"My Novel" — Volume 07

This eBook was produced by David Widger
What is courage? said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a revery into which he had fallen, after the Sixth Book in this history had been read to our family circle.
What is courage? he repeated more earnestly. Is it insensibility to fear? That may be the mere accident of constitution; and if so, there is no more merit in being courageous than in being this table.
I am very glad to hear you speak thus, observed Mr. Caxton, for I should not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible to fear in all dangers, bodily and moral.
La, Austin, how can you say so? cried my mother, firing up; was it not only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing after Blanche and the children?
Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and, hanging over his shoulder, kissed his forehead.
MR. CAXTON (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries).— I don't deny that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened.
ROLAND.— The sense of honour which conquers fear is the true courage of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on,—no gentleman could.
MR. CAXTON.— Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood, Captain. I should have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself.
BLANCHE.— Ah, you did not think of that; your only thought was to save me and the children.
No man would, said the captain, kindly. I should be very sorry to face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even though I had AEschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends.
MR. CAXTON.— You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with a sword in his hand?