Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

"It is an ugly affair," said he, "but one that requires management. Leave it all in my hands for three days. Don't go near Mr Tibbets, nor Mr Peck; and on Saturday next, at two o'clock, if you will call here, you shall know my opinion of the whole matter." With that Mr Pike glanced at the clock, and I took up my hat and went.

There is no place more delightful than a great capital, if you are comfortably settled in it – have arranged the methodical disposal of your time, and know how to take business and pleasure in due proportions. But a flying visit to a great capital, in an unsettled, unsatisfactory way – at an inn – an inn in the city, too – with a great worrying load of business on your mind, of which you are to hear no more for three days; and an aching, jealous, miserable sorrow at the heart, such as I had – leaving you no labour to pursue, and no pleasure that you have the heart to share in – oh, a great capital then is indeed forlorn, wearisome, and oppressive! It is the Castle of Indolence, not as Thomson built it, but as Beckford drew in his Hall of Eblis – a wandering up and down, to and fro – a great awful space, with your hand pressed to your heart; and – oh for a rush on some half-tamed horse, through the measureless green wastes of Australia! That is the place for a man who has no home in the Babel, and whose hand is ever pressing to his heart, with its dull, burning pain.

Mr Squills decoyed me the second evening into one of the small theatres; and very heartily did Mr Squills enjoy all he saw, and all he heard. And while, with a convulsive effort of the jaws, I was trying to laugh too, suddenly, in one of the actors, who was performing the worshipful part of a parish beadle, I recognised a face that I had seen before. Five minutes afterwards, I had disappeared from the side of Squills, and was amidst that strange world – BEHIND THE SCENES.

My beadle was much too busy and important to allow me a good opportunity to accost him, till the piece was over. I then seized hold of him, as he was amicably sharing a pot of porter with a gentleman in black shorts and a laced waistcoat, who was to play the part of a broken-hearted father in the Domestic Drama in Three Acts, that would conclude the amusements of the evening.

"Excuse me," said I apologetically; "but, as the Swan pertinently observes, – 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?'"

"The Swan, sir!" cried the beadle aghast – "the Swan never demeaned himself by such d – d broad Scotch as that!"

"The Tweed has its swans as well as the Avon, Mr Peacock."

"St – st – hush – hush – h – u – sh!" whispered the beadle in great alarm, and eyeing me, with savage observation, under his corked eyebrows. Then, taking me, by the arm, he jerked me away. When he had got as far as the narrow limits of that little stage would allow us, Mr Peacock said —

"Sir, you have the advantage of me; I don't remember you. Ah! you need not look! – by gad, sir, I am not to be bullied, – it was all fair play. If you will play with gentlemen, sir, you must run the consequences."

I hastened to appease the worthy man.

"Indeed, Mr Peacock, if you remember, I refused to play with you; and, so far from wishing to offend you, I now come on purpose to compliment you on your excellent acting, and to inquire if you have heard anything lately of your young friend, Mr Vivian.

"Vivian? – never heard the name, sir. Vivian! Pooh, you are trying to hoax me; very good."

"I assure you, Mr Peac" —

"St – st – How the deuce did you know that I was once called Peac – that is, people called me Peac – A friendly nickname, no more – drop it, sir, or you 'touch me with noble anger!'"

"Well, well; 'the rose, by any name, will smell as sweet,' as the Swan, this time at least, judiciously observes. But Mr Vivian, too, seems to have other names at his disposal. I mean a young, dark, handsome man – or rather boy – with whom I met you in company by the roadside, one morning."

"O – h!" said Mr Peacock, looking much relieved, "I know whom you mean, though I don't remember to have had the pleasure of seeing you before. No; I have not heard anything of the young man lately. I wish I did know something of him. He was a 'gentleman in my own way.' Sweet Will has hit him off to a hair! —

'The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword.'

Such a hand with a cue! – you should have seen him seek 'the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth!' I may say, (continued Mr Peacock, emphatically,) that he was a regular trump – trump!" he reiterated with a start, as if the word had stung him – "trump! he was a BRICK!"

Then fixing his eyes on me, dropping his arms, interlacing his fingers, in the manner recorded of Talma in the celebrated "Qu'en dis-tu?" he resumed in a hollow voice, slow and distinct —

"When – saw – you – him, – young m – m – a – n – nnn?"

Finding the tables thus turned on myself, and not willing to give Mr Peac – any clue to poor Vivian – who thus appeared, to my great satisfaction, to have finally dropped an acquaintance more versatile than reputable – I contrived, by a few evasive sentences, to keep Mr Peac – 's curiosity at a distance, till he was summoned in haste to change his attire for the domestic drama. And so we parted.

