[Illustration]
_An Old-fashioned Card-party. The Clergyman's Verses. The Story
of the Convict's Return_
Several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet
Mr. Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the
performance of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities,
Mr. Pickwick had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate
upon the characters and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was
surrounded--a habit in which he, in common with many other great men,
delighted to indulge.
A very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a
personage than Mr. Wardle's mother--occupied the post of honour on the
right-hand corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of
her having been brought up in the way she should go when young, and
of her not having departed from it when old, ornamented the walls,
in the form of samplers of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal
antiquity, and crimson silk tea-kettle holders of a more modern period.
The aunt, the two young ladies, and Mr. Wardle, each vying with the
other in paying zealous and unremitting attentions to the old lady,
crowded round her easy-chair, one holding her ear-trumpet, another
an orange, and a third a smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily
engaged in patting and punching the pillows which were arranged for her
support. On the opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with
a good-humoured benevolent face--the clergyman of Dingley Dell; and
next him sat his wife, a stout blooming old lady, who looked as if she
were well skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing
home-made cordials greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of
tasting them occasionally very much to her own. A little, hard-headed,
Ribston-pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in
one corner; and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more
old ladies, sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring
very hard at Mr. Pickwick and his fellow-voyagers.
"Mr. Pickwick, mother," said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice.
"Ah!" said the old lady, shaking her head, "I can't hear you."
"Mr. Pickwick, grandma!" screamed both the young ladies together.
"Ah!" exclaimed the old lady. "Well; it don't much matter. He don't
care for an old 'ooman like me, I dare say."
"I assure you, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand,
and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his
benevolent countenance, "I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me
more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family,
and looking so young and well."
"Ah!" said the old lady, after a short pause. "It's all very fine, I
dare say; but I can't hear him."
"Grandma's rather put out now," said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low
tone; "but she'll talk to you presently."
Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age,
and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the
circle.
"Delightful situation this," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Delightful!" echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.
"Well, I think it is," said Mr. Wardle.
"There an't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir," said the
hard-headed man with the pippin-face; "there an't indeed, sir--I'm sure
there an't, sir." The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if
he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better
of him at last.
"There an't a better spot o' ground in all Kent," said the hard-headed
man again, after a pause.
"'Cept Mullins's Meadows," observed the fat man solemnly.
"Mullins's Meadows!" ejaculated the other, with profound contempt.
"Ah, Mullins's Meadows," repeated the fat man.
"Reg'lar good land that," interposed another fat man.
"And so it is, sure-ly," said a third fat man.
"Everybody knows that," said the corpulent host.
The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in the
minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more.
"What are they talking about?" inquired the old lady of one of her
granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people,
she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons
hearing what she said herself.
"About the land, grandma."
"What about the land?--nothing the matter, is there?"
"No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins's
Meadows."
"How should he know anything about it?" inquired the old lady
indignantly. "Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said
so." Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken
above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the
hard-headed delinquent.
"Come, come," said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change
the conversation,--"What say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?"
"I should like it of all things," replied that gentleman; "but pray
don't make up one on my account."
"Oh, I assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber," said Mr. Wardle;
"an't you, mother?"
The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other,
replied in the affirmative.
"Joe, Joe!" said the old gentleman; "Joe--damn that--oh, here he is;
put out the card-tables."
The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out
two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The
whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady; Mr. Miller and the
fat gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company.
The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and
sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled "whist"--a
solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of "game"
has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game
table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to
interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so
much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various
high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat
gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of
the old lady in a proportionate degree.
"There!" said the criminal Miller, triumphantly, as he took up the odd
trick at the conclusion of a hand; "that could not have been played
better, I flatter myself;--impossible to have made another trick."
"Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn't he, sir?" said the
old lady.
Mr. Pickwick nodded assent.
"Ought I, though?" said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his
partner.
"You ought, sir," said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice.
"Very sorry," said the crestfallen Miller.
"Much use that," growled the fat gentleman.
"Two by honours makes us eight," said Mr. Pickwick.
Another hand. "Can you one?" inquired the old lady.
"I can," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Double, single, and the rub."
"Never was such luck," said Mr. Miller.
"Never was such cards," said the fat gentleman.
A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat
gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous.
