A SPRING CHAPTER.
More especially now in my old age, I find myself “to a lingering motion
bound.” I would, if I might, tell a tale day by day, hour by hour,
following the movement of the year in its sweet change of seasons.
This may not be, but I will indulge myself now so far as to call this a
spring chapter, and so pass to the summer, when my reader will see why I
have called my story “The Seaboard Parish.”
I was out one day amongst my people, and I found two precious things:
one, a lovely little fact, the other a lovely little primrose. This was
a pinched, dwarfish thing, for the spring was but a baby herself, and so
could not mother more than a brave-hearted weakling. The frost lay all
about it under the hedge, but its rough leaves kept it just warm enough,
and hardly. Now, I should never have pulled the little darling; it would
have seemed a kind of small sacrilege committed on the church of nature,
seeing she had but this one; only with my sickly cub at home, I felt
justified in ravening like a beast of prey. I even went so far in my
greed as to dig up the little plant with my fingers, and bear it, leaves
and all, with a lump of earth about it to keep it alive, home to my
little woman--a present from the outside world which she loved so much.
And as I went there dawned upon me the recollection of a little mirror
in which, if I could find it, she would see it still more lovely than
in a direct looking at itself. So I set myself to find it; for it lay
in fragments in the drawers and cabinets of my memory. And before I got
home I had found all the pieces and put them together; and then it was
a lovely little sonnet which a friend of mine had written and allowed me
to see many years before. I was in the way of writing verses myself; but
I should have been proud to have written this one. I never could have
done that. Yet, as far as I knew, it had never seen the light through
the windows of print. It was with some difficulty that I got it all
right; but I thought I had succeeded very nearly, if not absolutely, and
I said it over and over, till I was sure I should not spoil its music or
its meaning by halting in the delivery of it.
“Look here, my Connie, what I have brought you,” I said.
She held out her two white, half-transparent hands, took it as if it had
been a human baby and looked at it lovingly till the tears came in her
eyes. She would have made a tender picture, as she then lay, with her
two hands up, holding the little beauty before her eyes. Then I said
what I have already written about the mirror, and repeated the sonnet to
her. Here it is, and my readers will owe me gratitude for it. My friend
had found the snowdrop in February, and in frost. Indeed he told me that
there was a tolerable sprinkling of snow upon the ground:
“I know not what among the grass thou art,
Thy nature, nor thy substance, fairest flower,
Nor what to other eyes thou hast of power
To send thine image through them to the heart;
But when I push the frosty leaves apart,
And see thee hiding in thy wintry bower,
Thou growest up within me from that hour,
And through the snow I with the spring depart.
I have no words. But fragrant is the breath,
Pale Beauty, of thy second life within.
There is a wind that cometh for thy death,
But thou a life immortal dost begin,
Where, in one soul, which is thy heaven, shall dwell
Thy spirit, beautiful Unspeakable!”
“Will you say it again, papa?” said Connie; “I do not quite understand
it.”
“I will, my dear. But I will do something better as well. I will go and
write it out for you, as soon as I have given you something else that I
have brought.”
“Thank you, papa. And please write it in your best Sunday hand, that I
may read it quite easily.”
I promised, and repeated the poem.
“I understand it a little better,” she said; “but the meaning is just
like the primrose itself, hidden up in its green leaves. When you give
it me in writing, I will push them apart and find it. Now, tell me what
else you have brought me.”
I was greatly pleased with the resemblance the child saw between the
plant and the sonnet; but I did not say anything in praise; I only
expressed satisfaction. Before I began my story, Wynnie came in and sat
down with us.
“I have been to see Miss Aylmer, this morning,” I said. “She feels the
loss of her mother very much, poor thing.”
“How old was she, papa?” asked Connie.
“She was over ninety, my dear; but she had forgotten how much herself,
and her daughter could not be sure about it. She was a peculiar old
lady, you know. She once reproved me for inadvertently putting my hat on
the tablecloth. ‘Mr. Shafton,’ she said, ‘was one of the old school; he
would never have done that. I don’t know what the world is coming to.’”
