One man carries across it a freightage of ingots, another may fish there for herrings. Who can exhaust the sea, who say to Intellect, 'The deeps of philosophy are preoccupied'?"
"Admirable!" cried Squills.
"So it is really your advice, my friends," said my father, who seemed struck by Uncle Jack's eloquent illustrations, "that I should desert my household gods, remove to London, since my own library ceases to supply my wants, take lodgings near the British Museum, and finish off one volume, at least, incontinently."
"It is a duty you owe to your country," said Uncle Jack, solemnly.
"And to yourself," urged Squills. "One must attend to the natural evacuations of the brain. Ah! you may smile, sir, but I have observed that if a man has much in his head, he must give it vent, or it oppresses him; the whole system goes wrong. From being abstracted, he grows stupefied. The weight of the pressure affects the nerves. I would not even guarantee you from a stroke of paralysis."
"Oh, Austin!" cried my mother tenderly, and throwing her arms round my father's neck.
"Come, sir, you are conquered," said I.
"And what is to become of you, Sisty?" asked my father. "Do you go with us, and unsettle your mind for the university?"
"My uncle has invited me to his castle; and in the mean while I will stay here, fag hard, and take care of the duck."
"All alone?" said my mother.
"No. All alone! Why, Uncle Jack will come here as often as ever, I hope."
Uncle Jack shook his head.
"No, my boy, I must go to town with your father. You don't understand these things. I shall see the booksellers for him. I know how these gentlemen are to be dealt with. I shall prepare the literary circles for the appearance of the book. In short, it is a sacrifice of interest, I know; my Journal will suffer. But friendship and my country's good before all things."
"Dear Jack!" said my mother, affectionately.
"I cannot suffer it," cried my father. "You are making a good income. Yon are doing well where you are, and as to seeing the booksellers,-- why, when the work is ready, you can come to town for a week, and settle that affair."
"Poor dear Austin," said Uncle Jack, with an air of superiority and compassion. "A week! Sir, the advent of a book that is to succeed requires the preparation of months. Pshaw! I am no genius, but I am a practical man. I know what's what. Leave me alone."
But my father continued obstinate, and Uncle Jack at last ceased to urge the matter. The journey to fame and London was now settled, but my father would not hear of my staying behind.
No, Pisistratus must needs go also to town and see the world; the duck would take care of itself.
CHAPTER IV.
We had taken the precaution to send, the day before, to secure our due complement of places--four in all, including one for Mrs. Primmins--in, or upon, the fast family coach called the "Sun," which had lately been set up for the special convenience of the neighborhood.
This luminary, rising in a town about seven miles distant from us, described at first a very erratic orbit amidst the contiguous villages before it finally struck into the high-road of enlightenment, and thence performed its journey, in the full eyes of man, at the majestic pace of six miles and a half an hour. My father with his pockets full of books, and a quarto of "Gebelin on the Primitive World," for light reading, under his arm; my mother with a little basket containing sandwiches, and biscuits of her own baking; Mrs. Primmins, with a new umbrella purchased for the occasion, and a bird-cage containing a canary endeared to her not more by song than age and a severe pip through which she had successfully nursed it; and I myself,--waited at the gates to welcome the celestial visitor. The gardener, with a wheel-barrow full of boxes and portmanteaus, stood a little in the van; and the footman, who was to follow when lodgings had been found, had gone to a rising eminence to watch the dawning of the expected "Sun," and apprise us of its approach by the concerted signal of a handkerchief fixed to a stick.
The quaint old house looked at us mournfully from all its deserted windows. The litter before its threshold and in its open hall; wisps of straw or hay that had been used for packing; baskets and boxes that had been examined and rejected; others, corded and piled, reserved to follow with the footman; and the two heated and hurried serving-women left behind, standing halfway between house and garden-gate, whispering to each other, and looking as if they had not slept for weeks,--gave to a scene, usually so trim and orderly, an aspect of pathetic abandonment and desolation. The Genius of the place seemed to reproach us. I felt the omens were against us, and turned my earnest gaze from the haunts behind with a sigh, as the coach now drew up with all its grandeur. An important personage, who, despite the heat of the day, was enveloped in a vast superfluity of belcher, in the midst of which galloped a gilt fox, and who rejoiced in the name of "guard," descended to inform us politely that only three places, two inside and one out, were at our disposal, the rest having been pre-engaged a fortnight before our orders were received.