Most men have a faint and distant notion from whom to look for
parentage—that inestimable boon for which the most miserable often feel
the most grateful—inestimable, not only because it confers upon us, if
we will, an immortal hereafter of unrevealed joy and glory, but because
nobody ever has, ever will, or probably ever can, estimate it rightly.
Parents consider their children as under an undischargeable debt of
gratitude to them for bringing them into the world at all, without
sometimes fully considering a parent’s duties as well as his rights.
Children are too apt to make light of the obligation, as well as many
another obligation which succeeded it—the care of infancy, the guidance
of youth, the love, unextinguishable in all but very cold and stony
hearts, which attends our offspring from their birth to our own
death-bed. It may be argued that all these acts and feelings on the part
of parents, are but in obedience to a law of nature: that the man or
woman is like the eagle or the dove, is impelled to nurture, protect,
defend his offspring. But if so, the law of love and obedience of the
offspring to the parent, is equally binding; and he who neglects the
one, is equally a rebel to nature, and to God, as he who neglects the
other.
Most men, I repeat, have a faint and distant notion from whom to look
for parentage. This is not without exception. Good, as a general rule,
the exceptions are quite sufficient to prove it. I myself am one. That I
had a father, I take for granted: that I had a mother is perfectly
certain. But as to who my father and my mother were, was for many years
a question much more doubtful.
However, I will tell you all about it, and you shall judge for yourself.
My first recollections of the world are surrounded by somewhat strange
scenery. Figure to yourself, reader, a town situated on the top of a
high hill, like an eagle’s eyrie, but far more solid and substantial.
The streets are paved with large round stones, and a gutter in the
centre, tracking out like rays at every cross-road: the houses,
stone-built, and somewhat ponderous, are tall and short, wide and
narrow, as in most other towns, but there are some very fine churches in
a somewhat severe style in the place, and it seems to possess two
peculiar characteristics. Whether, because so far elevated that nothing
could obstruct the drainage on every side, or because at that high point
it caught the clouds as they whirled by, and attracted the wrath of
every storm by its menacing front, it was the cleanest town in the
universe. In vain did cooks and old women throw out cock’s-heads
divested of their combs, and the gizzards of ducks and fowls—in vain on
the Saturday night was every gutter in the place made the receptacle of
all the dust of all the houses—in vain were a number of other untidy
tricks practiced to defile the highways, and offend the olfactories of
the passing stranger—before the Monday morning all was clear
again—except in very rainy seasons, when I have known a dust-heap lie
for a fortnight. This was one of its peculiar characteristics:
cleanliness.
I cannot help thinking there is something very merry in dirt. The very
merriest people I have ever seen in my life have been the dirtiest; but
perhaps, after all, the impression to this effect which I have received,
may be attributed to my residence in that old town, where the exceeding
cleanliness I have mentioned, was closely associated with that of
dullness. The very cheerful summer sun, as he looked down into the open
streets, held up as upon a pedestal to his view, looked dull and even
sad. The clear light of the summer day had a cool, calm, gentlemanly
melancholy about it, which did not serve to rouse or to enliven. One
looked up the street and saw a man, a single solitary man, so lost in
the yellow sunshine at the end, that you could not tell whether he had
pike, pitch-fork, or crosier in his hand—three-cornered hat, or round,
or cap of liberty on his head. One looked down the street toward the
valley below, and could hardly make out whether the lonely carriage
drawn by four beasts of some kind, had really four horses, or four
mules, or four rats without a tail—amongst them. Not another being did
you see. No heads were put out of windows—no idle figures presented
themselves before the doorways. Curiosity seemed dead in the place, as
well as every thing else; and although the sound of a carriage
wheels—especially coming from below, where there was a post-house—was
very rare, it seemed not to awaken any interest in the inhabitants
whatsoever, at least not more than was displayed in just raising the
eyes from the calves’ feet, or the sheep’s trotters which were preparing
for dinner, to look for one instant at the vehicle, as it passed. If an
earthquake had rumbled up and down the street, it could not have
produced less excitment—and probably would not have produced more. The
carriage went in peace and sunshine upon its way, and the cook or the
good house-wife bent her attention to her dishes again.
