John Jasper returns by another way to his gatehouse,
and entering softly with his key, finds his fire still
burning. He takes from a locked press a peculiar-looking
pipe, which he fills—but not with tobacco—and,
having adjusted the contents of the bowl, very carefully,
with a little instrument, ascends an inner staircase
of only a few steps, leading to two rooms. One
of these is his own sleeping chamber: the other
is his nephew’s. There is a light in each.
His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled.
John Jasper stands looking down upon him, his unlighted
pipe in his hand, for some time, with a fixed and
deep attention. Then, hushing his footsteps,
he passes to his own room, lights his pipe, and delivers
himself to the Spectres it invokes at midnight.
The Reverend Septimus Crisparkle (Septimus, because
six little brother Crisparkles before him went out,
one by one, as they were born, like six weak little
rushlights, as they were lighted), having broken the
thin morning ice near Cloisterham Weir with his amiable
head, much to the invigoration of his frame, was now
assisting his circulation by boxing at a looking-glass
with great science and prowess. A fresh and
healthy portrait the looking-glass presented of the
Reverend Septimus, feinting and dodging with the utmost
artfulness, and hitting out from the shoulder with
the utmost straightness, while his radiant features
teemed with innocence, and soft-hearted benevolence
beamed from his boxing-gloves.
It was scarcely breakfast-time yet, for Mrs. Crisparkle—mother,
not wife of the Reverend Septimus—was only
just down, and waiting for the urn. Indeed,
the Reverend Septimus left off at this very moment
to take the pretty old lady’s entering face between
his boxing-gloves and kiss it. Having done so
with tenderness, the Reverend Septimus turned to again,
countering with his left, and putting in his right,
in a tremendous manner.
‘I say, every morning of my life, that you’ll
do it at last, Sept,’ remarked the old lady,
looking on; ‘and so you will.’
‘Do what, Ma dear?’
‘Break the pier-glass, or burst a blood-vessel.’
‘Neither, please God, Ma dear. Here’s
wind, Ma. Look at this!’ In a concluding
round of great severity, the Reverend Septimus administered
and escaped all sorts of punishment, and wound up by
getting the old lady’s cap into Chancery—such
is the technical term used in scientific circles by
the learned in the Noble Art— with a lightness
of touch that hardly stirred the lightest lavender
or cherry riband on it. Magnanimously releasing
the defeated, just in time to get his gloves into
a drawer and feign to be looking out of window in
a contemplative state of mind when a servant entered,
the Reverend Septimus then gave place to the urn and
other preparations for breakfast. These completed,
and the two alone again, it was pleasant to see (or
would have been, if there had been any one to see
it, which there never was), the old lady standing
to say the Lord’s Prayer aloud, and her son,
Minor Canon nevertheless, standing with bent head
to hear it, he being within five years of forty:
much as he had stood to hear the same words from
the same lips when he was within five months of four.