"Another double," said the old lady: triumphantly making a memorandum
of the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny
under the candlestick.
"A double, sir," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Quite aware of the fact, sir," replied the fat gentleman, sharply.
Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the
unlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high
personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when
he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour and
twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his
retirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of
a man who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuries
sustained. The old lady's hearing decidedly improved, and the unlucky
Miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box.
Meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. Isabella Wardle and
Mr. Trundle "went partners," and Emily Wardle and Mr. Snodgrass did
the same; and even Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt established a
joint-stock company of fish and flattery. Old Mr. Wardle was in the
very height of his jollity; and he was _so_ funny in his management of
the board, and the old ladies were _so_ sharp after their winnings,
that the whole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter.
There was one old lady who always had about half-a-dozen cards to pay
for, at which everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the
old lady looked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever;
on which the old lady's face gradually brightened up, till at last
she laughed louder than any of them. Then, when the spinster aunt got
"matrimony," the young ladies laughed afresh, and the spinster aunt
seemed disposed to be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing
her hand under the table, _she_ brightened up too, and looked rather
knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some
people thought for; whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially
old Mr. Wardle, who enjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. As to
Mr. Snodgrass, he did nothing but whisper poetical sentiments into
his partner's ear, which made one old gentleman facetiously sly,
about partnerships at cards and partnerships for life, and caused the
aforesaid old gentleman to make some remarks thereupon, accompanied
with divers winks and chuckles, which made the company very merry and
the old gentleman's wife especially so. And Mr. Winkle came out with
jokes which are very well known in town, but are not at all known in
the country: and as everybody laughed at them very heartily, and said
they were very capital, Mr. Winkle was in a state of great honour and
glory. And the benevolent clergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy
faces which surrounded the table made the good old man feel happy too;
and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the
heart and not from the lips: and this is the right sort of merriment
after all.
The evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and
when the substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and
the little party formed a social circle round the fire, Mr. Pickwick
thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much
disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment.
"Now this," said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great state
next the old lady's arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his--"This
is just what I like--the happiest moments of my life have been passed
at this old fire-side: and I am so attached to it, that I keep up
a blazing fire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot
to bear it. Why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this
fire-place upon that little stool when she was a girl; didn't you,
mother?"
The tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of old
times and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stole
down the old lady's face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile.
"You must excuse my talking about this old place, Mr. Pickwick,"
resumed the host, after a short pause, "for I love it dearly, and know
no other--the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me;
and so does our little church with the ivy--about which, by the by, our
excellent friend there made a song when he first came amongst us. Mr.
Snodgrass, have you anything in your glass?"
"Plenty, thank you," replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity had
been greatly excited by the last observations of his entertainer. "I
beg your pardon, but you were talking about the song of the Ivy."
"You must ask our friend opposite about that," said the host,
knowingly: indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head.
"May I say that I should like to hear you repeat it, sir?" said Mr.
Snodgrass.
"Why really," replied the clergyman, "it's a very slight affair; and
the only excuse I have for having ever perpetrated it is, that I was a
young man at the time. Such as it is, however, you shall hear it if you
wish."
A murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentleman
proceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife,
the lines in question. "I call them," said he,
THE IVY GREEN
Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend the huge Oak Tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
And he joyously hugs and crawleth round
The rich mould of dead men's graves.
Creeping where grim death has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days,
Shall fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise,
Is the Ivy's food at last.
Creeping on, where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
While the old gentleman repeated these lines a second time, to enable
Mr. Snodgrass to note them down, Mr. Pickwick perused the lineaments
of his face with an expression of great interest. The old gentleman
having concluded his dictation, and Mr. Snodgrass having returned his
note-book to his pocket, Mr. Pickwick said--
"Excuse me, sir, for making the remark on so short an acquaintance; but
a gentleman like yourself cannot fail, I should think, to have observed
many scenes and incidents worth recording, in the course of your
experience as a minister of the Gospel."
"I have witnessed some, certainly," replied the old gentleman; "but the
incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my
sphere of action being so very limited."
"You _did_ make some notes, I think, about John Edmunds, did you not?"
inquired Mr. Wardle, who appeared very desirous to draw his friend out,
for the edification of his new visitors.
