Caxtons: A Family Picture — Part 1, Chapter 2
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 offer to my poor friend’s orphan.
” “Mr. Caxton, I honor you,” said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father’s legs.
“You have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you.
You seem a cold man, but you have tears in your eyes at this moment.
” “I dare say I have,” said my father, rubbing his shins; “it was boiling!
” “And your son will be a comfort to you both,” said Mr. Squills, reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; “he will be a dove of peace to your ark.
” “I don’t doubt it,” said my father, ruefully; “only those doves, when they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds--non talium avium cantos somnum reducent.
However, it might have been worse.
Leda had twins.
” “So had Mrs. Barnabas last week,” rejoined the accoucheur.
“Who knows what may be in store for you yet?
Here’s a health to Master Caxton, and lots of brothers and sisters to him.
” “Brothers and sisters!
I am sure Mrs. Caxton will never think of such a thing, sir,” said my father, almost indignantly; “she’s much too good a wife to behave so.
Once in a way it is all very well; but twice--and as it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days: I, too, who can only write cuspide duriuscula,--and the baker coming twice to me for his bill, too!
The Ilithyiae, are troublesome deities, Mr. Squills.
” “Who are the Ilithyiae?
” asked the accoucheur.
“You ought to know,” answered my father, smiling,--“the female daemons who presided over the Neogilos, or New-born.
They take the name from Juno.
See Homer, Book XI.
By the by, will my Neogilos be brought up like Hector, or Astyanax--videlicet, nourished by its mother, or by a nurse?
” “Which do you prefer, Mr. Caxton?
” asked Mr. Squills, breaking the sugar in his tumbler.
“In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes of the gentleman.
” “A nurse by all means, then,” said my father.
“And let her carry him upo kolpo, next to her bosom.
I know all that has been said about mothers nursing their own infants, Mr. Squills; but poor Kitty is so sensitive that I think a stout, healthy peasant woman will be the best for the boy’s future nerves, and his mother’s nerves, present and future too.
Heigh-ho!
I shall miss the dear woman very much.
When will she be up, Mr. Squills?
” “Oh, in less than a fortnight!
” “And then the Neogilos shall go to school,--upo kolpo,--the nurse with him, and all will be right again,” said my father, with a look of sly, mysterious humor which was peculiar to him.
“School!
when he’s just born?
” “Can’t begin too soon,” said my father, positively; “that’s Helvetius’ opinion, and it is mine too!
”
