than a fortnight, and although I was but a tall thin stripling, I
perceived that I gathered strength with my labour; and what I at first
found to be the most trying exertion and severe hard work, as I became
acquainted with the art, it appeared a pleasant and cheerful occupation;
for I could now turn a furrow as true and as straight as "the path of an
arrow." My father, who was an excellent and an accomplished husbandman,
never failed during this time to pass some part of the day with me, in
order to instruct me how to set my plough, to fix the share and point, and
so to regulate its various bearings as to make it, at the same time it did
the work well, go easy and pleasant to the holder. This may, perhaps, be
very uninteresting to many sedentary readers, and to those who are mere
passing observers, and who believe that there is no art in holding plough;
but they are very much mistaken who think that any body will make a
farmer, and that to be a good husbandman is the natural result of living
in the country. It is a very common and vulgar saying in the country,
among farmers, when any one has a son that is more stupid than common, "if
he will make nothing else, if he is unfit or incapable of learning any
business or trade, why, he will make a parson." But to make a good farmer,
a man must have served a double apprenticeship to the profession; and
after that, he must be a philosopher and a chemist. No business requires
the exercise of a man's patience and his reasoning faculties so much as
that of a farmer. Every day, nay, every hour, produces something new,
something fresh, which calls forth the active use of his reason, his
exertion, and his talent. No two seasons are alike, and scarcely any two
days. In every other profession or business, a clever intelligent person
can calculate for any given number of hands, nearly, the work of a week, a
month, or almost a year, in advance. The manufacturer or the tradesman has
a constant regular routine of business for his workmen to perform; and if
he be called from his home, for any length of time, he can leave orders
what work almost every man shall do till his return; but the farmer's
occupation, and that of all his servants, changes with the weather; nay,
it becomes his peculiar care, at some periods of the year, to watch with
anxiety every change of the wind, and his business to observe the
direction of every cloud. But as four or five years of my life were passed
in practically acquiring a knowledge of every branch of this most valuable
and respectable occupation, I shall, by reciting the particular
occurrences of that period, as I pass along, convince the readers of this
work, of that which they little suppose to be the case, that it is
absolutely necessary for a man to be a philosopher, before he can be a
good farmer.
My father, having convinced himself of my capability, as well as my
determination to persevere in acquiring the practical manual knowledge of
the various branches belonging to husbandry, now said that he was not only
satisfied, but extremely well pleased, with the progress I had made; and,
therefore, I should now have a respite from such incessant labour, and
should take my poney and accompany him round the farms, to inspect and to
assist him in giving directions to the workmen. A fresh plough boy was
immediately found, and my driver, the vanquished under-carter, again
resumed his situation between the handles of the plough, very well pleased
with my removal. The scene to which I was now introduced opened to my
enquiring eye a new field for observation, and what I had heretofore
passed over as common occurrences, became intensely interesting to me. My
father felt great delight in satisfying my eager enquiries, and, instead
of being annoyed at my unceasing inquisitiveness, he encouraged me to
satisfy myself, and not to leave any one subject till he had made me
comprehend the cause as well as the effect.
About this time my mother, who had been for several years in a very
declining state of health, from a violent nervous affection, which
produced a constant oppressive head-ache, was put to bed of a son, her
sixth child, and to the great joy of my father, as well as all her
friends, as she recovered her strength, and the natural effects of her
lying-in wore off, she appeared also to have recovered her general good
health, and her usual cheerfulness. She was always benignant, kind, and
affectionate, but the effects of an incessant nervous headache had
produced a sombre sadness, which threw a gloom around, and affected the
whole family, and prevented that sort of hilarity and cheerfulness, which
was the usual companion of our abode. My father was of a generous,
hospitable, sociable disposition, and was never so happy and blessed as
when he had his friends surrounding him, and partaking of those comforts
which he had acquired by his industry, skill, and persevering attention to
his business; but even these sociable enjoyments with his friends had been
very much curtailed, by my dear mother's melancholy indisposition.
