stifling sensation of pain and suspense was felt by all his listeners.) “We were accustomed, brother, to talk of these children, to picture their future, to compare our hopes and dreams. We hoped and dreamed alike. A short time sufficed to establish this confidence. My prisoner was sent to head-quarters, and soon afterwards exchanged.
“We met no more till last year. Being then at Paris, I inquired for my old friend, and learned that he was living at R—, a few miles from the capital. I went to visit him. I found his house empty and deserted. That very day he had been led to prison, charged with a terrible crime. I saw him in that prison, and from his own lips learned his story. His son had been brought up, as he fondly believed, in the habits and principles of honorable men, and having finished his education, came to reside with him at R—. The young man was accustomed to go frequently to Paris. A young Frenchman loves pleasure, sister; and pleasure is found at Paris. The father thought it natural, and stripped his age of some comforts to supply luxuries to the son’s youth.
“Shortly after the young man’s arrival, my friend perceived that he was robbed. Moneys kept in his bureau were abstracted, he knew not how, nor could guess by whom. It must be done in the night. He concealed himself and watched. He saw a stealthy figure glide in, he saw a false key applied to the lock; he started forward, seized the felon, and recognized his son. What should the father have done? I do not ask you, sister! I ask these men: son and father, I ask you.”
“Expelled him the house,” cried I.
“Done his duty, and reformed the unhappy wretch,” said my father. “Nemo repente turpissinus semper fait,—No man is wholly bad all at once.”
“The father did as you would have advised, brother. He kept the youth; he remonstrated with him: he did more,—he gave him the key of the bureau. ‘Take what I have to give,’ said he; ‘I would rather be a beggar than know my son a thief.’”
“Right! And the youth repented, and became a good man?” exclaimed my father.
Captain Roland shook his head. “The youth promised amendment, and seemed penitent. He spoke of the temptations of Paris, the gaming-table, and what not. He gave up his daily visits to the capital. He seemed to apply to study. Shortly after this, the neighborhood was alarmed by reports of night robberies on the road. Men, masked and armed, plundered travellers, and even broke into houses.
“The police were on the alert. One night an old brother officer knocked at my friend’s door. It was late; the veteran (he was a cripple, by the way, like myself,—strange coincidence!) was in bed. He came down in haste, when his servant woke, and told him that his old friend, wounded and bleeding, sought an asylum under his roof. The wound, however, was slight. The guest had been attacked and robbed on the road. The next morning the proper authority of the town was sent for. The plundered man described his loss,—some billets of five hundred francs in a pocketbook, on which was embroidered his name and coronet (he was a vicomte). The guest stayed to dinner. Late in the forenoon, the son looked in. The guest started to see him; my friend noticed his paleness. Shortly after, on pretence of faintness, the guest retired to his room, and sent for his host. ‘My friend,’ said he, ‘can you do me a favor? Go to the magistrate and recall the evidence I have given.’
“‘Impossible,’ said the host. ‘What crotchet is this?’
“The guest shuddered. ‘Peste!’ said he, ‘I do not wish in my old age to be hard on others. Who knows how the robber may have been tempted, and who knows what relations he may have,—honest men, whom his crime would degrade forever! Good heavens! if detected, it is the galleys, the galleys!’
“And what then? The robber knew what he braved. ‘But did his father know it?’ cried the guest.
“A light broke upon my unhappy comrade in arms; he caught his friend by the hand: ‘You turned pale at my son’s sight,—where did you ever see him before? Speak!’
“‘Last night on the road to Paris. The mask slipped aside. Call back my evidence!’
“‘You are mistaken,’ said my friend, calmly. ‘I saw my son in his bed, and blessed him, before I went to my own.’
“‘I will believe you,’ said the guest; ‘and never shall my hasty suspicion pass my lips,—but call back the evidence.’
“The guest returned to Paris before dusk. The father conversed with his son on the subject of his studies; he followed him to his room, waited till he was in bed, and was then about to retire, when the youth said, ‘Father, you have forgotten your blessing.’
“The father went back, laid his hand on the boy’s head and prayed. He was credulous—fathers are so! He was persuaded that his friend had been deceived. He retired to rest, and fell asleep. He woke suddenly in the middle of the night, and felt (I here quote his words)—‘I felt,’ said he, ‘as if a voice had awakened me,—a voice that said, “Rise and search.” I rose at once, struck a light, and went to my son’s room. The door was locked. I knocked once, twice, thrice no answer. I dared not call aloud, lest I should rouse the servants. I went down the stairs, I opened the back-door, I passed to the stables. My own horse was there, not my son’s. My horse neighed; it was old, like myself,—my old charger at Mont St. Jean. I stole back, I crept into the shadow of the wall by my son’s door, and extinguished my light. I felt as if I were a thief myself.’”
