Strange things have happened unto me--I seem scarce awake--but I will
recollect my thoughts, and try to give an account of what has befallen
me in the few last weeks.
Since my father's death our family have resided in London. I am in
practice as a surgeon there. My mother died two years after we left
Widford.
A month or two ago I had been busying myself in drawing up the above
narrative, intending to make it public. The employment had forced my
mind to dwell upon _facts_, which had begun to fade from it--the memory
of old times became vivid, and more vivid--I felt a strong desire to
revisit the scenes of my native village--of the young loves of Rosamund
and her Clare.
A kind of dread had hitherto kept me back; but I was restless now, till
I had accomplished my wish. I set out one morning to walk--I reached
Widford about eleven in the forenoon--after a slight breakfast at my
inn--where I was mortified to perceive, the old landlord did not know me
again--(old Thomas Billet--he has often made angle rods for me when a
child)--I rambled over all my accustomed haunts.
Our old house was vacant, and to be sold. I entered, unmolested, into
the room that had been my bed-chamber. I kneeled down on the spot where
my little bed had stood--I felt like a child--I prayed like one--it
seemed as though old times were to return again--I looked round
involuntarily, expecting to see some face I knew--but all was naked and
mute. The bed was gone. My little pane of painted window, through which
I loved to look at the sun, when I awoke in a fine summer's morning, was
taken out, and had been replaced by one of common glass.
I visited, by turns, every chamber--they were all desolate and
unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord,
probably to be sold--I touched the keys--I played some old Scottish
tunes, which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived
with the music-blended with a sense of _unreality_, which at last became
too powerful--I rushed out of the room to give vent to my feelings.
I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at the
back of the house--we called it the _Wilderness_. A well-known _form_
was missing, that used to meet me in this place--it was thine, Ben
Moxam--the kindest, gentlest, politest, of human beings, yet was he
nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest creature, thou
didst never pass me in my childish rambles, without a soft speech, and a
smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there is one thing, for
which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam--that thou didst join with an
old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to lop away the hanging
branches of the old fir trees.--I remember them sweeping to the ground.
I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place--its glooms
and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind, nurturing
within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which have
accompanied me to maturer years.
In this _Wilderness_ I found myself after a ten years' absence. Its
stately fir trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of
underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the
wood-pigeon--all was as I had left it--my heart softened at the
sight--it seemed, as though my character had been suffering a _change_,
since I forsook these shades.
My parents were both dead--I had no counsellor left, no experience of
age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The LORD had taken away my
_friends_, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round the
wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed, that I might be restored to
that _state of innocence_, in which I had wandered in those shades.
Methought, my request was heard--for it seemed as though the stains of
manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity and
simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into a
perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed that I was
enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father--and,
extravagantly, put off the shoes from my feet--for the place where I
stood, I thought, was holy ground.
This state of mind could not last long--and I returned, with languid
feelings to my Inn. I ordered my dinner--green peas and a sweetbread--it
had been a favorite dish with me in my childhood--I was allowed to have
it on my birth days. I was impatient to see it come upon table--but,
when it came, I could scarce eat a mouthful--my tears choaked me. I
called for wine--I drank a pint and a half of red wine--and not till
then had I dared to visit the church-yard, where my parents were
interred.
The _cottage_ lay in my way--Margaret had chosen it for that very
reason, to be near the church--for the old lady was regular in her
attendance on public worship--I passed on--and in a moment found myself
among the tombs.
I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again--my
mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending--a plain
stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon it--for
they both occupied one grave.
I prostrated myself before the spot--I kissed the earth that covered
them--I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should mingle
my dust with their's--and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on the
grave-stone, in a kind of mental prayer--for I could not speak.
Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and felt
leisure to attend to indifferent objects.--Still I continued in the
church-yard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing on them
with that kind of levity, which will not unfrequently spring up in the
mind, in the midst of deep melancholy.
