The Caxtons | Page 3

greater noise it can
make."
So saying, he crept on tiptoe to the bed, and clasping the pale hand held
out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed
the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his
own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss
was heard through the stillness.
"Mr. Caxton, sir," cried Mr. Squills, in rebuke, "you agitate my patient;
you must retire."
My father raised his mild face, looked round apologetically, brushed
his eyes with the back of his hand, stole to the door, and vanished.
"I think," said a kind gossip seated at the other side of my mother's bed,
"I think, my dear, that Mr. Caxton might have shown more joy,--more
natural feeling, I may say,--at the sight of the baby: and Such a baby!
But all men are just the same, my dear,--brutes,--all brutes, depend
upon it!"
"Poor Austin!" sighed my mother, feebly; "how little you understand
him!"
"And now I shall clear the room," said Mr. Squills. "Go to sleep, Mrs.
Caxton."
"Mr. Squills," exclaimed my mother, and the bed-curtains trembled,
"pray see that Mr. Caxton does not set himself on fire. And, Mr. Squills,
tell him not to be vexed and miss me,--I shall be down very soon,--sha'
n't I?"
"If you keep yourself easy, you will, ma'am."
"Pray, say so. And, Primmins--"
"Yes, ma'am."

"Every one, I fear, is neglecting your master. Be sure," and my mother's
lips approached close to Mrs. Primmins' ear, "be sure that you- -air his
nightcap yourself."
"Tender creatures those women," soliloquized Mr. Squills as, after
clearing the room of all present save Mrs. Primmins and the nurse, he
took his way towards my father's study. Encountering the footman in
the passage, "John," said he, "take supper into your master's room, and
make us some punch, will you,--stiffish!"

CHAPTER II.
"Mr. Caxton, how on earth did you ever come to marry?" asked Mr.
Squills, abruptly, with his feet on the hob, while stirring up his punch.
That was a home question, which many men might reasonably resent;
but my father scarcely knew what resentment was.
"Squills," said he, turning round from his books, and laying one finger
on the surgeon's arm confidentially,--"Squills," said he, "I myself
should be glad to know how I came to be married."
Mr. Squills was a jovial, good-hearted man,--stout, fat, and with fine
teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr.
Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way,--studied
human nature in curing its diseases; and was accustomed to say that Mr.
Caxton was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr.
Squills laughed, and rubbed his hands.
My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who
moralizes:--
"There are three great events in life, sir,--birth, marriage, and death.
None know how they are born, few know how they die; but I suspect
that many can account for the intermediate phenomenon--I cannot."

"It was not for money, it must have been for love," observed Mr.
Squills; "and your young wife is as pretty as she is good."
"Ha!" said my father, "I remember."
"Do you, sir?" exclaimed Squills, highly amused. "How was it?"
My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and
then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr.
Squills.
"The kindest, the best of men," he murmured,--"Abyssus Eruditionis.
And to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave,
instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty,--all, at least, that
I could grasp, deficiente manu, of his Latin, his Greek, his Orientals.
What do I not owe to him?"
"To whom?" asked Squills. "Good Lord! what's the man talking
about?"
"Yes, sir," said my father, rousing himself, "such was Giles Tibbets, M.
A., Sol Scientiarum, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and father
to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his orphan
daughter."
"Oh! as a wife--"
"No, as a ward. So she came to live in my house. I am sure there was
no harm in it. But my neighbors said there was, and the widow
Weltraum told me the girl's character would suffer. What could I
do?--Oh, yes, I recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend's
child might have a roof to her head, and come to no harm. You see I
was forced to do her that injury; for, after all, poor young creature, it
was a sad lot for her. A dull bookworm like me,--cochlea vitam agens,
Mr. Squills,-- leading the life of a snail! But my shell was all I could