May no wolfe howle; no screech owle stir
A wing about thy sepulchre!
No boysterous winds or stormes come hither,
To starve or wither
Thy soft sweet earth! but, like a spring,
Love kept it ever flourishing.
HERRICK.
IN the course of an excursion through one of the remote counties of
England, I had struck into one of those cross-roads that lead through
the more secluded parts of the country, and stopped one afternoon at a
village the situation of which was beautifully rural and retired. There
was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants not to be found
in the villages which lie on the great coach-roads. I determined to
pass the night there, and, having taken an early dinner, strolled out to
enjoy the neighboring scenery.
My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon led me to the
church, which stood at a little distance from the village. Indeed, it
was an object of some curiosity, its old tower being completely overrun
with ivy so that only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle of
gray wall, or a fantastically carved ornament peered through the verdant
covering. It was a lovely evening. The early part of the day had been
dark and showery, but in the afternoon it had cleared up, and, though
sullen clouds still hung overhead, yet there was a broad tract of golden
sky in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping
leaves and lit up all Nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed like the
parting hour of a good Christian smiling on the sins and sorrows of the
world, and giving, in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that he
will rise again in glory.
I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, and was musing, as one
is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past scenes and early
friends--on those who were distant and those who were dead--and
indulging in that kind of melancholy fancying which has in it something
sweeter even than pleasure. Every now and then the stroke of a bell from
the neighboring tower fell on my ear; its tones were in unison with the
scene, and, instead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings; and it was
some time before I recollected that it must be tolling the knell of some
new tenant of the tomb.
Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village green; it
wound slowly along a lane, was lost, and reappeared through the breaks
of the hedges, until it passed the place where I was sitting. The pall
was supported by young girls dressed in white, and another, about the
age of seventeen, walked before, bearing a chaplet of white flowers--a
token that the deceased was a young and unmarried female. The corpse
was followed by the parents. They were a venerable couple of the better
order of peasantry. The father seemed to repress his feelings, but his
fixed eye, contracted brow, and deeply-furrowed face showed the struggle
that was passing within. His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud with
the convulsive bursts of a mother’s sorrow.
I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was placed in the
centre aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers, with a pair of white
gloves, was hung over the seat which the deceased had occupied.
Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the funeral service, for who
is so fortunate as never to have followed some one he has loved to the
tomb? But when performed over the remains of innocence and beauty, thus
laid low in the bloom of existence, what can be more affecting? At that
simple but most solemn consignment of the body to the grave-“Earth
to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”--the tears of the youthful
companions of the deceased flowed unrestrained. The father still seemed
to struggle with his feelings, and to comfort himself with the assurance
that the dead are blessed which die in the Lord; but the mother only
thought of her child as a flower of the field cut down and withered
in the midst of its sweetness; she was like Rachel, “mourning over her
children, and would not be comforted.”
On returning to the inn I learnt the whole story of the deceased. It was
a simple one, and such as has often been told. She had been the beauty
and pride of the village. Her father had once been an opulent farmer,
but was reduced in circumstances. This was an only child, and brought up
entirely at home in the simplicity of rural life. She had been the pupil
of the village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little flock. The good
man watched over her education with paternal care; it was limited and
suitable to the sphere in which she was to move, for he only sought to
make her an ornament to her station in life, not to raise her above it.
The tenderness and indulgence of her parents and the exemption from
all ordinary occupations had fostered a natural grace and delicacy of
character that accorded with the fragile loveliness of her form. She
appeared like some tender plant of the garden blooming accidentally amid
the hardier natives of the fields.
The superiority of her charms was felt and acknowledged by her
companions, but without envy, for it was surpassed by the unassuming
gentleness and winning kindness of her manners. It might be truly said
of her:
“This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever
Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems
But smacks of something greater than herself;
Too noble for this place.”
The village was one of those sequestered spots which still retain some
vestiges of old English customs. It had its rural festivals and holiday
pastimes, and still kept up some faint observance of the once popular
rites of May. These, indeed, had been promoted by its present pastor,
who was a lover of old customs and one of those simple Christians that
think their mission fulfilled by promoting joy on earth and good-will
among mankind. Under his auspices the May-pole stood from year to year
in the centre of the village green; on Mayday it was decorated with
garlands and streamers, and a queen or lady of the May was appointed, as
in former times, to preside at the sports and distribute the prizes and
rewards. The picturesque situation of the village and the fancifulness
of its rustic fetes would often attract the notice of casual visitors.
