To return from this long discussion, the Warden took kindly, as we have
said, to Redclyffe, and thought him a miraculously good fellow, to have
come from the rude American republic. Hitherto, in the little time
that he had been in England, Redclyffe had received civil and even kind
treatment from the English with whom he had come casually in contact;
but still--perhaps partly from our Yankee narrowness and reserve--he
had felt, in the closest coming together, as if there were a naked sword
between the Englishman and him, as between the Arabian prince in the
tale and the princess whom he wedded; he felt as if that would be the
case even if he should love an Englishwoman; to such a distance, into
such an attitude of self-defence, does English self-complacency and
belief in England’s superiority throw the stranger. In fact, in a
good-natured way, John Bull is always doubling his fist in a stranger’s
face, and though it be good-natured, it does not always produce the most
amiable feeling.
The worthy Warden, being an Englishman, had doubtless the same kind of
feeling; doubtless, too, he thought ours a poor, distracted country,
perhaps prosperous for the moment, but as likely as not to be the scene
of anarchy five minutes hence; but being of so genial a nature, when he
came to see the amiableness of his young guest, and how deeply he was
impressed with England, all prejudice died away, and he loved him like a
treasure that he had found for himself, and valued him as if there were
something of his own in him. And so the old Warden’s residence had never
before been so cheery as it was now; his bachelor life passed the more
pleasantly with this quiet, vivacious, yet not troublesomely restless
spirit beside him,--this eager, almost childish interest in everything
English, and yet this capacity to take independent views of things,
and sometimes, it might be, to throw a gleam of light even on things
appertaining to England. And so, the better they came to know one
another, the greater was their mutual liking.
“I fear I am getting too strong to burden you much longer,” said
Redclyffe, this morning. “I have no pretence to be a patient now.”
“Pooh! nonsense!” ejaculated the Warden. “It will not be safe to leave
you to yourself for at least a month to come. And I have half a dozen
excursions in a neighborhood of twenty miles, in which I mean to show
you what old England is, in a way that you would never find out for
yourself. Do not speak of going. This day, if you find yourself strong
enough, you shall go and look at an old village church.”
“With all my heart,” said Redclyffe.
They went, accordingly, walking slowly, in consequence of Redclyffe’s
yet imperfect strength, along the highroad, which was overshadowed
with elms, that grew in beautiful shape and luxuriance in that part
of England, not with the slender, drooping, picturesque grace of a New
England elm, but more luxuriant, fuller of leaves, sturdier in limb. It
was a day which the Warden called fine, and which Redclyffe, at home,
would have thought to bode rain; though here he had learned that such
weather might continue for weeks together, with only a few raindrops all
the time. The road was in the finest condition, hard and dry.
They had not long emerged from the gateway of the Hospital,--at the
venerable front and gables of which Redclyffe turned to look with a
feeling as if it were his home,--when they heard the clatter of hoofs
behind them, and a gentleman on horseback rode by, paying a courteous
salute to the Warden as he passed. A groom in livery followed at a
little distance, and both rode roundly towards the village, whither the
Warden and his friend were going.
“Did you observe that man?” asked the Warden.
“Yes,” said Redclyffe. “Is he an Englishman?”
“That is a pertinent question,” replied the Warden, “but I scarcely know
how to answer it.”
In truth, Redclyffe’s question had been suggested by the appearance of
the mounted gentleman, who was a dark, thin man, with black hair, and a
black moustache and pointed beard setting off his sallow face, in
which the eyes had a certain pointed steeliness, which did not look
English,--whose eyes, methinks, are usually not so hard as those of
Americans or foreigners. Redclyffe, somehow or other, had fancied that
these not very pleasant eyes had been fixed in a marked way on himself,
a stranger, while at the same time his salute was evidently directed
towards the Warden.
“An Englishman,--why, no,” continued the latter. “If you observe, he
does not even sit his horse like an Englishman, but in that absurd,
stiff continental way, as if a poker should get on horseback. Neither
has he an English face, English manners, nor English religion, nor
an English heart; nor, to sum up the whole, had he English birth.