But let me say a little more of the town before I proceed farther; for
it is an object of great interest to me, even in memory. From the hill
on which it stood, and the old walls which surrounded it on every side,
rising up from the verge of the descent, and looking like the
battlements of a raised pie, might be seen a very rich and beautiful
country, with a river running round the base of the large rock on which
one stood. The situation was a very commanding one; for though rising
ground, deserving the name of high hills, was to be seen in the
distance, and many a sweep and undulation lay between, yet the elevation
of the town was sufficient to domineer over the whole country around
within any thing like cannon-shot. The walls, however, were destitute of
guns; and the various gates, with their old stone arches, seemed formed
for no other purpose than to let the morning and evening sun shine
through, and the country-people to bring in eatables and drinkables for
the supply of the place. They afforded, too, a place of refuge for
certain old gentlemen who engaged themselves in examining all itinerant
merchants, making good women open their baskets, and running long iron
things, like spits, into loads of hay and straw, in order to make sure
that there was no wine or brandy concealed within. For all these
services they exacted a trifling toll, or excise duty, upon a great
number of articles of provision brought into the town. They were very
unobtrusive people, however, seldom, if ever seen, except in the early
part of market-days, and ever ready to retreat into their little dens by
the side of the gate, as soon as their functions were performed. The
great church stood at one side of a little square, free and open
enough—always very clean, like the rest of the town, but always looking
exceedingly cool also—for the very summer sun looked cool there, as I
have observed, and one hardly felt the difference between June and
December, if the day was clear. I don’t know why all that square never
looked gay or cheerful—for it seemed to have every thing to make it so;
and I have seen it, on days of festivity, tricked out in all that could
assist. On the Sunday, a great multitude of the good people of the town,
dressed out in their brightest attire, were continually flocking in and
out of the church. On festival days you would see garlands of flowers,
and banners, and rich vestments, and beautifully dressed altars under
arbors of green leaves, and a little body of soldiers, with gay
uniforms, glittering muskets, and cocked-hats, would appear to keep the
ground as a procession passed. But still it never looked cheerful. All
these objects were seen in that clear, cool light in such a way as to
make them look frosty.
Perhaps one cause of the general sombreness of the town, and the
impression of uninhabitedness which it gave, might have been that there
were no shops in the place. This may seem an extraordinary fact—but so
it was. There were no real, proper, _bona fide_ shops, with good, wide,
open fronts showing their wares. As one walked along the principal
street, indeed, which led through a large, heavy, white stone arch, down
the easiest slope of the hill into the open country, here and there, in
the window of what seemed a private dwelling-place, and which could only
be reached by ascending a flight of steps from the street, one might see
a ham hanging up, or a string of sausages, or some other edible thing.
Again, farther on, you would see a small brass basin nailed to a
door-post, and again, in another window, a lady’s cap, or a string or
two of ribbons. When in want of any article, you climbed the steps, you
had to open a door, and then another door, before you arrived at the
person whom you expected to furnish them. When you got in you would find
a tolerable store of different kinds of articles, gathered together in a
neat little room, somewhat dull and shady, and not the least like a shop
in the world. It would have puzzled any one in such a cell to judge
accurately of the color or quality of what he was purchasing; but I must
do the good people the justice to say that they did not at all take
advantage of this obscurity to cheat their friends and customers, but
that all they sold was generally good and what it pretended to be—more,
indeed, than can be said of most goods and chattels at the present time.