My two girls laughed at the idea of their papa being reproved for bad
manners.
“What did you say, papa?” they asked.
“I begged her pardon, and lifted it instantly. ‘O, it’s all right now,
my dear,’ she said, ‘when you’ve taken it up again. But I like good
manners, though I live in a cottage now.’”
“Had she seen better days, then?” asked Wynnie.
“She was a farmer’s daughter, and a farmer’s widow. I suppose the chief
difference in her mode of life was that she lived in a cottage instead
of a good-sized farmhouse.”
“But what is the story you have to tell us?”
“I’m coming to that when you have done with your questions.”
“We have done, papa.”
“After talking awhile, during which she went bustling a little about the
cottage, in order to hide her feelings, as I thought, for she has a good
deal of her mother’s sense of dignity about her,--but I want your mother
to hear the story. Run and fetch her, Wynnie.”
“O, do make haste, Wynnie,” said Connie.
When Ethelwyn came, I went on.
“Miss Aylmer was bustling a little about the cottage, putting things to
rights. All at once she gave a cry of surprise, and said, ‘Here it
is, at last!’ She had taken up a stuff dress of her mother’s, and
was holding it in one hand, while with the other she drew from the
pocket--what do you think?”
Various guesses were hazarded.
“No, no--nothing like it. I know you _could_ never guess. Therefore it
would not be fair to keep you trying. A great iron horseshoe. The
old woman of ninety years had in the pocket of the dress that she was
wearing at the very moment when she died, for her death was sudden, an
iron horseshoe.”
“What did it mean? Could her daughter explain it?”
“That she proceeded at once to do. ‘Do you remember, sir,’ she said,
‘how that horseshoe used to hang on a nail over the chimneypiece?’ ‘I
do remember having observed it there,’ I answered; ‘for once when I
took notice of it, I said to your mother, laughing, “I hope you are not
afraid of witches, Mrs. Aylmer?” And she looked a little offended, and
assured me to the contrary.’ ‘Well,’ her daughter went on, ‘about three
months ago, I missed it. My mother would not tell me anything about it.
And here it is! I can hardly think she can have carried it about all
that time without me finding it out, but I don’t know. Here it is,
anyhow. Perhaps when she felt death drawing nearer, she took it from
somewhere where she had hidden it, and put it in her pocket. If I had
found it in time, I would have put it in her coffin.’ ‘But why?’ I
asked. ‘Do tell me the story about it, if you know it.’ ‘I know it quite
well, for she told me all about it once. It is the shoe of a favourite
mare of my father’s--one he used to ride when he went courting my
mother. My grandfather did not like to have a young man coming about the
house, and so he came after the old folks were gone to bed. But he had a
long way to come, and he rode that mare. She had to go over some stones
to get to the stable, and my mother used to spread straw there, for it
was under the window of my grandfather’s room, that her shoes mightn’t
make a noise and wake him. And that’s one of the shoes,’ she said,
holding it up to me. ‘When the mare died, my mother begged my father for
the one off her near forefoot, where she had so often stood and patted
her neck when my father was mounted to ride home again.’”
“But it was very naughty of her, wasn’t it,” said Wynnie, “to do that
without her father’s knowledge?”
“I don’t say it was right, my dear. But in looking at what is wrong, we
ought to look for the beginning of the wrong; and possibly we might
find that in this case farther back. If, for instance, a father isn’t
a father, we must not be too hard in blaming the child for not being a
child. The father’s part has to come first, and teach the child’s part.