Among these, on one May-day, was a young officer whose regiment had been
recently quartered in the neighborhood. He was charmed with the native
taste that pervaded this village pageant, but, above all, with the
dawning loveliness of the queen of May. It was the village favorite who
was crowned with flowers, and blushing and smiling in all the beautiful
confusion of girlish diffidence and delight. The artlessness of rural
habits enabled him readily to make her acquaintance; he gradually won
his way into her intimacy, and paid his court to her in that unthinking
way in which young officers are too apt to trifle with rustic
simplicity.
There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. He never even
talked of love, but there are modes of making it more eloquent than
language, and which convey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart.
The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses
which emanate from every word and look and action,--these form the true
eloquence of love, and can always be felt and understood, but never
described. Can we wonder that they should readily win a heart young,
guileless, and susceptible? As to her, she loved almost unconsciously;
she scarcely inquired what was the growing passion that was absorbing
every thought and feeling, or what were to be its consequences. She,
indeed, looked not to the future. When present, his looks and words
occupied her whole attention; when absent, she thought but of what had
passed at their recent interview. She would wander with him through the
green lanes and rural scenes of the vicinity. He taught her to see new
beauties in Nature; he talked in the language of polite and cultivated
life, and breathed into her ear the witcheries of romance and poetry.
Perhaps there could not have been a passion between the sexes more pure
than this innocent girl’s. The gallant figure of her youthful admirer
and the splendor of his military attire might at first have charmed her
eye, but it was not these that had captivated her heart. Her attachment
had something in it of idolatry. She looked up to him as to a being of
a superior order. She felt in his society the enthusiasm of a mind
naturally delicate and poetical, and now first awakened to a keen
perception of the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinctions
of rank and fortune she thought nothing; it was the difference of
intellect, of demeanor, of manners, from those of the rustic society
to which she had been accustomed, that elevated him in her opinion. She
would listen to him with charmed ear and downcast look of mute delight,
and her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm; or if ever she ventured a
shy glance of timid admiration, it was as quickly withdrawn, and she
would sigh and blush at the idea of her comparative unworthiness.
Her lover was equally impassioned, but his passion was mingled with
feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the connection in levity,
for he had often heard his brother-officers boast of their village
conquests, and thought some triumph of the kind necessary to his
reputation as a man of spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervor.
His heart had not yet been rendered sufficiently cold and selfish by a
wandering and a dissipated life: it caught fire from the very flame it
sought to kindle, and before he was aware of the nature of his situation
he became really in love.
What was he to do? There were the old obstacles which so incessantly
occur in these heedless attachments. His rank in life, the prejudices of
titled connections, his dependence upon a proud and unyielding father,
all forbade him to think of matrimony; but when he looked down upon
this innocent being, so tender and confiding, there was a purity in her
manners, a blamelessness in her life, and a beseeching modesty in her
looks that awed down every licentious feeling. In vain did he try to
fortify himself by a thousand heartless examples of men of fashion, and
to chill the glow of generous sentiment with that cold derisive levity
with which he had heard them talk of female virtue: whenever he came
into her presence she was still surrounded by that mysterious but
impassive charm of virgin purity in whose hallowed sphere no guilty
thought can live.
The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair to the Continent
completed the confusion of his mind. He remained for a short time in a
state of the most painful irresolution; he hesitated to communicate the
tidings until the day for marching was at hand, when he gave her the
intelligence in the course of an evening ramble.
The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It broke in at
once upon her dream of felicity; she looked upon it as a sudden and
insurmountable evil, and wept with the guileless simplicity of a child.
He drew her to his bosom and kissed the tears from her soft cheek; nor
did he meet with a repulse, for there are moments of mingled sorrow
and tenderness which hallow the caresses of affection. He was naturally
impetuous, and the sight of beauty apparently yielding in his arms, the
confidence of his power over her, and the dread of losing her forever
all conspired to overwhelm his better feelings: he ventured to propose
that she should leave her home and be the companion of his fortunes.
He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and faltered at his own
baseness; but so innocent of mind was his intended victim that she was
at first at a loss to comprehend his meaning, and why she should leave
her native village and the humble roof of her parents. When at last
the nature of his proposal flashed upon her pure mind, the effect was
withering. She did not weep; she did not break forth into reproach; she
said not a word, but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper, gave him a
look of anguish that pierced to his very soul, and, clasping her hands
in agony, fled, as if for refuge, to her father’s cottage.
The officer retired confounded, humiliated, and repentant. It is
uncertain what might have been the result of the conflict of his
feelings, had not his thoughts been diverted by the bustle of departure.
