ld never have had them knocked
out for so bloody a villain!"

"A rascally, drudging, money-making printer!"

"The wise and glorious introducer of the art that has enlightened a
world. Prefer for an ancestor, to one whom scholar and sage never name
but in homage, a worthless, obscure, jolter-headed booby in mail, whose
only record to men is a brass plate in a church in a village!"

My uncle turned round perfectly livid. "Enough, sir! enough! I am
insulted sufficiently. I ought to have expected it. I wish you and your
son a very good day."

My father stood aghast. The Captain was hobbling off to the iron gate;
in another moment he would have been out of our precincts. I ran up
and hung upon him. "Uncle, it is all my fault. Between you and me, I
am quite of your side; pray forgive us both. What could I have been
thinking of, to vex you so? And my father, whom your visit has made so
happy!" My uncle paused, feeling for the latch of the gate. My father
had now come up, and caught his hand. "What are all the printers that
ever lived, and all the books they ever printed, to one wrong to thy
fine heart, brother Roland? Shame on me! A bookman's weak point, you
know! It is very true, I should never have taught the boy one thing to
give you pain, brother Roland,--though I don't remember," continued my
father, with a perplexed look, "that I ever did teach it him, either!
Pisistratus, as you value my blessing, respect as your ancestor Sir
William de Caxton, the hero of Bosworth. Come, come, brother!"

"I am an old fool," said Uncle Roland, "whichever way we look at it. Ah,
you young dog, you are laughing at us both!"

"I have ordered breakfast on the lawn," said my mother, coming out from
the porch, with her cheerful smile on her lips; "and I think the devil
will be done to your liking to-day, brother Roland."

"We have had enough of the devil already, my love," said my father,
wiping his forehead.

So, while the birds sang overhead or hopped familiarly across the sward
for the crumbs thrown forth to them, while the sun was still cool in the
east, and the leaves yet rustled with the sweet air of morning, we all
sat down to our table, with hearts as reconciled to each other, and as
peaceably disposed to thank God for the fair world around us, as if
the river had never run red through the field of Bosworth, and that
excellent Mr. Caxton had never set all mankind by the ears with an
irritating invention a thousand times more p