Nevertheless, as fate would have it, he is the inheritor of a good old
English name, a fine patrimonial estate, and a very probable claim to an
old English title. This is Lord Braithwaite of Braithwaite Hall, who if
he can make his case good (and they say there is good prospect of it)
will soon be Lord Hinchbrooke.”
“I hardly know why, but I should be sorry for it,” said Redclyffe. “He
certainly is not English; and I have an odd sort of sympathy, which
makes me unwilling that English honors should be enjoyed by foreigners.
This, then, is the gentleman of Italian birth whom you have mentioned to
me, and of whom there is a slight mention in the County History.”
“Yes,” said the Warden. “There have been three descents of this
man’s branch in Italy, and only one English mother in all that time.
Positively, I do not see an English trait in his face, and as little
in his manner. His civility is Italian, such as oftentimes, among his
countrymen, has offered a cup of poison to a guest, or insinuated the
stab of a stiletto into his heart.”
“You are particularly bitter against this poor man,” said Redclyffe,
laughing at the Warden’s vehemence. “His appearance--and yet he is
a handsome man--is certainly not prepossessing; but unless it be
countersigned by something in his actual life, I should hardly think it
worth while to condemn him utterly.”
“Well, well; you can forgive a little English prejudice,” said the
Warden, a little ashamed. “But, in good earnest, the man has few or no
good traits, takes no interest in the country, dislikes our sky, our
earth, our people, is close and inhospitable, a hard landlord, and
whatever may be his good qualities, they are not such as flourish in
this soil and climate, or can be appreciated here.” [Endnote: 1.]
“Has he children?” asked Redclyffe.
“They say so,--a family by an Italian wife, whom some, on the other
hand, pronounce to be no wife at all. His son is at a Catholic college
in France; his daughter in a convent there.”
In talk like this they were drawing near the little rustic village
of Braithwaite, and saw, above a cloud of foliage, the small, low,
battlemented tower, the gray stones of which had probably been laid
a little after the Norman conquest. Approaching nearer, they passed
a thatched cottage or two, very plain and simple edifices, though
interesting to Redclyffe from their antique aspect, which denoted that
they were probably older than the settlement of his own country, and
might very likely have nursed children who had gone, more than two
centuries ago, to found the commonwealth of which he was a citizen. If
you considered them in one way, prosaically, they were ugly enough; but
then there were the old latticed windows, and there the thatch, which
was verdant with leek, and strange weeds, possessing a whole botanical
growth. And birds flew in and out, as if they had their homes there.
Then came a row of similar cottages, all joined on together, and each
with a little garden before it divided from its neighbors by a hedge,
now in full verdure. Redclyffe was glad to see some symptoms of natural
love of beauty here, for there were plants of box, cut into queer
shapes of birds, peacocks, etc., as if year after year had been spent
in bringing these vegetable sculptures to perfection. In one of the
gardens, moreover, the ingenious inhabitant had spent his leisure in
building grotto-work, of which the English are rather ludicrously fond,
on their little bits of lawn, and in building a miniature castle of
oyster-shells, where were seen turrets, ramparts, a frowning arched
gateway, and miniature cannon looking from the embrasures. A pleasanter
and better adornment were the homely household flowers, and a pleasant
sound, too, was the hum of bees, who had their home in several beehives,
and were making their honey among the flowers of the garden, or come
from afar, buzzing dreamily through the air, laden with honey that they
had found elsewhere. Fruit trees stood erect, or, in some instances,
were flattened out against the walls of cottages, looking somewhat like
hawks nailed _in terrorem_ against a barn door. The male members of this
little community were probably afield, with the exception of one or two
half-torpid great-grandsires, who [were] moving rheumatically about the
gardens, and some children not yet in breeches, who stared with stolid
eyes at the passers-by; but the good dames were busy within doors, where
Redclyffe had glimpses of their interior with its pavement of stone
flags. Altogether it seemed a comfortable settlement enough.