The irregularity of the streets, too, might have had some part in
creating the sombreness—for they turned and wound in an inconceivable
manner, and the houses, built according to the taste and will of the
owner, without any regard to regularity—some sticking out six or seven
yards beyond its neighbor—some turning at one angle and some at
another—some towering up, and others crouching down—had an exceedingly
awkward habit of casting long, blue shadows, whichever way the sun
shone, in hard, straight lines, unbroken by even a cloud of dust.
I have never seen any other town like it but one, and that is the town
of Angouleme. Perhaps it was Angouleme—though I cannot be quite sure;
for it is long, long ago since I was there, and events and circumstances
of a very mingled character have drawn line after line across the tablet
of memory, till even the deep strokes graven upon it in early years are
only faintly traceable here and there.
In looking back as far as my mind will carry roe into the past, there
comes first a cloud—a pleasant, summer-like cloud, not altogether
shapeless, yet very faint and soft in the outlines, and varying
strangely as I look at it. Now it takes the form of a beautiful lady,
with two or three lovely children playing around her. I am among them;
but whether I am one of them or not I cannot tell. Then it changes to a
tall, somewhat youthful-looking man, with a sword at his side, and a
great broad belt over his right shoulder. Heavy buckskin gloves he must
have worn; for I remember quite well the hard touch of them between my
little fingers. I see his jack-boots, too, even now. They are the very
plainest part of the cloud. But the masses roll over—and what is seen
next? A French château, with as many little towers as a cruet-stand,
some square, some round, some with conical roofs, some with long gables,
and at the end there is a small building, which, in the nonsensical
slang of London house-agents, would be called semi-detached. It has a
little spire, like that of a church, and a bell in it. Probably it was
the chapel of the château; and there is a fountain playing before the
house in the morning sun, surrounded by gay beds of flowers, formed into
strange shapes, as if cut out by those ingenious instruments with which
cooks produce variety in the patterns of fancy pie-crust. But it is all
a cloud, never fixed, and never very clearly defined.
The first distinct and definite recollection that I have, is that of
finding myself in the town I have mentioned, and in the house of one of
the clergy of the place—an excellent good man, if one ever lived. But
that is a general recollection, and the most clear as well as the
earliest of my more particular recollections is that of having sat by
the side of a large pond, or little lake, formed by the stream which
flowed round the hill, and with a good stout rod of very plain
construction, and a tremendously thick line and large hook, throwing in
some kind of bait, I forget what, in the desperate hope of catching a
gigantic pike, which was reported to frequent that water. My line lay in
the tank for a long while without the slightest movement of the little
cork float attached to it. I got somewhat weary, and began to think
fishing poor sport. I laid my rod down upon the bank, gathered a heap of
stones, and began throwing them as far as I could toward the centre of
the piece of water. This was not pure idleness; for I had some
indefinite notion, I believe, of driving the fish nearer to the shore.
The day had hitherto been fine. A bright, soft, sleepy light, had lain
upon the bosom of the water. But it was now about four o’clock, and the
day began to change. First there came a shadow, then a breeze tossing up
little waves, then thick, dashing drops of rain. I ran some twenty steps
back under a little ledge of the rock, which afforded some shelter; for
it would seem I had been possessed with a notion in my early youth, that
I ought not to get wet; and there, from my little den, I looked out at
the storm as it swept over the lake. It struck me then as very
beautiful, and I dare say would have struck me more now; for through the
thick drops, I could see here and there the blue sky shining like a
loving eye watching the earth, and to the westward came a gleam of gold,
telling that the storm would not last long.
What induced me to look down for my rod and line, I do not know; but
when at the end of a quarter of an hour I did so, the float had totally
disappeared, and the rod itself, though heavy enough to my notions,
seemed suddenly endowed with the power of locomotion, and was walking
away into the water. One dart forward, and I caught it, just as it was
pitching over, but it had been nearly tugged out of my hand again ere I
had got it fast. With triumph and with joy I found that there must be a
fish at the end of the line, and a large one. I had caught gudgeons
enough in my day, but I had no notion how to manage a large fish now I
had hooked him. The only art I had was to pull away, and perhaps it was
quite as lucky as not; for had the united strength of myself and the
fish been superior to that of the line, the latter must have given way.