The restoration of her health was hailed by my father as the greatest
blessing that Divine Providence could have bestowed upon him and his
family; and we were all made to join him in audibly offering up our
nightly prayers and grateful acknowledgments to the allwise and beneficent
Creator, for this to us the greatest of earthly blessings. My father was
enraptured, and a hundred times a day, while he burst forth into sincere
and extatic praise and adoration of the goodness of the Divine Being, he
would enjoin us, his children, never to forget his mercy and loving
kindness, in restoring his dear Elizabeth to health. He also called in his
friends again, to partake of his hospitable and festive board. In fact, he
would sometimes exclaim, to my mother, that he was almost too happy for a
mortal, in this vale of misery and probation. My amiable mother used
gently to chide him, and to tell him that the best way to manifest their
gratitude to Divine Providence, for the happiness which it bestowed, was
never to let a day pass over their heads without doing some good act to
prove their willingness to deserve it. She would add, with her eye beaming
a heavenly smile, "as our blessed Saviour has bestowed every earthly
comfort upon us, let it be part of our duty and our pleasure to dispense
happiness among our poorer and less fortunate neighbours; for recollect,
my dear, 'that all our doings without charity are nothing worth.'"
My mother had not yet been able personally to perform any of her
accustomed charitable visits since her lying in; for she was too strict an
observer of her religious duties, to go from home till she had gone to the
parish church, and publicly offered up her prayers and thanksgivings to
her blessed Creator and Saviour. The following Sunday was fixed upon as
the day for this religious ceremony. My father expostulated; saying that
the church was damp, and that she had better defer it till the next
Sunday, and, in the mean time, take some gentle walks abroad, to enure
herself by degrees to bear the walk and the fatigue of remaining in the
church during the length of the service. He expressed his great dread of
her catching cold, and having a relapse in consequence; but she firmly
replied, that she never feared any evil when she was performing a sacred
religious duty; that God was too wise and too good to permit one of his
creatures to suffer, when in the act of obeying his commands; and she
urged so many pious reasons to shew the necessity of her not delaying to
perform what she termed her indispensable duty, that my father silently,
but very reluctantly, submitted to her decision.
But, alas! alas! my father's prophetic forebodings were but too well
founded! The ways of God are just, and the dispensations of his wisdom are
not to be scanned, much more disputed, by impious man; to submit to his
Divine will without repining, is the imperative duty of every sincere
Christian. I shall never forget the day, nor the care and anxiety of my
excellent father. We set off early, in order to walk leisurely to church,
that my mother should not be so heated as to render her liable to catch
cold; there was my mother leaning on the right upon my father, and on the
left upon me, and two of my sisters, Elizabeth and Sophia, the one about
five, and the other about seven years old, skipping lightly along before
us. My mother enjoyed the walk very much, and as my father led her into
the church, preceded by the clergyman, upon whom we had called in our way
thither, the whole congregation spontaneously rose up to greet and to
welcome their best and kindest benefactress and amiable neighbour. A gleam
of pleasure beamed from every eye, and the curtseys and bows that were
bestowed upon her, as she passed along the aisle, most clearly shewed that
they proceeded from the impulse of grateful hearts. With a heavenly smile
of inward delight, and with an air of the greatest sweetness, she returned
their kind salutations. It was an enviable sight, and it imparted to me
such sensations of pride and delight, as have been seldom, if ever,
equalled since. To see an amiable parent, upon such an occasion, receive
the spontaneous willing homage of three or four hundred, the whole, of her
poorer neighbours, and the sincere congratulations and kind attentions of
all her friends, of this happy village, was a scene never likely to be
erased from the memory; every heart appeared to leap with joy, and it
seemed to me as if that the whole congregation were preparing to join in
prayer, and to participate in the performance of the divine service of the
afternoon, with more than usual earnestness and zealous piety.