The old gentleman slightly nodded his head in token of assent, and was
proceeding to change the subject, when Mr. Pickwick said--
"I beg your pardon, sir; but pray, if I may venture to inquire, who was
John Edmunds?"
"The very thing I was about to ask," said Mr. Snodgrass, eagerly.
"You are fairly in for it," said the jolly host. "You must satisfy the
curiosity of these gentlemen, sooner or later; so you had better take
advantage of this favourable opportunity, and do so at once."
The old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair
forward;--the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together,
especially Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather
hard of hearing; and the old lady's ear trumpet having been duly
adjusted, and Mr. Miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital
of the verses) roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch,
administered beneath the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man,
the old gentleman, without farther preface, commenced the following
tale, to which we have taken the liberty of prefixing the title of
THE CONVICT'S RETURN
"When I first settled in this village," said the old gentleman, "which
is now just five-and-twenty years ago, the most notorious person among
my parishioners was a man of the name of Edmunds, who leased a small
farm near this spot. He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man; idle
and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition.
Beyond the few lazy and reckless vagabonds with whom he sauntered away
his time in the fields, or sotted in the ale-house, he had not a single
friend or acquaintance; no one cared to speak to the man whom many
feared, and every one detested--and Edmunds was shunned by all.
"This man had a wife and one son, who, when I first came here, was
about twelve years old. Of the acuteness of that woman's sufferings,
of the gentle and enduring manner in which she bore them, of the agony
of solicitude with which she reared that boy, no one can form an
adequate conception. Heaven forgive me the supposition, if it be an
uncharitable one, but I do firmly and in my soul believe, that the man
systematically tried for many years to break her heart; but she bore it
all for her child's sake, and, however strange it may seem to many, for
his father's too; for brute as he was, and cruelly as he had treated
her, she had loved him once; and the recollection of what he had been
to her, awakened feelings of forbearance and meekness under suffering
in her bosom, to which all God's creatures, but women, are strangers.
"They were poor--they could not be otherwise when the man pursued
such courses; but the woman's unceasing and unwearied exertions, early
and late, morning, noon, and night, kept them above actual want. Those
exertions were but ill repaid. People who passed the spot in the
evening--sometimes at a late hour of the night--reported that they
had heard the moans and sobs of a woman in distress, and the sound of
blows: and more than once, when it was past midnight, the boy knocked
softly at the door of a neighbour's house, whither he had been sent, to
escape the drunken fury of his unnatural father.
"During the whole of this time, and when the poor creature often bore
about her marks of ill-usage and violence which she could not wholly
conceal, she was a constant attendant at our little church. Regularly
every Sunday, morning and afternoon, she occupied the same seat with
the boy at her side; and though they were both poorly dressed--much
more so than many of their neighbours who were in a lower station--they
were always neat and clean. Every one had a friendly nod and a kind
word for 'poor Mrs. Edmunds'; and sometimes, when she stopped to
exchange a few words with a neighbour at the conclusion of the service
in the little row of elm trees which leads to the church porch, or
lingered behind to gaze with a mother's pride and fondness upon her
healthy boy, as he sported before her with some little companions,
her care-worn face would lighten up with an expression of heartfelt
gratitude; and she would look, if not cheerful and happy, at least
tranquil and contented.
"Five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and
well-grown youth. The time that had strengthened the child's slight
frame and knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed
his mother's form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should
have supported her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should
have cheered her, no more looked upon her own. She occupied her old
seat, but there was a vacant one beside her. The Bible was kept as
carefully as ever, the places were found and folded down as they used
to be: but there was no one to read it with her; and the tears fell
thick and fast upon the book, and blotted the words from her eyes.
Neighbours were as kind as they were wont to be of old, but she shunned
their greetings with averted head. There was no lingering among the
old elm trees now--no cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store.
The desolate woman drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked
hurriedly away.
"Shall I tell you, that the young man, who, looking back to the
earliest of his childhood's days to which memory and consciousness
extended, and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could
remember nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series
of voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with
ill-usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him;--shall I
tell you, that he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart,
and a sullen wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for
him, had linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly
pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame to
her? Alas for human nature! You have anticipated it long since.
"The measure of the unhappy woman's misery and misfortune was
about to be completed. Numerous offences had been committed in the
neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their
boldness increased. A robbery of a daring and aggravated nature
occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had
not calculated on. Young Edmunds was suspected, with three companions.