New scenes, new pleasures, and new companions soon dissipated his
self-reproach and stifled his tenderness; yet, amidst the stir of camps,
the revelries of garrisons, the array of armies, and even the din of
battles, his thoughts would sometimes steal back to the scenes of rural
quiet and village simplicity--the white cottage, the footpath along
the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the little village maid
loitering along it, leaning on his arm and listening to him with eyes
beaming with unconscious affection.
The shock which the poor girl had received in the destruction of all her
ideal world had indeed been cruel. Faintings and hysterics had at first
shaken her tender frame, and were succeeded by a settled and pining
melancholy. She had beheld from her window the march of the departing
troops. She had seen her faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph,
amidst the sound of drum and trumpet and the pomp of arms. She strained
a last aching gaze after him as the morning sun glittered about his
figure and his plume waved in the breeze; he passed away like a bright
vision from her sight, and left her all in darkness.
It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after story. It
was, like other tales of love, melancholy. She avoided society and
wandered out alone in the walks she had most frequented with her lover.
She sought, like the stricken deer, to weep in silence and loneliness
and brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul. Sometimes
she would be seen late of an evening sitting in the porch of the village
church, and the milk-maids, returning from the fields, would now and
then overhear her singing some plaintive ditty in the hawthorn walk. She
became fervent in her devotions at church, and as the old people saw her
approach, so wasted away, yet with a hectic gloom and that hallowed air
which melancholy diffuses round the form, they would make way for her as
for something spiritual, and looking after her, would shake their heads
in gloomy foreboding.
She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb, but looked
forward to it as a place of rest. The silver cord that had bound her to
existence was loosed, and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the
sun. If ever her gentle bosom had entertained resentment against her
lover, it was extinguished. She was incapable of angry passions, and in
a moment of saddened tenderness she penned him a farewell letter. It was
couched in the simplest language, but touching from its very simplicity.
She told him that she was dying, and did not conceal from him that his
conduct was the cause. She even depicted the sufferings which she had
experienced, but concluded with saying that she could not die in peace
until she had sent him her forgiveness and her blessing.
By degrees her strength declined that she could no longer leave the
cottage. She could only totter to the window, where, propped up in
her chair, it was her enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon the
landscape. Still she uttered no complaint nor imparted to any one the
malady that was preying on her heart. She never even mentioned her
lover’s name, but would lay her head on her mother’s bosom and weep in
silence. Her poor parents hung in mute anxiety over this fading blossom
of their hopes, still flattering themselves that it might again revive
to freshness and that the bright unearthly bloom which sometimes flushed
her cheek might be the promise of returning health.
In this way she was seated between them one Sunday afternoon; her hands
were clasped in theirs, the lattice was thrown open, and the soft
air that stole in brought with it the fragrance of the clustering
honeysuckle which her own hands had trained round the window.
Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible: it spoke of the
vanity of worldly things and of the joys of heaven: it seemed to have
diffused comfort and serenity through her bosom. Her eye was fixed on
the distant village church: the bell had tolled for the evening service;
the last villager was lagging into the porch, and everything had sunk
into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents
were gazing on her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sorrow, which
pass so roughly over some faces, had given to hers the expression of a
seraph’s. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. Was she thinking of
her faithless lover? or were her thoughts wandering to that distant
churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?
Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard: a horseman galloped to the
cottage; he dismounted before the window; the poor girl gave a faint
exclamation and sunk back in her chair: it was her repentant lover. He
rushed into the house and flew to clasp her to his bosom; but her
wasted form, her deathlike countenance--so wan, yet so lovely in its
desolation--smote him to the soul, and he threw himself in agony at her
feet. She was too faint to rise--she attempted to extend her trembling
hand--her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was articulated; she
looked down upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, and closed
her eyes forever.
Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village story. They
are but scanty, and I am conscious have little novelty to recommend
them. In the present rage also for strange incident and high-seasoned
narrative they may appear trite and insignificant, but they interested
me strongly at the time; and, taken in connection with the affecting
ceremony which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on my mind
than many circumstances of a more striking nature. I have passed through
the place since, and visited the church again from a better motive than
mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening: the trees were stripped of
their foliage, the churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind
rustled coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been
planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were bent
over it to keep the turf uninjured.
The church-door was open and I stepped in. There hung the chaplet of
flowers and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral: the flowers were
withered, it is true, but care seemed to have been taken that no dust
should soil their whiteness. I have seen many monuments where art has
exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of the spectator, but I have
met with none that spoke more touchingly to my heart than this simple
but delicate memento of departed innocence.