My mother, who was a tall, thin, elegant figure, and very fair, had a
roseate flush spread over her delicate features, and she looked beautiful
as she knelt to offer up her grateful and sincere adoration to the
omnipotent, omnipresent, merciful Disposer of All. I believe that my
father was the only person amongst the whole congregation who did not, at
that moment, enjoy unmixed delight. I could discover that his enquiring
eye was more frequently fixed upon my mother, than it was upon his
prayer-book; a sort of uneasy doubt sat visible upon his brow, and it was
plainly to be perceived that his prayers were interrupted by his
meditations upon the fearful consequences which he apprehended might be
the result of my mother's catching cold, by remaining within the walls of
a large damp building, and that building only inhabited for a few hours
once a week. But, while he was anticipating earthly misery by the loss of
the greatest blessing that kind Heaven had ever bestowed upon man, my
angelic mother's soul and body were alike absorbed in the most devout and
earnest prayer. In the mean time, the beautiful rosy hue, that had spread
such a lustre over her fair face, disappeared. My father's intense anxiety
now became so obvious to me that the dreadful uneasiness of mind which he
displayed drew my attention to the paleness which had succeeded the colour
upon her cheek. The instant the clergyman began to pronounce the
concluding prayer, "The peace of God," &c. my father flew across the seat,
while my mother was yet on her knees, joining most fervently and devoutly
in that beautiful sentence, and exclaimed, in a loud half whisper, which
was heard all over the church, "for God's sake! are you not well, my
love!" She appeared surprised at the earnestness of his manner, and rather
hurt at being interrupted in her devotions; but replied, that she was very
well, only a little cold. He hurried her out of the church, and scarcely
gave her time to return the salutations of her neighbours, requesting her
to take his and my arm, and hasten home as fast as possible, to avoid the
effect of a chill which he very much feared that she had taken in the
church.
When we got home she was rather fatigued, but, though the colour that had
adorned her face did not return, she ate her dinner with a good appetite,
and my father began to hope that his fears were groundless. His hope was
soon blighted: my mother suddenly screamed out, saying that she had a
violent pain in one of her feet. She complained of this pain, sometimes in
one foot and sometimes in the other, till bed time; but my father, in
order to hide his own forebodings, endeavoured to rally her, and in a
joking way told her she was going to have the gout. She took some warm
gruel, and retired early to rest.
About twelve o'clock my father came into my bedroom to awake me, and
desired me to rise immediately, take my horse, and go for the family
apothecary, who lived at a distance of about five miles. I, who was
accustomed to rise at a moment's warning, jumped out of bed, and with the
greatest haste performed the sad office. I accompanied the apothecary to
her bedside before two o'clock, for I had made my poney almost fly thither
and back. We found my poor father, who had been anxiously attending the
progress of her disorder, in great distress. She had no sooner gone to bed
than she was seized with cold chills, which continued, with alternate
fever, the paroxysms of which had increased with such violence that she
was already partially delirious. The next day Dr. Barvis[7], from Devizes,
attended her and pronounced her in considerable danger. I mounted my
poney, rode back with him, and soon returned again with the medicine he
had prescribed; but my mother's disorder baffled all their skill and
attention. My poor father was distracted; he never quitted her bedside for
a moment; all his large farming concerns were left to the care of the
servants; he desired me to go to them on the Monday morning, the day after
my mother was taken ill, and to request them all to do their best in each
of their separate departments, and they were left entirely to themselves;
every other thought but what was directed to the attention and care of my
mother was abandoned; my father, whom I had never known to neglect seeing
all his servants once a day at least, and who suffered nothing to be done
unless it was under his immediate direction, would not now listen even to
an inquiry about his business; his whole soul was wrapped up in his
attention to my mother, whose illness he had anticipated with a presaging
spirit, even before it came upon her. I was incessantly employed in going
too and from the medical attendants, and assisting to wait upon my mother;
and from the time of her first attack she took nothing but from the hand
either of myself or my father. Her illness was now pronounced to be a
determined putrid fever, and she was continually in a delirious state. Her
infant son, William, had been kindly received to nurse by an excellent
neighbour, Mrs. Patient of Compton, a most worthy lady, who nursed him and
her own son together, with great good-nature and ease to herself.