He was apprehended--committed--tried--condemned--to die.
"The wild and piercing shriek from a woman's voice, which resounded
through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my
ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror to the culprit's heart,
which trial, condemnation--the approach of death itself, had failed
to awaken. The lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness
throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy
pale as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy
limbs of the felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock.
"In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother
threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and fervently besought the
Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles, to
release her from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life
of her only child. A burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as
I hope I may never have to witness again, succeeded. I knew that her
heart was breaking from that hour; but I never once heard complaint or
murmur escape her lips.
"It was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison yard
from day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and
entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain.
He remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for
commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years,
softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour.
"But the spirit of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld
her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. She
fell sick. She dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her
son once more, but her strength failed her, and she sunk powerless on
the ground.
"And now the boasted coldness and indifference of the young man were
tested indeed; and the retribution that fell heavily upon him, nearly
drove him mad. A day passed away and his mother was not there; another
flew by, and she came not near him; a third evening arrived, and yet he
had not seen her; and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated
from her--perhaps for ever. Oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of
former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the
narrow yard--as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for _his_
hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation
rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent
he had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the
ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would
place him by her side. He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron
rail with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and
threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through
the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he
beat his hands together and wept like a child.
"I bore the mother's forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison;
and I carried his solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent
supplication for pardon, to her sick bed. I heard, with pity and
compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her
comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months
before he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no
longer of this world.
"He was removed by night. A few weeks afterwards the poor woman's soul
took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place
of eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service over her
remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone at her
grave's head. Her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to God.
"It had been arranged previously to the convict's departure, that he
should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and
that the letter should be addressed to me. The father had positively
refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was
a matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. Many years
passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half
his term of transportation had expired, and I had received no letter, I
concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, I almost hoped he might be.
"Edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the
country on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance,
perhaps, may be attributed the fact, that though several letters
were despatched, none of them ever reached my hands. He remained in
the same place during the whole fourteen years. At the expiration of
the term, steadily adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he
gave his mother, he made his way back to England amidst innumerable
difficulties, and returned, on foot, to his native place.
"On a fine Sunday evening, in the month of August, John Edmunds set
foot in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years
before. His nearest way lay through the churchyard. The man's heart
swelled as he crossed the stile. The tall old elms, through whose
branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light
upon the shady path, awakened the associations of his earliest days.
He pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother's hand, and
walking peacefully to church. He remembered how he used to look up
into her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears
as she gazed upon his features--tears which fell hot upon his forehead
as she stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too, although he little
knew then what bitter tears hers were. He thought how often he had run
merrily down that path with some childish playfellow, looking back,
ever and again, to catch his mother's smile, or hear her gentle voice;
and then a veil seemed lifted from his memory, and words of kindness
unrequited, and warnings despised, and promises broken, thronged upon
his recollection till his heart failed him, and he could bear it no
longer.
"He entered the church. The evening service was concluded and the
congregation had dispersed, but it was not yet closed. His steps echoed
through the low building with a hollow sound, and he almost feared to
be alone, it was so still and quiet. He looked round him. Nothing was
changed. The place seemed smaller than it used to be, but there were
the old monuments, on which he had gazed with childish awe a thousand
times; the little pulpit with its faded cushion; the Communion-table
before which he had so often repeated the Commandments he had
reverenced as a child, and forgotten as a man. He approached the old
seat; it looked cold and desolate. The cushion had been removed, and
the Bible was not there. Perhaps his mother now occupied a poorer seat,
or possibly she had grown infirm and could not reach the church alone.
He dared not think of what he feared. A cold feeling crept over him,
and he trembled violently as he turned away.
"An old man entered the porch just as he reached it. Edmunds started
back, for he knew him well; many a time he had watched him digging
graves in the churchyard. What would _he_ say to the returned convict?
"The old man raised his eyes to the stranger's face, bid him 'Good
evening,' and walked slowly on. He had forgotten him.