“Do you see that child yonder,” observed the Warden, “creeping away from
the door, and displaying a vista of his petticoats as he does so? That
sturdy boy is the lineal heir of one of the oldest families in this part
of England,--though now decayed and fallen, as you may judge. So, you
see, with all our contrivances to keep up an aristocracy, there still is
change forever going on.”
“There is something not agreeable, and something otherwise, in the
thought,” replied Redclyffe. “What is the name of the old family, whose
representative is in such a case?”
“Moseby,” said the Warden. “Their family residence stood within three
miles of Braithwaite Hall, but was taken down in the last century,
and its place supplied by a grand show-place, built by a Birmingham
manufacturer, who also originated here.”
They kept onward from this outskirt of the village, and soon, passing
over a little rising ground, and descending now into a hollow came to
the new portion of it, clustered around its gray Norman church, one side
of the tower of which was covered with ivy, that was carefully kept, the
Warden said, from climbing to the battlements, on account of some
old prophecy that foretold that the tower would fall, if ever the ivy
mantled over its top. Certainly, however, there seemed little likelihood
that the square, low mass would fall, unless by external violence, in
less than as many ages as it had already stood.
Redclyffe looked at the old tower and little adjoining edifice with an
interest that attached itself to every separate, moss-grown stone; but
the Warden, like most Englishmen, was at once amazed and wearied with
the American’s enthusiasm for this spot, which to him was uninteresting
for the very reason that made it most interesting to Redclyffe, because
it had stood there such a weary while. It was too common an object to
excite in his mind, as it did in Redclyffe’s, visions of the long
ago time when it was founded, when mass was first said there, and the
glimmer of torches at the altar was seen through the vista of that
broad-browed porch; and of all the procession of villagers that had
since gone in and come out during nine hundred years, in their varying
costume and fashion, but yet--and this was the strongest and most
thrilling part of the idea--all, the very oldest of them, bearing a
resemblance of feature, the kindred, the family likeness, to those who
died yesterday,--to those who still went thither to worship; and that
all the grassy and half-obliterated graves around had held those who
bore the same traits.
In front of the church was a little green, on which stood a very ancient
yew tree, [Endnote: 2] all the heart of which seemed to have been eaten
away by time, so that a man could now creep into the trunk, through a
wide opening, and, looking upward, see another opening to the sky.
“That tree,” observed the Warden, “is well worth the notice of such an
enthusiastic lover of old things; though I suppose aged trees may be
the one antiquity that you do not value, having them by myriads in your
primeval forests. But then the interest of this tree consists greatly
in what your trees have not,--in its long connection with men and the
goings of men. Some of its companions were made into bows for Harold’s
archers. This tree is of unreckonable antiquity; so old, that in
a record of the time of Edward IV. it is styled the yew tree of
Braithwaite Green. That carries it back to Norman times, truly. It was
in comparatively modern times when it served as a gallows for one of
James II.’s bloodthirsty judges to hang his victims on after Monmouth’s
rebellion.”
On one side of this yew was a certain structure which Redclyffe did
not recognize as anything that he had before seen, but soon guessed
its purpose; though, from appearances, it seemed to have been very
long since it had served that purpose. It was a ponderous old oaken
framework, six or seven feet high, so contrived that a heavy cross-piece
shut down over another, leaving two round holes; in short, it was a pair
of stocks, in which, I suppose, hundreds of vagrants and petty criminals
had sat of old, but which now appeared to be merely a matter of
curiosity.
“This excellent old machine,” said the Warden, “had been lying in a
rubbish chamber of the church tower for at least a century; when the
clerk, who is a little of an antiquarian, unearthed it, and I advised
him to set it here, where it used to stand;--not with any idea of its
being used (though there is as much need of it now as ever), but that
the present age may see what comforts it has lost.”
