And there an end; but now they rise again,”
as Macbeth observes, with some confusion of syntax, excusable in a person of his circumstances. Now, suppose they—or he—the man whose brains are out—goes about with his coffin under his arm, like my worthy uncle? and suppose he blandly, politely, relentlessly insists upon reading to you, out of that octavo sarcophagus, passages which in his opinion prove that he is not only not dead, but immortal? If such a man be a stranger, snub him; if a casual acquaintance, met in an evil hour, there is still hope—doors have locks, and there are two sides to a street, and nearsightedness is a blessing, and (as a last resort) buttons may be sacrificed (you remember Lamb’s story of Coleridge) and left in the clutch of the fatal fingers. But one of your own kindred, and very respectable, adding the claim of misfortune to his other claims upon you—pachydermatous to slights, smilingly persuasive, gently persistent—as imperturbable as a ship’s wooden figurehead through all the ups and downs of the voyage of life, and as insensible to cold water—in short, an uncle like my uncle, whom there was no getting rid of—what the deuce would you do?
Exactly; run away as I did. There was nothing else to be done, unless, indeed, I had throttled the old gentleman; in which case I am confident that one of our modern model juries would have brought in the popular verdict of justifiable insanity. But, being a peaceable man, I was averse to extreme measures. So I did the next best thing—consulted my wife, and retired to this village.
Then consider the shock to my feelings when I looked up that day and saw the enemy of our peace stalking into our little Paradise with his book under his arm and his carpet-bag in his hand!—coming with his sermons and his shirts, prepared to stay a week—that is to say a year—that is to say forever, if we would suffer him—and how was he to be hindered by any desperate measures short of burning the house down?
“My dear nephew!” says he, striding toward me with eager steps, as you perhaps remember, smiling his eternally dry, leathery smile—“Nephew Frederick!”—and he held out both hands to me, book in one and bag in t’other—“I am rejoiced! One would almost think you had tried to hide away from your old uncle, for I’ve been three days hunting you up. And how is Dolly? She ought to be glad to see me, after all the trouble I’ve had in finding you! And, Nephew Frederick—h’m!—can you lend me three dollars for the hackman? For I don’t happen to have——Thank you! I should have been saved this if you had only known I was stopping last night at a public house in the next village, for I know how delighted you would have been to drive over and fetch me!”
If you were not already out of hearing, you may have noticed that I made no reply to this affecting speech. The old gentleman has grown quite deaf of late years—an infirmity which was once a source of untold misery to his friends, to whom he was constantly appealing for their opinions, which they were obliged to shout in his ear. But now, happily, the world has about ceased responding to him, and he has almost ceased to expect responses from the world. He just catches your eye, and when he says, “Don’t you think so, sir?” or “What is your opinion, sir?” an approving nod does your business.
The hackman paid, my dear uncle accompanied me to the house, unfolding the catalogue of his woes by the way. For he is one of those worthy, unoffending persons whom an ungrateful world jostles and tramples upon—whom unmerciful disaster follows fast and follows faster. In his younger days he was settled over I don’t know how many different parishes; but secret enmity pursued him everywhere, poisoning the parochial mind against him, and driving him relentlessly from place to place. Then he relapsed into agencies, and went through a long list of them, each terminating in flat failure, to his ever-recurring surprise—the simple old soul never suspecting, to this day, who his one great tireless, terrible enemy is!
I got him into the library, and went to talk over this unexpected visit—or visitation—with Dolly. She bore up under it more cheerfully than could have been expected—suppressed a sigh—and said she would go down and meet him. She received him with a hospitable smile (I verily believe that more of the world’s hypocrisy proceeds from too much good-nature than from too little) and listened patiently to his explanations.
“You will observe that I have brought my bag,” says he, “for I knew you wouldn’t let me off for a day or two—though I must positively leave in a week—in two weeks, at the latest. I have brought my volume, too, for I am contemplating a new edition” (he is always contemplating a new edition, making that a pretext for lugging the book about with him), “and I wish to enjoy the advantages of your and Frederick’s criticism. I anticipate some good, comfortable, old-time talks over the old book, Frederick!”
We had invited some village friends to come in and eat strawberries and cream with us that afternoon; and the question arose, what should be done with the old gentleman? Harry, who is a lad of a rather lively fancy, coming in while we were taking advantage of his great-uncle’s deafness to discuss the subject in his presence, proposed a pleasant expedient. “Trot him out into the cornfield, introduce him to the scarecrow, and let him talk to that,” says he, grinning up into the visitor’s face, who grinned down at him, no doubt thinking what a wonderfully charming boy he was! If he were as blind as he is deaf, he might have been disposed of very comfortably in some such ingenious way—the scarecrow, or any other lay figure, might have served to engage him in one of his immortal monologues. As it was, the suggestion bore fruit later, as you will see.