"He walked down the hill, and through the village. The weather was
warm, and the people were sitting at their doors, or strolling in their
little gardens as he passed, enjoying the serenity of the evening, and
their rest from labour. Many a look was turned towards him, and many
a doubtful glance he cast on either side to see whether any knew and
shunned him. There were strange faces in almost every house; in some he
recognised the burly form of some old schoolfellow--a boy when he last
saw him--surrounded by a troop of merry children; in others he saw,
seated in an easy chair at a cottage door, a feeble and infirm old man,
whom he only remembered as a hale and hearty labourer; but they had all
forgotten him, and he passed on unknown.
"The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth,
casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the
shadows of the orchard trees, as he stood before the old house--the
home of his infancy--to which his heart had yearned with an intensity
of affection not to be described, through long and weary years of
captivity and sorrow. The paling was low, though he well remembered the
time when it had seemed a high wall to him: and he looked over into the
old garden. There were more seeds and gayer flowers than there used to
be, but there were the old trees still--the very tree, under which he
had lain a thousand times when tired of playing in the sun, and felt
the soft mild sleep of happy boyhood steal gently upon him. There were
voices within the house. He listened, but they fell strangely upon his
ear; he knew them not. They were merry too; and he well knew that his
poor old mother could not be cheerful, and he away. The door opened,
and a group of little children bounded out, shouting and romping. The
father, with a little boy in his arms, appeared at the door, and they
crowded round him, clapping their tiny hands, and dragging him out, to
join their joyous sports. The convict thought on the many times he had
shrunk from his father's sight in that very place. He remembered how
often he had buried his trembling head beneath the bed-clothes, and
heard the harsh word, and the hard stripe, and his mother's wailing;
and though the man sobbed aloud with agony of mind as he left the spot,
his fist was clenched, and his teeth were set, in fierce and deadly
passion.
"And such was the return to which he had looked through the weary
perspective of many years, and for which he had undergone so much
suffering! No face of welcome, no look of forgiveness, no house to
receive, no hand to help him--and this too in the old village. What
was his loneliness in the wild thick woods, where man was never seen,
to this!
"He felt that in the distant land of his bondage and infamy, he had
thought of his native place as it was when he left it; not as it would
be when he returned. The sad reality struck coldly at his heart, and
his spirit sank within him. He had not courage to make inquiries, or
to present himself to the only person who was likely to receive him
with kindness and compassion. He walked slowly on; and shunning the
road-side like a guilty man, turned into a meadow he well remembered;
and covering his face with his hands, threw himself upon the grass.
"He had not observed that a man was lying on the bank beside him; his
garments rustled as he turned round to steal a look at the new-comer:
and Edmunds raised his head.
"The man had moved into a sitting posture. His body was much bent, and
his face was wrinkled and yellow. His dress denoted him an inmate of
the workhouse: he had the appearance of being very old, but it looked
more the effect of dissipation or disease, than length of years. He was
staring hard at the stranger, and though his eyes were lustreless and
heavy at first, they appeared to glow with an unnatural and alarmed
expression after they had been fixed upon him for a short time, until
they seemed to be staring from their sockets. Edmunds gradually raised
himself to his knees, and looked more and more earnestly upon the old
man's face. They gazed upon each other in silence.
"The old man was ghastly pale. He shuddered and tottered to his feet.
Edmunds sprang to his. He stepped back a pace or two. Edmunds advanced.
"'Let me hear you speak,' said the convict in a thick broken voice.
"'Stand off!' cried the old man, with a dreadful oath. The convict drew
closer to him.
"'Stand off!' shrieked the old man. Furious with terror, he raised his
stick and struck Edmunds a heavy blow across the face.
"'Father--devil!' murmured the convict, between his set teeth. He
rushed wildly forward, and clenched the old man by the throat--but he
was his father; and his arm fell powerless by his side.
"The old man uttered a loud yell which rang through the lonely fields
like the howl of an evil spirit. His face turned black: the gore rushed
from his mouth and nose, and dyed the grass a deep dark red, as he
staggered and fell. He had ruptured a blood-vessel: and he was a dead
man before his son could raise him.
* * * * *
"In that corner of the churchyard," said the old gentleman, after a
silence of a few moments, "in that corner of the churchyard of which I
have spoken before, there lies buried a man, who was in my employment
for three years after this event: and who was truly contrite, penitent,
and humbled, if ever man was. No one save myself knew in that man's
lifetime who he was, or whence he came:--it was John Edmunds, the
returned convict."