My mother grew worse and worse, and was at length pronounced by the
physician past all hopes of recovery. My poor father was frantic; he, who
possessed the most manly resolution and firmness upon all other occasions,
was now by excessive grief and despair reduced almost to the level of a
child; he alternately wept and prayed; but he wept and prayed in vain. I
was at this time under seventeen years of age, and I had scarcely time to
vent my sorrow. Although I was distressed beyond measure at the suffering
of my mother, yet the affliction, the indiscribable anguish, of my father
demanded almost as much of my attention as the illness of my mother. To
see his noble soul bent down to the earth, driven almost to the madness of
desperation, was to me a more heart-rending spectacle than the delirium
which produced a sort of stupor in my mother. She had not been sensible
for any considerable period of time together for two days; and we were
under dreadful apprehensions that she would be taken from us without ever
recovering her reason. This my poor father dreaded excessively; yet the
very thing we most prayed for, proved, when it was ultimately granted to
us, our greatest affliction; so incapable are poor frail mortals of
judging what is best for them under such trying circumstances.
My mother had now lain as it were in a doze for about two hours, and my
father and myself, who were anxiously watching every breath, observed her
awake up, as if it were from a sound sleep; she appeared to feel as if she
had recovered from a trance; she spoke; and to the great joy of my father
and myself she was perfectly collected. But our joy was of the most
transient nature. She looked around in the most melancholy manner, and
having enquired where all the children were gone, she expressed a great
desire to see them before she breathed her last; for she said she was
perfectly sensible of her situation, and she must see her children once
more. They had all been removed to the house of a friend, as those who
remained were considered in imminent danger from infection, the putrid
state of my mother having assumed a very alarming appearance, and no one
was now left, except my father, myself, and the nurse; the maid servant
having already failed with the fever. My poor father had entreated, nay
had commanded _me_ also to save myself by flight; but upon my knees I
implored him to let me remain and participate with him in performing the
last sad office for my dear mother; I told him that I should break my
heart to leave him alone; for he really was now become an object of much
greater pity than my dying parent.
My mother repeated so earnestly her wish to see her children, that they
were immediately sent for, and she took a last sad farewell of them. They
were hastened out of the room, that they might be removed at once from
such a melancholy scene, and from the serious danger of contagion, arising
from the dreadful state of their mother. To those who have never witnessed
a parting of this sort, any attempt of mine to convey to them even a
slight representation of the agony it inflicts on those who undergo it,
would be in vain, for it is impossible. The great exertion of my poor
mother, during this affecting scene, was such as left her almost without
the power of speech; her respiration became excessively quick, and my
afflicted father exclaimed, "I shall never hear her voice again!" She,
however, soon recovered a little, and in the most plaintive strain
lamented her approaching end, and prayed aloud to her blessed Saviour, to
spare her life that she might have the happiness of seeing her children
brought up. In fact, this most excellent of women appeared very much to
dread the hand of death. My father now implored her to be tranquillised,
and, in the most tender and affectionate manner, assured her, that of all
living creatures she was, he thought, the best prepared to enter the
presence of her Creator. She calmly replied that though to her knowledge
she had never intentionally injured any human being, either in _thought,
word, or deed_; though she had never neglected her duty to her Maker, but
had always acted to the best of her judgment so as to deserve his mercy;
yet, she trembled, and doubted, and feared to die. My father now observed
that her voice faltered, and, to draw her attention from such a painful,
heart-rending subject, he asked her if she knew me, supposing that she was
becoming insensible. With the kindest look she took my hand, and gently
replied, "I know him perfectly well, God bless him!" She then seized his
hand also, and instantly expired, grasping both. Thus breathed the last,
of as bright, as lovely, and as perfect a pattern of Christian piety as
ever lived to grace society, and to adorn and bless a husband and family.