Now, if I might guess from what I know of the old lady, in whom probably
it was much softened, her father was very possibly a hard, unreasoning,
and unreasonable man--such that it scarcely ever came into the
daughter’s head that she had anything else to do with regard to him than
beware of the consequences of letting him know that she had a lover. The
whole thing, I allow, was wrong; but I suspect the father was first to
blame, and far more to blame than the daughter. And that is the more
likely from the high character of the old dame, and the romantic way in
which she clung to the memory of the courtship. A true heart only does
not grow old. And I have, therefore, no doubt that the marriage was a
happy one. Besides, I daresay it was very much the custom of the country
where they were, and that makes some difference.”
“Well, I’m sure, papa, you wouldn’t like any of us to go and do like
that,” said Wynnie.
“Assuredly not, my dear,” I answered, laughing. “Nor have I any fear of
it. But shall I tell you what I think would be one of the chief things
to trouble me if you did?”
“If you like, papa. But it sounds rather dreadful to hear such an _if_”
said Wynnie.
“It would be to think how much I had failed of being such a father to
you as I ought to be, and as I wished to be, if it should prove at all
possible for you to do such a thing.”
“It’s too dreadful to talk about, papa,” said Wynnie; and the subject
was dropped.
She was a strange child, this Wynnie of ours. Whereas most people are in
danger of thinking themselves in the right, or insisting that they are
whether they think so or not, she was always thinking herself in the
wrong. Nay more, she always expected to find herself in the wrong. If
the perpetrator of any mischief was inquired after, she always looked
into her own bosom to see whether she could not with justice aver that
she was the doer of the deed. I believe she felt at that moment as if
she had been deceiving me already, and deserved to be driven out of
the house. This came of an over-sensitiveness, accompanied by a general
dissatisfaction with herself, which was not upheld by a sufficient faith
in the divine sympathy, or sufficient confidence of final purification.
She never spared herself; and if she was a little severe on the younger
ones sometimes, no one was yet more indulgent to them. She would eat all
their hard crusts for them, always give them the best and take the worst
for herself. If there was any part in the dish that she was helping that
she thought nobody would like, she invariably assigned it to her own
share. It looked like a determined self-mortification sometimes; but
that was not it. She did not care for her own comfort enough to feel it
any mortification; though I observed that when her mother or I helped
her to anything nice, she ate it with as much relish as the youngest
of the party. And her sweet smile was always ready to meet the least
kindness that was offered her. Her obedience was perfect, and had been
so for very many years, as far as we could see. Indeed, not since she
was the merest child had there been any contest between us. Now, of
course, there was no demand of obedience: she was simply the best
earthly friend that her father and mother had. It often caused me some
passing anxiety to think that her temperament, as well as her devotion
to her home, might cause her great suffering some day; but when those
thoughts came, I just gave her to God to take care of. Her mother
sometimes said to her that she would make an excellent wife for a poor
man. She would brighten up greatly at this, taking it for a compliment
of the best sort. And she did not forget it, as the sequel will show.
She would choose to sit with one candle lit when there were two on the
table, wasting her eyes to save the candles. “Which will you have for
dinner to-day, papa, roast beef or boiled?” she asked me once, when her
mother was too unwell to attend to the housekeeping. And when I replied
that I would have whichever she liked best--“The boiled beef lasts
longest, I think,” she said. Yet she was not only as liberal and kind as
any to the poor, but she was, which is rarer, and perhaps more important
for the final formation of a character, carefully just to everyone with
whom she had any dealings. Her sense of law was very strong. Law with
her was something absolute, and not to be questioned. In her childhood
there was one lady to whom for years she showed a decided aversion,
and we could not understand it, for it was the most inoffensive Miss
Boulderstone. When she was nearly grown up, one of us happening to
allude to the fact, she volunteered an explanation. Miss Boulderstone
had happened to call one day when Wynnie, then between three and four
was in disgrace--_in the corner_, in fact. Miss Boulderstone interceded
for her; and this was the whole front of her offending.
“I _was_ so angry!” she said. “‘As if my papa did not know best when I
ought to come out of the corner!’ I said to myself. And I couldn’t bear
her for ever so long after that.”
