“Oh!” cried Miss Margaret, who, mounted on a chair, had been inspecting the pedigree through an eye-glass, “I don’t see a fine Christian name from the beginning, except Oliver.”
SIR PETER.—“That Chillingly was born in Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, and named Oliver in compliment to him, as his father, born in the reign of James I., was christened James. The three fishes always swam with the stream. Oliver!—Oliver not a bad name, but significant of radical doctrines.”
Mr. MIVERS.—“I don’t think so. Oliver Cromwell made short work of radicals and their doctrines; but perhaps we can find a name less awful and revolutionary.”
“I have it! I have it!” cried the Parson. “Here is a descent from Sir Kenelm Digby and Venetia Stanley. Sir Kenelm Digby! No finer specimen of muscular Christianity. He fought as well as he wrote; eccentric, it is true, but always a gentleman. Call the boy Kenelm!”
“A sweet name,” said Miss Sibyl: “it breathes of romance.”
“Sir Kenelm Chillingly! It sounds well,—imposing!” said Miss Margaret.
“And,” remarked Mr. Mivers, “it has this advantage—that while it has sufficient association with honourable distinction to affect the mind of the namesake and rouse his emulation, it is not that of so stupendous a personage as to defy rivalry. Sir Kenelm Digby was certainly an accomplished and gallant gentleman; but what with his silly superstition about sympathetic powders, etc., any man nowadays might be clever in comparison without being a prodigy. Yes, let us decide on Kenelm.”
Sir Peter meditated. “Certainly,” said he, after a pause, “certainly the name of Kenelm carries with it very crotchety associations; and I am afraid that Sir Kenelm Digby did not make a prudent choice in marriage. The fair Venetia was no better than she should be; and I should wish my heir not to be led away by beauty but wed a woman of respectable character and decorous conduct.”
Miss MARGARET.—“A British matron, of course!”
THREE SISTERS (in chorus).—“Of course! of course!”
“But,” resumed Sir Peter, “I am crotchety myself, and crotchets are innocent things enough; and as for marriage the Baby cannot marry to-morrow, so that we have ample time to consider that matter. Kenelm Digby was a man any family might be proud of; and, as you say, sister Margaret, Kenelm Chillingly does not sound amiss: Kenelm Chillingly it shall be!”
The Baby was accordingly christened Kenelm, after which ceremony its face grew longer than before.
CHAPTER V
BEFORE his relations dispersed, Sir Peter summoned Mr. Gordon into his library.
“Cousin,” said he, kindly, “I do not blame you for the want of family affection, or even of humane interest, which you exhibit towards the New-born.”
“Blame me, Cousin Peter! I should think not. I exhibit as much family affection and humane interest as could be expected from me,—circumstances considered.”
“I own,” said Sir Peter, with all his wonted mildness, “that after remaining childless for fourteen years of wedded life, the advent of this little stranger must have occasioned you a disagreeable surprise. But, after all, as I am many years younger than you, and in the course of nature shall outlive you, the loss is less to yourself than to your son, and upon that I wish to say a few words. You know too well the conditions on which I hold my estate not to be aware that I have not legally the power to saddle it with any bequest to your boy. The New-born succeeds to the fee-simple as last in tail. But I intend, from this moment, to lay by something every year for your son out of my income; and, fond as I am of London for a part of the year, I shall now give up my town-house. If I live to the years the Psalmist allots to man, I shall thus accumulate something handsome for your son, which may be taken in the way of compensation.”
Mr. Gordon was by no means softened by this generous speech. However, he answered more politely than was his wont, “My son will be very much obliged to you, should he ever need your intended bequest.” Pausing a moment, he added with a cheerful smile, “A large percentage of infants die before attaining the age of twenty-one.”
“Nay, but I am told your son is an uncommonly fine healthy child.”
“My son, Cousin Peter! I was not thinking of my son, but of yours. Yours has a big head. I should not wonder if he had water in it. I don’t wish to alarm you, but he may go off any day, and in that case it is not likely that Lady Chillingly will condescend to replace him. So you will excuse me if I still keep a watchful eye on my rights; and, however painful to my feelings, I must still dispute your right to cut a stick of the field timber.”
“That is nonsense, Gordon. I am tenant for life without impeachment of waste, and can cut down all timber not ornamental.”
“I advise you not, Cousin Peter. I have told you before that I shall try the question at law, should you provoke it, amicably, of course. Rights are rights; and if I am driven to maintain mine, I trust that you are of a mind too liberal to allow your family affection for me and mine to be influenced by a decree of the Court of Chancery. But my fly is waiting. I must not miss the train.”
“Well, good-by, Gordon. Shake hands.”
“Shake hands!—of course, of course. By the by, as I came through the lodge, it seemed to me sadly out of repair. I believe you are liable for dilapidations. Good-by.”
“The man is a hog in armour,” soliloquized Sir Peter, when his cousin was gone; “and if it be hard to drive a common pig in the way he don’t choose to go, a hog in armour is indeed undrivable. But his boy ought not to suffer for his father’s hoggishness; and I shall begin at once to see what I can lay by for him. After all, it is hard upon Gordon. Poor Gordon; poor fellow! poor fellow! Still I hope he will not go to law with me. I hate law. And a worm will turn, especially a worm that is put into Chancery.”
CHAPTER VI
DESPITE the sinister semi-predictions of the ci-devant heir-at-law, the youthful Chillingly passed with safety, and indeed with dignity, through the infant stages of existence. He took his measles and whooping-cough with philosophical equanimity. He gradually acquired the use of speech, but he did not too lavishly exercise that special attribute of humanity. During the earlier years of childhood he spoke as little as if he had been prematurely trained in the school of Pythagoras. But he evidently spoke the less in order to reflect the more. He observed closely and pondered deeply over what he observed. At the age of eight he began to converse more freely, and it was in that year that he startled his mother with the question, “Mamma, are you not sometimes overpowered by the sense of your own identity?”
Lady Chillingly,—I was about to say rushed, but Lady Chillingly never rushed,—Lady Chillingly glided less sedately than her wont to Sir Peter, and repeating her son’s question, said, “The boy is growing troublesome, too wise for any woman: he must go to school.”
Sir Peter was of the same opinion. But where on earth did the child get hold of so long a word as “identity,” and how did so extraordinary and puzzling a metaphysical question come into his head? Sir Peter summoned Kenelm, and ascertained that the boy, having free access to the library, had fastened upon Locke on the