I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful
children. I said jestingly, where be all the _bad_ people buried? Bad
parents, bad husbands, bad children--what cemeteries are appointed for
these? do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious
fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out
men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their life-time, discharged the
offices of life, perhaps, but lamely?--Their failings, with their
reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. _Man wars not with the
dead._ It is a _trait_ of human nature, for which I love it.
I had not observed, till now, a little group assembled at the other end
of the church-yard; it was a company of children, who were gathered
round a young man, dressed in black, sitting on a grave-stone.
He seemed to be asking them questions--probably, about their
learning--and one little dirty ragged-headed fellow was clambering up
his knees to kiss him.--The children had been eating black cherries--for
some of the stones were scattered about, and their mouths were smeared
with them.
As I drew near them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild
benignity of countenance, which I had somewhere seen before--I gazed at
him more attentively--
It was Allan Clare! sitting on the grave of his sister.
I threw my arms about his neck. I exclaimed "Allan"--he turned his eyes
upon me--he knew me--we both wept aloud--it seemed, as though the
interval, since we parted, had been as nothing--I cried out, "come, and
tell me about these things."
I drew him away from his little friends--he parted with a show of
reluctance from the church-yard--Margaret and her grandaughter lay
buried there, as well as his sister--I took him to my Inn--secured a
room, where we might be private--ordered fresh wine--scarce knowing what
I did, I danced for joy.
Allan was quite overcome, and taking me by the hand he said, "this
repays me for all."
It was a proud day for me--I had found the friend I thought dead--earth
seemed to me no longer valuable, than as it contained _him_; and
existence a blessing no longer than while I should live to be his
comforter.
I began, at leisure, to survey him with more attention. Time and grief
had left few traces of that fine _enthusiasm_, which once burned in his
countenance--his eyes had lost their original fire, but they retained an
uncommon sweetness and, whenever they were turned upon me, their smile
pierced to my heart.
"Allan, I fear you have been a sufferer." He replied not, and I could
not press him further. I could not call the dead to life again.
So we drank, and told old stories--and repeated old poetry--and sang old
songs--as if nothing had happened.--We sat till very late--I forgot that
I had purposed returning to town that evening--to Allan all places were
alike--I grew noisy, he grew cheerful--Allan's old manners, old
enthusiasm, were returning upon him--we laughed, we wept, we mingled our
tears, and talked extravagantly.
Allan was my chamber-fellow that night--and lay awake, planning schemes
of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar
pursuits;--and praising GOD, that we had met.
I was obliged to return to town the next morning, and Allan proposed to
accompany me.--"Since the death of his sister," he told me, "he had been
a wanderer."
In the course of our walk he unbosomed himself without reserve--told me
many particulars of his way of life for the last nine or ten years,
which I do not feel myself at liberty to divulge.
Once, on my attempting to cheer him, when I perceived him over
thoughtful, he replied to me in these words:--
"Do not regard me as unhappy, when you catch me in these moods. I am
never more happy than at times, when, by the cast of my countenance, men
judge me most miserable.
"My friend, the events, which have left this sadness behind them, are of
no recent date. The melancholy, which comes over me with the
recollection of them, is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and
tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human
pursuits.
"The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn
heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects.
"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I
expect a renewal of them in the _World of Spirits_.
"I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth. I have made no new
friendships, that can compensate me for the loss of the old--and the
more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to supply
their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances, of past
pleasures.
"I am sensible that I am surrounded by a multitude of very worthy
people, plain-hearted souls, sincere, and kind.--But they have hitherto
eluded my pursuit, and will continue to bless the little circle of their
families and friends, while I must remain a stranger to them.
"Kept at a distance by mankind, I have not ceased to love them--and
could I find the cruel persecutor, the malignant instrument of GOD'S
judgments on me and mine, I think I would forgive, and try to love him
too.
"I have been a quiet sufferer. From the beginning of my calamities it
was given to me, not to see the hand of man in them. I perceived a
mighty arm, which none but myself could see, extended over me. I gave my
heart to the Purifier, and my will to the Sovereign Will of the
Universe. The irresistible wheels of destiny passed on in their
everlasting rotation,--and I suffered myself to be carried along with
them without complaining."