Miss Boulderstone, however, though not very interesting, was quite a
favourite before she died. She left Wynnie--for she and her brother
were the last of their race--a death’s-head watch, which had been in
the family she did not know how long. I think it is as old as Queen
Elizabeth’s time. I took it to London to a skilful man, and had it as
well repaired as its age would admit of; and it has gone ever since,
though not with the greatest accuracy; for what could be expected of an
old death’s-head, the most transitory thing in creation? Wynnie wears it
to this day, and wouldn’t part with it for the best watch in the world.
I tell the reader all this about my daughter that he may be the more
able to understand what will follow in due time. He will think that as
yet my story has been nothing but promises. Let him only hope that I
will fulfil them, and I shall be content.
Mr. Boulderstone did not long outlive his sister. Though the old couple,
for they were rather old before they died, if, indeed, they were not
born old, which I strongly suspect, being the last of a decaying family
that had not left the land on which they were born for a great many
generations--though the old people had not, of what the French call
sentiments, one between them, they were yet capable of a stronger and,
I had almost said, more romantic attachment, than many couples who have
married from love; for the lady’s sole trouble in dying was what her
brother _would_ do without her; and from the day of her death, he grew
more and more dull and seemingly stupid. Nothing gave him any pleasure
but having Wynnie to dinner with him. I knew that it must be very dull
for her, but she went often, and I never heard her complain of it,
though she certainly did look fagged--not _bored_, observe, but
fagged--showing that she had been exerting herself to meet the
difficulties of the situation. When the good man died, we found that he
had left all his money in my hands, in trust for the poor of the parish,
to be applied in any way I thought best. This involved me in much
perplexity, for nothing is more difficult than to make money useful to
the poor. But I was very glad of it, notwithstanding.
My own means were not so large as my readers may think. The property
my wife brought me was much encumbered. With the help of her private
fortune, and the income of several years (not my income from the church,
it may be as well to say), I succeeded in clearing off the encumbrances.
But even then there remained much to be done, if I would be the good
steward that was not to be ashamed at his Lord’s coming. First of all
there were many cottages to be built for the labourers on the estate. If
the farmers would not, or could not, help, I must do it; for to provide
decent dwellings for them, was clearly one of the divine conditions in
the righteous tenure of property, whatever the human might be; for it
was not for myself alone, or for myself chiefly, that this property was
given to me; it was for those who lived upon it. Therefore I laid out
what money I could, not only in getting all the land clearly in its
right relation to its owner, but in doing the best I could for those
attached to it who could not help themselves. And when I hint to my
reader that I had some conscience in paying my curate, though, as they
had no children, they did not require so much as I should otherwise have
felt compelled to give them, he will easily see that as my family grew
up I could not have so much to give away of my own as I should have
liked. Therefore this trust of the good Mr. Boulderstone was the more
acceptable to me.
One word more ere I finish this chapter.--I should not like my friends
to think that I had got tired of our Christmas gatherings, because I
have made no mention of one this year. It had been pretermitted for the
first time, because of my daughter’s illness. It was much easier to give
them now than when I lived at the vicarage, for there was plenty of room
in the old hall. But my curate, Mr. Weir, still held a similar gathering
there every Easter.
Another one word more about him. Some may wonder why I have not
mentioned him or my sister, especially in connection with Connie’s
accident. The fact was, that he had taken, or rather I had given him,
a long holiday. Martha had had several disappointing illnesses, and her
general health had suffered so much in consequence that there was even
some fear of her lungs, and a winter in the south of France had
been strongly recommended. Upon this I came in with more than a
recommendation, and insisted that they should go. They had started in
the beginning of October, and had not returned up to the time of which I
am now about to write--somewhere in the beginning of the month of April.
But my sister was now almost quite well, and I was not sorry to think
that I should soon have a little more leisure for such small literary
pursuits as I delighted in--to my own enrichment, and consequently to
the good of my parishioners and friends.