You want to put the sun to the same use you are quite right; but then, you see, you must first be a saint before you can be sure of the sun as a servant."
Sir Sedley smiled charmingly; but the smile changed to a sigh as he added, "I don't think I should much mind being a saint, if the sun would be my sentinel instead of my courier. I want nothing of him but to stand still. You see he moved even for Saint Amable. My dear madam, you and I understand each other; and it is a very hard thing to grow old, do what one will to keep young."
"What say you, Roland, of these two malcontents?" asked my father. The Captain turned uneasily in his chair, for the rheumatism was gnawing his shoulder, and sharp pains were shooting through his mutilated limb.
"I say," answered Roland, "that these men are wearied with marching from Brentford to Windsor,--that they have never known the bivouac and the battle."
Both the grumblers turned their eyes to the veteran: the eyes rested first on the furrowed, care-worn lines in his eagle face; then they fell on the stiff outstretched cork limb; and then they turned away.
Meanwhile my mother had softly risen, and under pretence of looking for her work on the table near him, bent over the old soldier and pressed his hand.
"Gentlemen," said my father, "I don't think my brother ever heard of Nichocorus, the Greek comic writer; yet he has illustrated him very ably. Saith Nichocorus, 'The best cure for drunkenness is a sudden calamity.' For chronic drunkenness, a continued course of real misfortune must be very salutary!"
No answer came from the two complainants; and my father took up a great book.
CHAPTER II.
"Mr friends," said my father, looking up from his book, and addressing himself to his two visitors, know of one thing, milder than calamity, that would do you both a great deal of good."
"What is that?" asked Sir Sedley.
"A saffron bag, worn at the pit of the stomach!"
"Austin, my dear," said my mother, reprovingly.
My father did not heed the interruption, but continued gravely: "Nothing is better for the spirits! Roland is in no want of saffron, because he is a warrior; and the desire of fighting and the hope of victory infuse such a heat into the spirits as is profitable for long life, and keeps up the system."
"Tut!" said Trevanion.
"But gentlemen in your predicament must have recourse to artificial means. Nitre in broth, for instance,--about three grains to ten (cattle fed upon nitre grow fat); or earthy odors,--such as exist in cucumbers and cabbage. A certain great lord had a clod of fresh earth, laid in a napkin, put under his nose every morning after sleep. Light anointing of the head with oil, mixed with roses and salt, is not bade but, upon the whole, I prescribe the saffron bag at the--"
"Sisty, my dear, will you look for my scissors?" said my mother.
"What nonsense are you talking! Question! question!" cried Mr. Trevanion.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed my father, opening his eyes: "I am giving you the advice of Lord Bacon. You want conviction: conviction comes from passion; passion from the spirits; spirits from a saffron bag. You, Beaudesert, on the other hand, want to keep youth. He keeps youth longest, who lives longest. Nothing more conduces to longevity than a saffron bag, provided always it is worn at the--"
"Sisty, my thimble!" said my mother.
"You laugh at us justly," said Beaudesert, smiling; "and the same remedy, I dare say, would cure us both."
"Yes," said my father, "there is no doubt of that. In the pit of the stomach is that great central web of nerves called the ganglions; thence they affect the head and the heart. Mr. Squills proved that to us, Sisty."
"Yes," said I; "but I never heard Mr. Squills talk of a saffron bag."
"Oh, foolish boy! it is not the saffron bag, it is the belief in the saffron bag. Apply Belief to the centre of the nerves, and all will go well," said my father.
CHAPTER III.
"But it is a devil of a thing to have too nice a conscience!" quoth the member of parliament.
"And it is not an angel of a thing to lose one's front teeth!" sighed the fine gentleman.
Therewith my father rose, and putting his hand into his waistcoat, more suo, delivered his famous Sermon Upon The Connection Between Faith And Purpose.
Famous it was in our domestic circle, but as yet it has not gone beyond; and since the reader, I am sure, does not turn to the Caxton Memoirs with the expectation of finding sermons, so to that circle let its fame be circumscribed. All I shall say about it is that it was a very fine sermon, and that it proved indisputably--to me at least--the salubrious effects of a saffron bag applied to the great centre of the nervous system. But the wise Ali saith that "a fool doth not know what maketh him look little, neither will he hearken to him that adviseth him." I cannot assert that my father's friends were fools, but they certainly came under this definition of Folly.
CHAPTER IV.
For therewith arose, not conviction, but discussion; Trevanion was logical, Beaudesert sentimental.