They sat down a few moments on the circular seat, and looked at the
pretty scene of this quiet little village, clustered round the old
church as a centre; a collection of houses, mostly thatched, though
there were one or two, with rather more pretension, that had roofs of
red tiles. Some of them were stone cottages, whitewashed, but the larger
edifices had timber frames, filled in with brick and plaster, which
seemed to have been renewed in patches, and to be a frailer and less
durable material than the old oak of their skeletons. They were gabled,
with lattice windows, and picturesquely set off with projecting
stones, and many little patchwork additions, such as, in the course of
generations, the inhabitants had found themselves to need. There was not
much commerce, apparently, in this little village, there seeming to be
only one shop, with some gingerbread, penny whistles, ballads, and such
matters, displayed in the window; and there, too, across the little
green, opposite the church, was the village alehouse, with its bench
under the low projecting eaves, with a Teniers scene of two wayfaring
yeomen drinking a pot of beer and smoking their pipes.
With Redclyffe’s Yankee feelings, there was something sad to think how
the generations had succeeded one another, over and over, in innumerable
succession, in this little spot, being born here, living, dying, lying
down among their fathers’ dust, and forthwith getting up again, as it
were, and recommencing the same meaningless round, and really bringing
nothing to pass; for probably the generation of to-day, in so secluded
and motionless a place as this, had few or no ideas in advance of their
ancestors of five centuries ago. It seems not worth while that more than
one generation of them should have existed. Even in dress, with their
smock frocks and breeches, they were just like their fathers. The
stirring blood of the new land,--where no man dwells in his father’s
house,--where no man thinks of dying in his birthplace,--awoke within
him, and revolted at the thought; and, as connected with it, revolted at
all the hereditary pretensions which, since his stay here, had exercised
such an influence over the fanciful part of his nature. In another mood,
the village might have seemed a picture of rural peace, which it would
have been worth while to give up ambition to enjoy; now, as his warmer
impulse stirred, it was a weariness to think of. The new American was
stronger in him than the hereditary Englishman.
“I should go mad of it!” exclaimed he aloud.
He started up impulsively, to the amazement of his companion, who of
course could not comprehend what seemed so to have stung his American
friend. As they passed the tree, on the other side of its huge trunk,
they saw a young woman, sitting on that side of it, and sketching,
apparently, the church tower, with the old Elizabethan vicarage that
stood near it, with a gate opening into the churchyard, and much
embowered and ivy-hung.
“Ah, Miss Cheltenham,” said the Warden. “I am glad to see that you have
taken the old church in hand, for it is one of the prettiest rustic
churches in England, and as well worthy as any to be engraved on a sheet
of note-paper or put into a portfolio. Will you let my friend and me see
your sketch?”
The Warden had made his request with rather more freedom than perhaps he
would to a lady whom he considered on a level with himself, though with
perfect respect, that being considered; and Redclyffe, looking at the
person, saw that it was the same of whose face he had had a glimpse in
the looking-glass, in the old palmer’s chamber.
“No, Doctor Hammond,” said the young lady, with a respectful sort of
frankness, “you must excuse me. I am no good artist, and am but jotting
down the old church because I like it.”
“Well, well, as you please,” said the Warden; and whispered aside to
Redclyffe, “A girl’s sketchbook is seldom worth looking at. But now,
Miss Cheltenham, I am about to give my American friend here a lecture on
gargoyles, and other peculiarities of sacred Gothic architecture; and
if you will honor me with your attention, I should be glad to find my
audience increased by one.”
So the young lady arose, and Redclyffe, considering the Warden’s
allusion to him as a sort of partial introduction, bowed to her, and she
responded with a cold, reserved, yet not unpleasant sort of courtesy.