But as it was, the fish was somewhat exhausted by his first tugs at the
rod, and he suffered me very quietly to draw him in within a few yards
of the shore. Luckily the line, though twisted round the top of the rod,
was carried down to my hand, though without any reel; but there were
some twenty or thirty yards of line wound upon a piece of stick beyond
my hands. Luckily I say, for just as I was pulling my captive on, and
could catch a sight of his glorious bulk, he seemed to me to put his
tail in his mouth, and then with a great spring darted rapidly away. The
top of the rod broke through in a moment, and the line ran through my
hands like a knife. I caught it on the winder, however, and checked my
enemy in his course. He gave a sulky tug or two, but then suffered me to
pull him in again, and a desperate struggle we had of it when he found
himself once more coming near the bank. When I found I could not manage
him, I gave him line off my hands; and then refreshed, though with a
heart I am ashamed to say beating how fast, I hauled away, and joyfully
found his resistance diminishing. It was the labor of nearly an hour,
however, before I got him close up to the bank, and then twice he got
away from me, once, nearly bringing me into the water by the sudden dart
he gave as I kneeled down to lift him on shore. At length, however, I
landed him safely, and judge of my joy when I beheld a trout weighing
five pounds at least, and magnified by my imagination to ten or fifteen.
He had got the hook quite down into his throat, which probably was the
secret of my success; for had it been in his mouth, he and I must have
pulled his jaw off between us. I did not stop even to make an attempt to
take it out, but gathering up the fragments of my rod, while he lay
panting and flapping on the grass, I lifted him up by the hook and
carried him up triumphantly toward the town. I would not go in through
the ordinary gates, however. I believe it was that a fear seized me lest
I should be charged a duty on my fish; but as the house where I lived
was close to the walls, and had a little garden in one of the old
towers, through which there was a door and a stone stair-case, I hurried
thither, found my way in by the back-door, and venturing to do what I
had never done before, hurried, uncalled, into the room of good Father
Bonneville at an hour when I knew he was always at study. Happily it was
Thursday: I knew there was no fish in the house, and that our dinner, on
the following day, was destined to be pumpkin-soup and a salad. This
might well excuse my presumption, and it did.
Never in my life did I see a man more delighted than good Father
Bonneville, though he hurried away a book which he had been reading when
I came in—I believe it was the Old Testament—as if there had been
something very shameful in it. He admired the trout immensely, looked at
it on one side and then on the other, declared it the finest trout he
had ever seen, and patting me on the head, asked me if I had really
caught that all by myself.
I assured him that I had had no help whatever, and then added, slyly,
“You know it is Friday to-morrow, Father.”
“Ah, my son, my son,” he replied, with a rueful shake of the head but a
smile upon his lips, “we must not think too much of improving our fare,
especially on meagre days; but the fish is a very fine fish
notwithstanding, and we will have it for dinner to-morrow.”
I have dwelt long upon this little incident; for it was a very important
one in my eyes at the time, and was not altogether without its influence
upon my life. But I shall only pause to state here that Father
Bonneville made more of me from that time forth than he had ever done
before. Previously he had contented himself by giving me my lessons
daily, by speaking a few kindly words to me at meal times, and turning
me over for the rest of the day to his good old housekeeper. Now,
however, I seemed to be fit for something better. Father Bonneville was
very fond of fish, as most priests are, and every Tuesday and Thursday
evening I was down at the banks of the lake or of the river; and as I
had great perseverance, and rapidly became skillful, Father Bonneville
very rarely went without fish of some kind for his dinner on Wednesdays
and Fridays, so that fasting became somewhat of a farce—except in Lent
indeed—except in Lent, when he made tremendous work with us.