My father's sorrow was now become too intense for outward shew; he stood
dumb and motionless, with his eyes fixed and rivetted upon her, in whose
death he felt that he had sustained an irretrievable loss. We had both
still hold of her hands; his mute, immovable figure looked like a statue;
and I fancied that his heart was breaking. I seized him by the hand, and
in the most supplicating manner implored him to leave the room. My extreme
sorrow seemed to awake him from his trance; and I led him gently, and he
followed involuntarily, out of the chamber. Having seated him in his armed
chair, I knelt before him, and threw my head in his lap, there I gave a
loose to my grief, and mingled my tears with those which were now flowing
in streams down his manly cheeks. To endeavour to describe what I felt,
upon this melancholy event, would be puerile in the extreme; none but
those who have been placed in a similar situation are capable of
comprehending the distress which enters the soul of such a husband and
child, who had witnessed the last sad moments of such a wife and mother.
To have dwelt so long upon such a melancholy subject, may, perhaps, appear
to some of my readers to be not only unnecessary, but tedious. I must,
therefore, intreat their indulgence, by confessing my error, if an error
it be. At the same time I must assure them, that I believe this to have
not only been the most important event of my life, but that it was a
matter of more serious importance to me than all the occurrences of my
previous existence multiplied ten times ten fold; and this being the case,
I shall rely upon their kind forgiveness with great confidence; for I feel
that every incident of my life, for many years after this, may be fairly
said to have been influenced in some degree, or in some way or other, by
this ever to be regretted, never to be forgotten, loss.
My father remained absorbed in melancholy, shut himself up, and refused to
see any one till after the last sad office had been performed for my
mother. In the mean time, he gave me instructions to overlook all the
servants, and to superintend their work.
At length the day arrived for performing the ceremony of depositing her
honoured remains in the family vault, which was in the chancel of the
parish church. My father and myself followed as chief-mourners; and,
during the performance of the funeral service, I believe there was not a
dry eye amongst the numerous congregation who attended. Every one felt
that he had sustained a loss. My father was so agitated, that I thought at
one moment he would have thrown himself headlong into the grave, upon my
mother's coffin; and it was with some difficulty that he was drawn from
the sacred spot.
The maid servant was yet confined to her bed, very ill with the fever; and
my eldest sister, who was about thirteen years of age, also fell sick the
morning before the funeral took place. When we returned from church, we
found that she had been obliged to go to bed, and the apothecary declared
that she also had taken the fever. My father was very much alarmed for the
consequences, and he now devoted his whole attention to the care of my
sister, and left me entirely to manage his business.
The servant soon got well, in spite, as it were, of herself; for having
heard the dogs howl very much one night, the circumstance made such an
impression upon her weak, fearful mind, that it was with the greatest
difficulty she could be persuaded that she was better. The howling of the
dogs she considered as a certain omen of her death, and she gave herself
up entirely to this ridiculous notion; nor could any thing short of a most
excellent constitution have saved her from falling a prey to her own
superstition. However, having been almost forced out of her bed, and
persuaded with difficulty to put on her cloaths, she soon found, to her
great astonishment, that she was as well as ever she was in her life, with
the exception of being a little languid from the effects of the fever. The
recovery of poor BETTY KITE was a great comfort to the whole family; for,
although she was one of the plainest women in the world, and also very
illiterate, and full of superstition, yet she was an unequalled servant
both as to cleanliness and work. I was a great plague to her in various
ways. She not being the best tempered woman in the world, I used to
irritate her very much, by imitating the howling of dogs; and the
complaints that she frequently made to my father of my conduct to her were
truly ridiculous.
My father was now left a widower, in the prime of life; (at least he
considered himself quite in the prime of life at the age of fifty-eight)
with six children, myself the least, three sisters and two brothers. With
such a family, the loss of a mother is at all times, and under almost all
circumstances, the most serious and irreparable; but the loss of such a
mother as ours, alas it was most distressing! Ours was indeed a house of
joy turned into a house of mourning; it was not the same house, it was not
the same family. There stood my poor departed mother's chair, and the
sight of the vacant seat perpetually called forth our tears, and sighs,
and lamentations; my father would not have it removed,--but I must quit
this subject, or I shall dwell upon it for ever.