Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when _they_
were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a
traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in
this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to
hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house
in Norfolk--a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa
lived--which had been the scene--so at least it was generally believed
in that part of the country--of the tragic incidents which they had
lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the
Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their
cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the
chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin
Red-breasts, till a foolish rich uncle pulled it down to set up a
marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it.
Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be
called upbraiding.
Then I went on to say how religious and how good their
great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody,
tho she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only
the charge of it--and yet in some respects she might be said to be the
mistress of it too--committed to her by the owner, who preferred
living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased
somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a
manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great
house in a sort while she lived, which afterward came to decay, and
was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stript and carried
away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as
awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen
lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt
drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "That would be
foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her
funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the
gentry too, of the neighborhood for many miles round, to show their
respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious
woman; so good, indeed, that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay,
and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread
her hands.
Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their
great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was
esteemed the best dancer. Here Alice's little right foot played an
involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted--the
best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called
a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend
her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright,
because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to
sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how
she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at
midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept;
but she said "those innocents would do her no harm"; and how
frightened I used to be, tho in those days I had my maid to sleep with
me, because I was never half so good or religious as she--and yet I
never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows, and tried
to look courageous.
Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to
the great house in the holidays, where I, in particular, used to spend
many hours by myself in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars
that had been emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem
to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never
could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast
empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and
carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out--sometimes in
the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself,
unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me--and
how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever
offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now
and then, and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the
old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red
berries and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look
at; or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden
smells around me; or basking in the orangery, till I could almost
fancy myself ripening, too, along with the oranges and the limes, in
that grateful warmth; or in watching the dace that darted to and fro
in the fish-pond at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a
great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if
it mocked at their impertinent friskings. I had more pleasure in these
busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavors of peaches,
nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children. Here John
slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not
unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both
seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then,
in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, tho their
great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an
especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L----,
because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the
rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like
some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get,
when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half
over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any
out; and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too
much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries; and how
their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to
the admiration of everybody, but of the great-grandmother Field most
especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a
lame-footed boy--for he was a good bit older than me--many a mile when
I could not walk for pain; and how, in after-life, he became
lame-footed too, and I did not always, I fear, make allowances enough
for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently
how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how,
when he died, tho he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had
died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and
death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first,
but afterward it haunted and haunted me; and tho I did not cry or take
it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had
died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I
had loved him.
I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to
be alive again, to be quarreling with him--for we quarreled
sometimes--rather than not have him again; and was as uneasy without
him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off
his limb. Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little
mourning which they had on was not for Uncle John; and they looked up
and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some
stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how, for seven
long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting
ever, I courted the fair Alice W--n; and, as much as children could
understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and
denial meant in maidens; when suddenly turning to Alice, the soul of
the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of
representment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before
me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the
children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still
receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in
the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely imprest upon
me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee; nor are
we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are
nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have
been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages
before we have existence and a name"; and immediately awaking, I found
myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen
asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side--but John L.
(or James Elia) was gone forever.