They went towards the church porch, and, looking in at the old stone
bench on each side of the interior, the Warden showed them the hacks
of the swords of the Roundheads, when they took it by storm. Redclyffe,
mindful of the old graveyard on the edge of which he had spent his
childhood, began to look at this far more antique receptacle, expecting
to find there many ancient tombstones, perhaps of contemporaries or
predecessors of the founders of his country. In this, however, he was
disappointed, at least in a great measure; for the persons buried in the
churchyard were probably, for the most part, of a humble rank in life,
such as were not so ambitious as to desire a monument of any kind, but
were content to let their low earth-mounds subside into the level, where
their memory had waxed so faint that none among the survivors could
point out the spot, or cared any longer about knowing it; while in other
cases, where a monument of red freestone, or even of hewn granite, had
been erected, the English climate had forthwith set to work to gnaw away
the inscriptions; so that in fifty years--in a time that would have left
an American tombstone as fresh as if just cut--it was quite impossible
to make out the record. Their superiors, meanwhile, were sleeping
less enviably in dismal mouldy and dusty vaults, instead of under the
daisies. Thus Redclyffe really found less antiquity here, than in the
graveyard which might almost be called his natal spot.
When he said something to this effect, the Warden nodded.
“Yes,” said he, “and, in truth, we have not much need of inscriptions
for these poor people. All good families--every one almost, with
any pretensions to respectable station, has his family or individual
recognition within the church, or upon its walls; or some of them you
see on tombs on the outside. As for our poorer friends here, they are
content, as they may well be, to swell and subside, like little billows
of mortality, here on the outside.”
“And for my part,” said Redclyffe, “if there were anything particularly
desirable on either side, I should like best to sleep under this lovely
green turf, with the daisies strewn over me by Nature herself, and
whatever other homely flowers any friend might choose to add.”
“And, Doctor Hammond,” said the young woman, “we see by this gravestone
that sometimes a person of humble rank may happen to be commemorated,
and that Nature--in this instance at least--seems to take especial pains
and pleasure to preserve the record.”
She indicated a flat gravestone, near the porch, which time had indeed
beautified in a singular way, for there was cut deep into it a name and
date, in old English characters, very deep it must originally have been;
and as if in despair of obliterating it, Time had taken the kindlier
method of filling up the letters with moss; so that now, high embossed
in loveliest green, was seen the name “Richard Oglethorpe 1613”;--green,
and flourishing, and beautiful, like the memory of a good man. The
inscription originally seemed to have contained some twenty lines, which
might have been poetry, or perhaps a prose eulogy, or perhaps the simple
record of the buried person’s life; but all this, having been done
in fainter and smaller letters, was now so far worn away as to be
illegible; nor had they ever been deep enough to be made living in moss,
like the rest of the inscription.
“How tantalizing,” remarked Redclyffe, “to see the verdant shine of this
name, impressed upon us as something remarkable--and nothing else. I
cannot but think that there must be something worth remembering about
a man thus distinguished. When two hundred years have taken all these
natural pains to illustrate and emblazon ‘Richard Oglethorpe 1613.’ Ha!
I surely recollect that name. It haunts me somehow, as if it had been
familiar of old.”
“And me,” said the young lady.
“It was an old name, hereabouts,” observed the Warden, “but has been
long extinct,--a cottage name, not a gentleman’s. I doubt not that
Oglethorpes sleep in many of these undistinguished graves.”
Redclyffe did not much attend to what his friend said, his attention
being attracted to the tone--to something in the tone of the young lady,
and also to her coincidence in his remark that the name appealed to some
early recollection. He had been taxing his memory, to tell him when and
how the name had become familiar to him; and he now remembered that it
had occurred in the old Doctor’s story of the Bloody Footstep, told to
him and Elsie, so long ago. [Endnote: 3] To him and Elsie! It struck
him--what if it were possible?--but he knew it was not--that the young
lady had a remembrance also of the fact, and that she, after so many
years, were mingling her thoughts with his. As this fancy recurred to
him, he endeavored to get a glimpse of her face, and while he did so she
turned it upon him. It was a quick, sensitive face, that did not seem
altogether English; he would rather have imagined it American; but at
all events he could not recognize it as one that he had seen before,
and a thousand fantasies died within him as, in his momentary glance, he
took in the volume of its contour.