“Brother,” interrupted my mother, under her breath; “speak in your own words, not in this wretched father’s. I know not why, but it would shock me less.”
The Captain nodded.
“Before daybreak, my friend heard the back-door open gently; a foot ascended the stair, a key grated in the door of the room close at hand: the father glided through the dark into that chamber behind his unseen son.
“He heard the clink of the tinder-box; a light was struck; it spread over the room, but he had time to place himself behind the window-curtain which was close at hand. The figure before him stood a moment or so motionless, and seemed to listen, for it turned to the right, to the left, its visage covered with the black, hideous mask which is worn in carnivals. Slowly the mask was removed. Could that be his son’s face,—the son of a brave man? It was pale and ghastly with scoundrel fears; the base drops stood on the brow; the eye was haggard and bloodshot. He looked as a coward looks when death stands before him.
“The youth walked, or rather skulked, to the secretaire, unlocked it, opened a secret drawer, placed within it the contents of his pockets and his frightful mask; the father approached softly, looked over his shoulder, and saw in the drawer the pocketbook embroidered with his friend’s name. Meanwhile, the son took out his pistols, uncocked them cautiously, and was about also to secrete them, when his father arrested his arm. ‘Robber, the use of these is yet to come!’
“The son’s knees knocked together, an exclamation for mercy burst from his lips; but when, recovering the mere shock of his dastard nerves, he perceived it was not the gripe of some hireling of the law, but a father’s hand that had clutched his arm, the vile audacity which knows fear only from a bodily cause, none from the awe of shame, returned to him.
“Tush, sir!’ he said, ‘waste not time in reproaches, for, I fear, the gendarmes are on my track. It is well that you are here; you can swear that I have spent the night at home. Unhand me, old man; I have these witnesses still to secrete,’ and he pointed to the garments wet and dabbled with the mud of the roads. He had scarcely spoken when the walls shook; there was the heavy clatter of hoofs on the ringing pavement without.
“‘They come!’ cried the son. ‘Off, dotard! save your son from the galleys.’
“‘The galleys, the galleys!’ said the father, staggering back; ‘it is true; he said—“the galleys!”’
“There was a loud knocking at the gate. The gendarmes surrounded the house. ‘Open, in the name of the law!’ No answer came, no door was opened. Some of the gendarmes rode to the rear of the house, in which was placed the stable yard. From the window of the son’s room the father saw the sudden blaze of torches, the shadowy forms of the men-hunters. He heard the clatter of arms as they swung themselves from their horses. He heard a voice cry, ‘Yes, this is the robber’s gray horse,—see, it still reeks with sweat!’ And behind and in front, at either door, again came the knocking, and again the shout, ‘Open, in the name of the law!’
“Then lights began to gleam from the casements of the neighboring houses; then the space filled rapidly with curious wonderers startled from their sleep: the world was astir, and the crowd came round to know what crime or what shame had entered the old soldier’s home.
“Suddenly, within, there was heard the report of a fire-arm; and a minute or so afterwards the front door was opened, and the soldier appeared.
“‘Enter,’ he said to the gendarmes: ‘what would you?’
“‘We seek a robber who is within your walls.’
“I know it; mount and find him: I will lead the way.’
“He ascended the stairs; he threw open his son’s room: the officers of justice poured in, and on the floor lay the robber’s corpse.
“They looked at each other in amazement. ‘Take what is left you,’ said the father. ‘Take the dead man rescued from the galleys; take the living man on whose hands rests the dead man’s blood!’
“I was present at my friend’s trial. The facts had become known beforehand. He stood there with his gray hair, and his mutilated limbs, and the deep scar on his visage, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor on his breast; and when he had told his tale, he ended with these words: ‘I have saved the son whom I reared for France from a doom that would have spared the life to brand it with disgrace. Is this a crime? I give you my life in exchange for my son’s disgrace. Does my country need a victim? I have lived for my country’s glory, and I can die contented to satisfy its laws, sure that, if you blame me, you will not despise; sure that the hands that give me to the headsman will scatter flowers over my grave. Thus I confess all. I, a soldier, look round amongst a nation of soldiers; and in the name of the star which glitters on my breast I dare the fathers of France to condemn me!’
“They acquitted the soldier,—at least they gave a verdict answering to what in our courts is called ‘justifiable homicide.’ A shout rose in the court which no ceremonial voice could still; the crowd would have borne him in triumph to his house, but his look repelled such vanities. To his house he returned indeed; and the day afterwards they found him dead, beside the cradle in which his first prayer had been breathed over his sinless child. Now, father and son, I ask you, do you condemn that man?”