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[24] (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. [Footnote 24: Blakesware, in Hertfordshire, is meant,
where Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was housekeeper.] 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 Redbreasts, till a foolish
rich person 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 every body, though 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 afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled
down, and all its old ornaments stripped 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
neighbourhood 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, though 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 grand-children,
having us to the great house in the holydays, where I in particular
used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of
the Twelve Caesars, 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
flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits
of children. Here John slily 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,
though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children, 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 over
half 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 their 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, though 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
afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though 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 quarrelling with him (for we
quarrelled 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 re-presentment, 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
impressed 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
armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget
unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever.
_Lamb._