CHAPTER LVII

I hate law details as cordially as my readers can, and therefore I shall content myself with stating that Mr Pike's management, at the end, not of three days, but of two weeks, was so admirable that Uncle Jack was drawn out of prison, and my father extracted from all his liabilities, by a sum two-thirds less than was first startlingly submitted to our indignant horror – and that, too, in a manner that would have satisfied the conscience of the most punctilious formalist, whose contribution to the national fund, for an omitted payment to the Income Tax. the Chancellor of the Exchequer ever had the honour to acknowledge. Still the sum was very large in proportion to my poor father's income; and what with Jack's debts, the claims of the Anti-Publisher Society's printer – including the very expensive plates that had been so lavishly bespoken, and in great part completed, for the History of Human Error– and, above all, the liabilities incurred on The Capitalist; what with the plant, as Mr Peck technically phrased a great upas-tree of a total, branching out into types, cases, printing-presses, engines, &c., all now to be resold at a third of their value; what with advertisements and bills, that had covered all the dead walls by which rubbish might be shot, throughout the three kingdoms; what with the dues of reporters, and salaries of writers, who had been engaged for a year at least to The Capitalist, and whose claims survived the wretch they had killed and buried; what, in short, with all that the combined ingenuity of Uncle Jack and printer Peck could supply for the utter ruin of the Caxton family – even after all deductions, curtailments, and after all that one could extract in the way of just contribution from the least unsubstantial of those shadows called the shareholders – my father's fortune was reduced to little more than £8000, which being placed at mortgage, at 4 per cent, yielded just £372, 10s. a-year – enough for my father to live upon, but not enough to afford also his son Pisistratus the advantages of education at Trinity College, Cambridge. The blow fell rather upon me than my father, and my young shoulders bore it without much wincing.

This settled, to our universal satisfaction, I went to pay my farewell visit to Sir Sedley Beaudesert. He had made much of me, during my stay in London. I had breakfasted and dined with him pretty often; I had presented Squills to him, who no sooner set eyes upon that splendid conformation, than he described his character with the nicest accuracy as the necessary consequence of such a development for the rosy pleasures of life, and whose philosophy delighted and consoled Sir Sedley. We had never once retouched on the subject of Fanny's marriage, and both of us tacitly avoided even mentioning the Trevanions. But in this last visit, though he maintained the same reserve as to Fanny, he referred without scruple to her father.

"Well, my young Athenian," said he, after congratulating me on the result of the negotiations, and endeavouring again in vain to bear at least some share in my father's losses – "well, I see I cannot press this farther; but at least I can press on you any little interest I may have, in obtaining some appointment for yourself in one of the public offices. Trevanion could of course be more useful, but I can understand that he is not the kind of man you would like to apply to."

"Shall I own to you, my dear Sir Sedley, that I have no taste for official employment? I am too fond of my liberty. Since I have been at my uncle's old tower, I account for half my character by the Borderer's blood that is in me. I doubt if I am meant for the life of cities, and I have odd floating notions in my head, that will serve to amuse me when I get home, and may settle into schemes. And now, to change the subject, may I ask what kind of person has succeeded me as Mr Trevanion's secretary?"

"Why, he has got a broad-shouldered, stooping fellow, in spectacles and cotton stockings, who has written upon 'Rent,' I believe – an imaginative treatise in his case, I fear, poor man, for rent is a thing he could never have received, and not often been trusted to pay. However, he is one of your political economists, and wants Trevanion to sell his pictures, as 'unproductive capital.' Less mild than Pope's Narcissa, 'to make a wash,' he would certainly 'stew a child.' Besides this official secretary, Trevanion trusts, however, a good deal to a clever, good-looking young gentleman, who is a great favourite with him."

"What is his name?"

"His name? – oh, Gower – a natural son, I believe, of one of the Gower family."

Here two of Sir Sedley's fellow fine gentlemen lounged in, and my visit ended.

CHAPTER LVIII

"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 neighbouring 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 gaily 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, &c., returned with an old oak case, and, touching a spring roller, out flew – the Caxton 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, (I never heard him swear before.) "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 motives, 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, valour 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 altogether."

"There!" cried Roland, triumphantly. "If you are not the most obstinate, hardhearted, 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 farther."

"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 both 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 neighbourhood, 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 horrible healthy neighbourhood, I suspect!"

"Why, it has that misfortune, Mr Squills; but with your help," said my uncle slily, "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 tintanabular 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 favourite 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 leant 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 then, sir: everybody hates the capitalist – everybody would have his neighbour'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 see'st 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 he had been shot. "And do you think I have a heart of stone, of pummy-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 pummy – "yes – that I should have trusted that dunder-headed, 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 lie 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' 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 organisation of your father's – liver!"