The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 13Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
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The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 13
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century; Families -- Fiction
Still, it is recorded of many great men, who did not end their days in a
workhouse, that they were equally non-retentive of money. Schiller,
when he had nothing else to give away, gave the clothes from his back,
and Goldsmith the blankets from his bed. Tender hands found it
necessary to pick Beethoven's pockets at home before he walked out.
Great heroes, who have made no scruple of robbing the whole world, have
been just as lavish as poor poets and musicians. Alexander, in
parcelling out his spoils, left himself "hope"! And as for Julius
Caesar, he was two millions in debt when he shied his last half-crown at
the sparrows in Gaul. Encouraged by these illustrious examples, I had
hopes of Guy Bolding; and the more as he was so aware of his own
infirmity that he was perfectly contented with the arrangement which
made me treasurer of his capital, and even besought me, on no account,
let him beg ever so hard, to permit his own money to come in his own
way. In fact, I contrived to gain a great ascendency over his simple,
generous, thoughtless nature; and by artful appeals to his affections,--
to all he owed to his father for many bootless sacrifices, and to the
duty of providing a little dower for his infant sister, whose meditated
portion had half gone to pay his college debts,--I at last succeeded in
fixing into his mind an object to save for.
Three other companions did I select for our Cleruchia. The first was
the son of our old shepherd, who had lately married, but was not yet
encumbered with children,--a good shepherd, and an intelligent, steady
fellow. The second was a very different character. He had been the
dread of the whole squirearchy. A more bold and dexterous poacher did
not exist. Now my acquaintance with this latter person, named Will
Peterson, and more popularly "Will o' the Wisp," had commenced thus:
Bolt had managed to rear, in a small copse about a mile from the house,
--and which was the only bit of ground in my uncle's domains that might
by courtesy be called "a wood,"--a young colony of pheasants, that he
dignified by the title of a "preserve." This colony was audaciously
despoiled and grievously depopulated, in spite of two watchers, who,
with Bolt, guarded for seven nights successively the slumbers of the
infant settlement. So insolent was the assault that bang, bang! went
the felonious gun,--behind, before, within but a few yards of the
sentinels,--and the gunner was off and the prey seized, before they
could rush to the spot. The boldness and skill of the enemy soon
proclaimed him, to the experienced watchers, to be Will o' the Wisp; and
so great was their dread of this fellow's strength and courage, and so
complete their despair of being a match for his swiftness and cunning,
that after the seventh night the watchers refused to go out any longer;
and poor Bolt himself was confined to his bed by an attack of what a
doctor would have called rheumatism, and a moralist, rage. My
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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