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 (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. 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 eye-brows 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 Cæsars, 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 pannels, 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 slyly 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 half
over 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 every body, 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 quarreled 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 called
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
arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget
unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever.