Alan covets the honor attached to the power which is attached to possession. Thus the soil is cultivated; thus the rafts are constructed; thus tribe trades with tribe; thus Commerce is founded, and Civilization commenced. Sirs, all that seems least connected with honor, as we approach the vulgar days of the present, has its origin in honor, and is but an abuse of its principles. If men nowadays are hucksters and traders, if even military honors are purchased, and a rogue buys his way to a peerage, still all arises from the desire for honor, which society, as it grows old, gives to the outward signs of titles and gold, instead of, as once, to its inward essentials,--courage, truth, justice, enterprise. Therefore I say, sirs, that honor is the foundation of all improvement in mankind."
"You have argued like a sclioolman, brother," said Mr. Caxton, admiringly; "but still, as to this round piece of silver, don't we go back to the most barbarous ages in estimating so highly such things as have no real value in themselves,--as could not give us one opportunity for instructing our minds?"
"Could not pay for a pair of boots," added Uncle Jack.
"Or," said Mr. Squills, "save you one twinge of the cursed rheumatism you have got for life from that night's bivouac in the Portuguese marshes,--to say nothing of the bullet in your cranium, and that cork- leg, which must much diminish the salutary effects of your constitutional walk."
"Gentlemen," resumed the Captain, nothing abashed, "in going back to those barbarous ages, I go back to the true principles of honor. It is precisely because this round piece of silver has no value in the market that it is priceless, for thus it is only a proof of desert. Where would be the sense of service in this medal, if it could buy back my leg, or if I could bargain it away for forty thousand a year? No, sirs, its value is this,--that when I wear it on my breast, men shall say, 'That formal old fellow is not so useless as he seems. He was one of those who saved England and freed Europe.' And even when I conceal it here," and, devoutly kissing the medal, Uncle Roland restored it to its ribbon and its resting-place, "and no eye sees it, its value is yet greater in the thought that my country has not degraded the old and true principles of honor, by paying the soldier who fought for her in the same coin as that in which you, Mr. Jack, sir, pay your bootmaker's bill. No, no, gentlemen. As courage was the first virtue that honor called forth, the first virtue from which all safety and civilization proceed, so we do right to keep that one virtue at least clear and unsullied from all the money-making, mercenary, pay-me-in-cash abominations which are the vices, not the virtues, of the civilization it has produced."
My Uncle Roland here came to a full stop; and, filling his glass, rose and said solemnly: "A last bumper, gentlemen,--'To the dead who died for England!'"
CHAPTER III.
"Indeed, my dear, you must take it. You certainly have caught cold; you sneezed three times together."
"Yes, ma'am, because I would take a pinch of Uncle Roland's snuff, just to say that I had taken a pinch out of his box,--the honor of the thing, you know."
"Ah, my dear! what was that very clever remark you made at the same time, which so pleased your father,--something about Jews and the college?"
"Jews and--oh! pulverem Olgmpicum collegisse juvat, my dear mother,-- which means that it is a pleasure to take a pinch out of a brave man's snuff-box. I say, mother, put down the posset. Yes, I'll take it; I will, indeed. Now, then, sit here,--that's right,--and tell me all you know about this famous old Captain. Imprimis, he is older than my father?"
"To be sure!" exclaimed my mother, indignantly. "He looks twenty years older; but there is only five years' real difference. Your father must always look young."
"And why does Uncle Roland put that absurd French de before his name; and why were my father and he not good friends; and is he married; and has he any children?"
Scene of this conference: my own little room, new papered on purpose for my return for good,--trellis-work paper, flowers and birds, all so fresh and so new and so clean and so gay, with my books ranged in neat shelves, and a writing-table by the window; and, without the window, shines the still summer moon. The window is a little open: you scent the flowers and the new-mown hay. Past eleven; and the boy and his dear mother are all alone.
"My dear, my dear, you ask so many questions at once!"
"Don't answer them, then. Begin at the beginning, as Nurse Primmins does with her fairy tales, 'Once on a time.'
"Once on a time, then," said my mother, kissing me between the eyes,-- "once on a time, my love, there was a certain clergyman in Cumberland who had two sons; he had but a small living, and the boys were to make their own way in the world. But close to the parsonage, on the brow of a hill, rose an old ruin with one tower left, and this, with half the country round it, had once belonged to the clergyman's family; but all had been sold,--all gone piece by piece, you see, my dear, except the presentation to the living (what they call the advowson was sold too), which had been secured to the last of the family.