MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.
The morning then which had thus dawned upon me, was often over-clouded
heavily. Yet it was the morning and not the night; and one of the
strongest proofs that it was the morning lay in this, that again I
could think in verse.
One day, after an hour or two of bitterness, I wrote the following. A
man’s trouble must have receded from him a little for the moment, if he
descries any shape in it, so as to be able to give it form in words. I
set it down with no hope of better than the vaguest sympathy. There
came no music with this one.
If it be that a man and a woman
Are made for no mutual grief;
That each gives the pain to some other,
And neither can give the relief;
If thus the chain of the world
Is tied round the holy feet,
I scorn to shrink from facing
What my brothers and sisters meet.
But I cry when the wolf is tearing
At the core of my heart as now:
When I was the man to be tortured,
Why should the woman be _thou?_
I am not so ready to sink from the lofty in to the abject now. If at
times I yet feel that the whole creation is groaning and travailing, I
know what it is for--its redemption from the dominion of its own death
into that sole liberty which comes only of being filled and eternally
possessed by God himself, its source and its life.
And now I found also that my heart began to be moved with a compassion
towards my fellows such as I had never before experienced. I shall best
convey what I mean by transcribing another little poem I wrote about
the same time.
Once I sat on a crimson throne,
And I held the world in fee;
Below me I heard my brothers moan,
And I bent me down to see;--
Lovingly bent and looked on them,
But _I_ had no inward pain;
I sat in the heart of my ruby gem,
Like a rainbow without the rain.
My throne is vanished; helpless I lie
At the foot of its broken stair;
And the sorrows of all humanity
Through my heart make a thoroughfare.
Let such things rest for a while: I have now to relate another
incident--strange enough, but by no means solitary in the records of
human experience. My reader will probably think that of dreams and
visions there has already been more than enough: but perhaps she will
kindly remember that at this time I had no outer life at all. Whatever
bore to me the look of existence was within me. All my days the
tendency had been to an undue predominance of thought over action, and
now that the springs of action were for a time dried up, what wonder
was it if thought, lording it alone, should assume a reality beyond its
right? Hence the life of the day was prolonged into the night; nor was
there other than a small difference in their conditions, beyond the
fact that the contrast of outer things was removed in sleep; whence the
shapes which the waking thought had assumed had space and opportunity,
as it were, to thicken before the mental eye until they became dreams
and visions.
But concerning what I am about to relate I shall offer no theory. Such
mere operation of my own thoughts may be sufficient to account for it:
I would only ask--does any one know what the _mere_ operation of his
own thoughts signifies? I cannot isolate myself, especially in those
moments when the individual will is less awake, from the ocean of life
and thought which not only surrounds me, but on which I am in a sense
one of the floating bubbles.
I was asleep, but I thought I lay awake in bed--in the room where I
still slept--that which had been my grannie’s.--It was dark midnight,
and the wind was howling about the gable and in the chimneys. The door
opened, and some one entered. By the lamp she carried I knew my
great-grandmother,--just as she looked in life, only that now she
walked upright and with ease. That I was dreaming is plain from the
fact that I felt no surprise at seeing her.
‘Wilfrid, come with me,’ she said, approaching the bedside. ‘Rise.’
I obeyed like a child.
‘Put your cloak on,’ she continued. ‘It is a stormy midnight, but we
have not so far to go as you may think.’
‘I think nothing, grannie,’ I said. ‘I do not know where you want to
take me.’
‘Come and see then, my son. You must at last learn what has been kept
from you far too long.’
As she spoke she led the way down the stair, through the kitchen, and
out into the dark night. I remember the wind blowing my cloak about,
but I remember nothing more until I found myself in the winding
hazel-walled lane, leading to Umberden Church. My grannie was leading
me by one withered hand; in the other she held the lamp, over the flame
of which the wind had no power. She led me into the churchyard, took
the key from under the tombstone, unlocked the door of the church, put
the lamp into my hand, pushed me gently in, and shut the door behind
me. I walked to the vestry, and set the lamp on the desk, with a vague
feeling that I had been there before, and that I had now to do
something at this desk. Above it I caught sight of the row of
vellum-bound books, and remembered that one of them contained something
of importance to me. I took it down. The moment I opened it I
remembered with distinctness the fatal discrepancy in the entry of my
grannie’s marriage. I found the place: to my astonishment the date of
the year was now the same as that on the preceding page--1747. That
instant I awoke in the first gush of the sunrise.
