Part 61 (1/2)

Pisistratus.--”I think so. A young man will often respect in his elder what he will resent as a presumption in his contemporary.”

Mr. Caxton.--”It may be so. [Then more thoughtfully] But you describe this strange boy's mind as a wreck! In what part of the mouldering timbers can I fix the grappling-hook? Here it seems that most of the supports on which we can best rely, when we would save another, fail us,--religion, honor, the a.s.sociations of childhood, the bonds of home, filial obedience, even the intelligence of self-interest, in the philosophical sense of the word. And I, too,--a mere bookman! My dear son, I despair!”

Pisistratus.--”No, you do not despair; no, you must succeed,--for if you do not, what is to become of Uncle Roland? Do you not see his heart is fast breaking?”

Mr. Caxton.--”Get me my hat. I will go; I will save this Ishmael,--I will not leave him till he is saved!”

Pisistratus. (Some minutes after, as they are walking towards Vivian's lodging).--”You ask me what support you are to cling to: a strong and a good one, sir.”

Mr. Caxton. ”Ah! what is that?”

Pisistratus.--”Affection! There is a nature capable of strong affection at the core of this wild heart. He could love his mother,--tears gush to his eyes at her name; he would have starved rather than part with the memorial of that love. It was his belief in his father's indifference or dislike that hardened and imbruted him; it is only when he hears how that father loved him that I now melt his pride and curb his pa.s.sions.

You have affection to deal with! Do you despair now?

”My father turned on me those eyes so inexpressibly benign and mild, and replied softly, 'No!'

”We reached the house; and my father said, as we knocked at the door, 'If he is at home, leave me. This is a hard study to which you have set me; I must work at it alone.'

”Vivian was at home, and the door closed on his visitor. My father stayed some hours.

”On returning home, to my great surprise I found Trevanion with my uncle. He had found us out,--no easy matter, I should think. But a good impulse in Trevanion was not of that feeble kind which turns home at the sight of a difficulty. He had come to London on purpose to see and to thank us.

”I did not think there had been so much of delicacy--of what I may call the 'beauty of kindness'--in a man whom incessant business had rendered ordinarily blunt and abrupt. I hardly recognized the impatient Trevanion in the soothing, tender, subtle respect that rather implied than spoke grat.i.tude, and sought to insinuate what he owed to the unhappy father, without touching on his wrongs from the son. But of this kindness--which showed how Trevanion's high nature of gentleman raised him aloof from that coa.r.s.eness of thought which those absorbed wholly in practical affairs often contract--of this kindness, so n.o.ble and so touching, Roland seemed scarcely aware. He sat by the embers of the neglected fire, his hands grasping the arms of his elbow-chair, his bead drooping on his bosom; and only by a deep hectic flush on his dark cheek could you have seen that he distinguished between an ordinary visitor and the man whose child he had helped to save. This minister of state, this high member of the elect, at whose gift are places, peerages, gold-sticks, and ribbons, has nothing at his command for the bruised spirit of the half-pay soldier. Before that poverty, that grief, and that pride, the King's Counsellor was powerless. Only when Trevanion rose to depart, something like a sense of the soothing intention which the visit implied seemed to rouse the repose of the old man and to break the ice at its surface; for he followed Trevanion to the door, took both his hands, pressed them, then turned away, and resumed his seat. Trevanion beckoned to me, and I followed him downstairs and into a little parlor which was unoccupied.

”After some remarks upon Roland, full of deep and considerate feeling, and one quick, hurried reference to the son,--to the effect that his guilty attempt would never be known by the world,--Trevanion then addressed himself to me with a warmth and urgency that took me by surprise. 'After what has pa.s.sed,' he exclaimed, 'I cannot suffer you to leave England thus. Let me not feel with you, as with your uncle, that there is nothing by which I can repay--No, I will not so put it,--stay, and serve your country at home; it is my prayer, it is Ellinor's. Out of all at my disposal it will go hard but what I shall find something to suit you.' And then, hurrying on, Trevanion spoke flatteringly of my pretensions, in right of birth and capabilities, to honorable employment, and placed before me a picture of public life, its prizes and distinctions, which for the moment, at least, made my heart beat loud and my breath come quick. But still, even then I felt (was it an unreasonable pride?) that there was something that jarred, something that humbled, in the thought of holding all my fortunes as a dependency on the father of the woman I loved, but might not aspire to; something even of personal degradation in the mere feeling that I was thus to be repaid for a service, and recompensed for a loss. But these were not reasons I could advance; and, indeed, so for the time did Trevanion's generosity and eloquence overpower me that I could only falter out my thanks and my promise that I would consider and let him know.

”With that promise he was forced to content himself; he told me to direct to him at his favorite country seat, whither he was going that day, and so left me. I looked round the humble parlor of the mean lodging-house, and Trevanion's words came again before me like a flash of golden light. I stole into the open air and wandered through the crowded streets, agitated and disturbed.”

CHAPTER X.

Several days elapsed, and of each day my father spent a considerable part at Vivian's lodgings. But he maintained a reserve as to his success, begged me not to question him, and to refrain also for the present from visiting my cousin. My uncle guessed or knew his brother's mission; for I observed that whenever Austin went noiseless away, his eye brightened, and the color rose in a hectic flush to his cheek. At last my father came to me one morning, his carpet-bag in his hand, and said, ”I am going away for a week or two. Keep Roland company till I return.”

”Going with him?”

”With him.”

”That is a good sign.”

”I hope so; that is all I can say now.”

The week had not quite pa.s.sed when I received from my father the letter I am about to place before the reader; and you may judge how earnestly his soul must have been in the task it had volunteered, if you observe how little, comparatively speaking, the letter contains of the subtleties and pedantries (may the last word be pardoned, for it is scarcely a just one) which ordinarily left my father,--a scholar even in the midst of his emotions. He seemed here to have abandoned his books, to have put the human heart before the eyes of his pupil, and said, ”Read and un-learn!”

To Pisistratus Caxton.

My Dear Son,--It were needless to tell you all the earlier difficulties I have had to encounter with my charge, nor to repeat all the means which, acting on your suggestion (a correct one), I have employed to arouse feelings long dormant and confused, and allay others long prematurely active and terribly distinct. The evil was simply this: here was the intelligence of a man in all that is evil, and the ignorance of an infant in all that is good.

In matters merely worldly, what wonderful ac.u.men; in the plain principles of right and wrong, what gross and stolid obtuseness!

At one time I am straining all my poor wit to grapple in an encounter on the knottiest mysteries of social life; at another, I am guiding reluctant fingers over the horn-book of the most obvious morals. Here hieroglyphics, and there pot-hooks! But as long as there is affection in a man, why, there is Nature to begin with!

To get rid of all the rubbish laid upon her, clear back the way to that Nature and start afresh,--that is one's only chance.

Well, by degrees I won my way, waiting patiently till the bosom, pleased with the relief, disgorged itself of all ”its perilous stuff,”--not chiding, not even remonstrating, seeming almost to sympathize, till I got him, Socratically, to disprove himself.

When I saw that he no longer feared me, that my company had become a relief to him, I proposed an excursion, and did not tell him whither.