"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."
Mr Caxton.—"Possibly, my dear—very possibly I might have been afraid for you too;—but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily I had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began with Eledemnas pedioploktupos; and when I came to the grand howl of Ἰὼ, ἰὼ, ἰὼ, ἰὼ—the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with Æschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field; but (continued Mr Caxton, ingenuously,) I should not like to go through that half minute again."
"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 Æschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends."