Strange things have happened unto me--I seem scarce awake--but I will
recollect my thoughts, and try to give an account of what has
befallen me in the few last weeks.
Since my father's death our family have resided in London. I am in
practice as a surgeon there. My mother died two years after we left
Widford.
A month or two ago, I had been busying myself in drawing up the above
narrative, intending to make it public. The employment had forced my
mind to dwell upon _facts_, which had begun to fade from it--the
memory of old times became vivid, and more vivid--I felt a strong
desire to revisit the scenes of my native village--of the young loves
of Rosamund and her Clare.
A kind of dread had hitherto kept me back; but I was restless now,
till I had accomplished my wish. I set out one morning to walk--I
reached Widford about eleven in the forenoon--after a slight
breakfast at my inn--where I was mortified to perceive the old
landlord did not know me again--(old Thomas Billet--he has often made
angle-rods for me when a child)--I rambled over all my accustomed
haunts.
Our old house was vacant, and to be sold. I entered, unmolested, into
the room that had been my bedchamber. I kneeled down on the spot
where my little bed had stood--I felt like a child--I prayed like
one--it seemed as though old times were to return again--I looked
round involuntarily, expecting to see some face I knew--but all was
naked and mute. The bed was gone. My little pane of painted window,
through which I loved to look at the sun when I awoke in a fine
summer's morning, was taken out, and had been replaced by one of
common glass.
I visited, by turns, every chamber--they were all desolate and
unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord,
probably to be sold--I touched the keys--I played some old Scottish
tunes, which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived
with the music--blended with a sense of _unreality_, which at last
became too powerful--I rushed out of the room to give vent to my
feelings.
I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at
the back of the house--we called it the _Wilderness_. A well-known
_form_ was missing, that used to meet me in this place--it was
thine--Ben Moxam--the kindest, gentlest, politest of human beings,
yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest
creature! thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles, without a
soft speech, and a smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there
is one thing, for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam--that
thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to
lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees--I remember them
sweeping to the ground.
I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place--its
glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind,
nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which
has accompanied me to maturer years.
In this _Wilderness_ I found myself, after a ten years' absence. Its
stately fir-trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company
of underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of
the wood-pigeon--all was as I had left it--my heart softened at the
sight--it seemed as though my character had been suffering a _change_
since I forsook these shades.
My parents were both dead--I had no counsellor left, no experience of
age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away
my _friends_, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round
the wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed that I might be
restored to that _state of innocence_, in which I had wandered in
those shades.
Methought my request was heard, for it seemed as though the stains of
manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity
and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into
a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed that I was
enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father--and,
extravagantly, put off the shoes from my feet--for the place where I
stood I thought, was holy ground.
This state of mind could not last long, and I returned with languid
feelings to my inn. I ordered my dinner--green peas and a
sweetbread--it had been a favorite dish with me in my childhood--I
was allowed to have it on my birthdays. I was impatient to see it
come upon table--but, when it came, I could scarce eat a mouthful--my
tears choked me. I called for wine--I drank a pint and a half of red
wine--and not till then had I dared to visit the church-yard, where
my parents were interred.
The _cottage_ lay in my way--Margaret had chosen it for that very
reason, to be near the church--for the old lady was regular in her
attendance on public worship--I passed on--and in a moment found
myself among the tombs.
I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again--my
mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending--a plain
stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon
it--for they both occupied one grave.
I prostrated myself before the spot--I kissed the earth that covered
them--I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should
mingle my dust with theirs--and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on
the gravestone, in a kind of mental prayer--for I could not speak.
Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and
felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects.--Still I continued in
the church-yard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing on
them with that kind of levity, which will not unfrequently spring up
in the mind, in the midst of deep melancholy.
I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful
children. I said jestingly, where be all the _bad_ people buried? Bad
parents, bad husbands, bad children--what cemeteries are appointed
for these?--do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a
pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus
tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their lifetime,
discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failings,
with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. _Man wars
not with the dead._ It is a _trait_ of human nature, for which I love
it.
I had not observed, till now, a little group assembled at the other
end of the church-yard; it was a company of children, who were
gathered round a young man, dressed in black, sitting on a
gravestone.
He seemed to be asking them questions--probably, about their
learning--and one little dirty ragged-headed fellow was clambering up
his knees to kiss him. The children had been eating black
cherries--for some of the stones were scattered about, and their
mouths were smeared with them.
As I drew near them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild
benignity of countenance, which I had somewhere seen before--I gazed
at him more attentively.
It was Allan Clare! sitting on the grave of his sister.
I threw my arms about his neck. I exclaimed "Allan"--he turned his
eyes upon me--he knew me--we both wept aloud--it seemed as though the
interval since we parted had been as nothing--I cried out, "Come, and
tell me about these things."
I drew him away from his little friends--he parted with a show of
reluctance from the church-yard--Margaret and her grand-daughter lay
buried there, as well as his sister--I took him to my inn--secured a
room, where we might be private--ordered fresh wine--scarce knowing
what I did, I danced for joy.
Allan was quite overcome, and taking me by the hand, he said, "This
repays me for all."
It was a proud day for me--I had found the friend I thought
dead--earth seemed to me no longer valuable, than as it contained
_him_; and existence a blessing no longer than while I should live to
be his comforter.
I began, at leisure, to survey him with more attention. Time and
grief had left few traces of that fine _enthusiasm_, which once
burned in his countenance--his eyes had lost their original fire, but
they retained an uncommon sweetness, and whenever they were turned
upon me, their smile pierced to my heart.
"Allan, I fear you have been a sufferer?" He replied not, and I could
not press him further. I could not call the dead to life again.
So we drank and told old stories--and repeated old poetry--and sang
old songs--as if nothing had happened. We sate till very late. I
forgot that I had purposed returning to town that evening--to Allan
all places were alike--I grew noisy, he grew cheerful--Allan's old
manners, old enthusiasm, were returning upon him--we laughed, we
wept, we mingled our tears, and talked extravagantly.
Allan was my chamber-fellow that night--and lay awake planning
schemes of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar
pursuits,--and praising GOD, that we had met.
I was obliged to return to town the next morning, and Allan proposed
to accompany me. "Since the death of his sister," he told me, "he had
been a wanderer."
In the course of our walk he unbosomed himself without reserve--told
me many particulars of his way of life for the last nine or ten
years, which I do not feel myself at liberty to divulge.
Once, on my attempting to cheer him, when I perceived him over
thoughtful, he replied to me in these words:
"Do not regard me as unhappy when you catch me in these moods. I am
never more happy than at times when, by the cast of my countenance,
men judge me most miserable.
"My friend, the events which have left this sadness behind them are
of no recent date. The melancholy which comes over me with the
recollection of them is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and
tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human
pursuits.
"The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn
heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects.
"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I
expect a renewal of them in the _World of Spirits_.
"I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth. I have made no
new friendships, that can compensate me for the loss of the old--and
the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to
supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances
of past pleasures.
"I am sensible that I am surrounded by a multitude of very worthy
people, plain-hearted souls, sincere and kind. But they have hitherto
eluded my pursuit, and will continue to bless the little circle of
their families and friends, while I must remain a stranger to them.
"Kept at a distance by mankind, I have not ceased to love them--and
could I find the cruel persecutor, the malignant instrument of GOD'S
judgments on me and mine, I think I would forgive, and try to love
him too.
"I have been a quiet sufferer. From the beginning of my calamities it
was given to me, not to see the hand of man in them. I perceived a
mighty arm, which none but myself could see, extended over me. I gave
my heart to the Purifier, and my will to the Sovereign Will of the
Universe. The irresistible wheels of destiny passed on in their
everlasting rotation,--and I suffered myself to be carried along
with them without complaining."
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