I could not help feeling even a little excited by my dream, and the
impression of it grew upon me: I wanted to see the book again. I could
not rest. Something seemed constantly urging me to go and look at it.
Half to get the thing out of my head, I sent Styles to fetch Lilith,
and for the first time since the final assurance of my loss, mounted
her. I rode for Umberden Church.
It was long after noon before I had made up my mind, and when, having
tied Lilith to the gate, I entered the church, one red ray from the
setting sun was nestling in the very roof. Knowing what I should find,
yet wishing to see it again, I walked across to the vestry, feeling
rather uncomfortable at the thought of prying thus alone into the
parish register.
I could almost have persuaded myself that I was dreaming still; and in
looking back, I can hardly in my mind separate the dreaming from the
waking visit.
Of course I found just what I had expected--1748, not 1747--at the top
of the page, and was about to replace the register, when the thought
occurred to me that, if the dream had been potent enough to bring me
hither, it might yet mean something. I lifted the cover again. There
the entry stood undeniably plain. This time, however, I noted two other
little facts concerning it.
I will just remind my reader that the entry was crushed in between the
date of the year and the next entry--plainly enough to the eye; and
that there was no attestation to the entries of 1747. The first
additional fact--and clearly an important one--was that, in the summing
up of 1748, before the signature, which stood near the bottom of the
cover, a figure had been altered. Originally it stood: ‘In all six
couple,’ but the six had been altered to a seven--corresponding with
the actual number. This appeared proof positive that the first entry on
the cover was a forged insertion. And how clumsily it had been managed!
‘What could my grannie be about?’ I said to myself. It never occurred
to me then that it might have been intended to _look like_ a forgery.
Still I kept staring at it, as if by very force of staring I could find
out something. There was not the slightest sign of erasure or
alteration beyond the instance I have mentioned. Yet--and here was my
second note--when I compared the whole of the writing on the cover with
the writing on the preceding page, though it seemed the same hand, it
seemed to have got stiffer and shakier, as if the writer had grown old
between. Finding nothing very suggestive in this, however, I fell into
a dreamy mood, watching the red light, as it faded, up in the old,
dark, distorted roof of the desolate church--with my hand lying on the
book.
I have always had a bad habit of pulling and scratching at any knot or
roughness in the paper of the book I happen to be reading; and now,
almost unconsciously, with my forefinger I was pulling at an edge of
parchment which projected from the joint of the cover. When I came to
myself and proceeded to close the book, I found it would not shut
properly because of a piece which I had curled up. Seeking to restore
it to its former position, I fancied I saw a line or edge running all
down the joint, and looking closer, saw that these last entries, in
place of being upon a leaf of the book pasted to the cover in order to
strengthen the binding, as I had supposed, were indeed upon a leaf
which was pasted to the cover, but one which was not otherwise
connected with the volume.
I now began to feel a more lively interest in the behaviour of my
dream-grannie. Here might lie something to explain the hitherto
inexplicable. I proceeded to pull the leaf gently away. It was of
parchment, much thinner than the others, which were of vellum. I had
withdrawn only a small portion when I saw there was writing under it.
My heart began to beat faster. But I would not be rash. My old
experience with parchment in the mending of my uncle’s books came to my
aid. If I pulled at the dry skin as I had been doing, I might not only
damage it, but destroy the writing under it. I could do nothing without
water, and I did not know where to find any. It would be better to ride
to the village of Gastford, somewhere about two miles off, put up
there, and arrange for future proceedings.
I did not know the way, and for a long time could see no one to ask.
The consequence was that I made a wide round, and it was nearly dark
before I reached the village. I thought it better for the present to
feed Lilith, and then make the best of my way home.
The next evening--I felt so like a thief that I sought the thievish
security of the night--having provided myself with what was necessary,
and borrowed a horse for Styles, I set out again.