manner of doubt that, all the while, my uncle had
a brace of books in his pockets, Robert Hall one of them! In truth, he
had talked himself into a passion, and did not know what nonsense he was
saying. But this explosion of Captain Roland's has shattered the thread
of my matter. Pouff! I must take breath and begin again.

Yes, in spite of my sauciness, the old soldier evidently took to me more
and more. And besides our critical examination of the property and the
pedigree, he carried me with him on long excursions to distant villages
where some memorial of a defunct Caxton, a coat of arms, or an
epitaph on a tombstone, might be still seen. And he made me pore over
topographical works and county histories (forgetful, Goth that he
was, that for those very authorities he was indebted to the repudiated
printer!) to find some anecdote of his beloved dead! In truth, the
county for miles round bore the vestigia of those old Caxtons; their
handwriting was on many a broken wall. And obscure as they all were,
compared to that great operative of the Sanctuary at Westminster whom
my father clung to, still, that the yesterdays that had lighted them
the way to dusty death had cast no glare on dishonored scutcheons seemed
clear, from the popular respect and traditional affection in which
I found that the name was still held in hamlet and homestead. It was
pleasant to see the veneration with which this small hidalgo of some
three hundred a-year was held, and the patriarchal affection with which
he returned it. Roland was a man who would walk into a cottage, rest his
cork leg on the hearth, and talk for the hour together upon all that
lay nearest to the hearts of the owners. There is a peculiar spirit
of aristocracy amongst agricultural peasants: they like old names and
families; they identify themselves with the honors of a house, as if
of its clan. They do not care so much for wealth as townsfolk and the
middle class do; they have a pity, but a respectful one, for well-born
poverty. And then this Roland, too,--who would go and dine in a
cookshop, and receive change for a shilling, and shun the ruinous
luxury of a hack cabriolet,--could be positively extravagant in his
liberalities to those around him. He was altogether another being in his
paternal acres. The shabby-genteel, half-pay captain, lost in the
whirl of London, here luxuriated into a dignified ease of manner that
Chesterfield might have admired. And if to please is the true