thickest of the throng; tearing it, as it were, apart, and enforcing
peace, _vi et armis_. It was surprising to see the sudden quiet that
ensued. The storm settled down at once into tranquillity. The parties,
having no real grounds of hostility, were readily pacified, and in
fact were a little at a loss to know why and how they had got by the
ears. Slingsby was speedily stitched together again by his friend the
tailor, and resumed his usual good-humour. Mrs. Hannah drew on one
side, to plume her rumpled feathers; and old Christy, having repaired
his damages, took her under his arm, and they swept back again to the
Hall, ten times more bitter against mankind than ever.
The Tibbets family alone seemed slow in recovering from the agitation
of the scene. Young Jack was evidently very much moved by the heroism
of the unlucky Phoebe. His mother, who had been summoned to the field
of action by news of the affray, was in a sad panic, and had need of
all her management to keep him from following his mistress, and coming
to a perfect reconciliation.
What heightened the alarm and perplexity of the good managing dame
was, that the matter had aroused the slow apprehension of old
Ready-Money himself; who was very much struck by the intrepid
interference of so pretty and delicate a girl, and was sadly puzzled
to understand the meaning of the violent agitation in his family.
When all this came to the ears of the Squire, he was grievously
scandalized that his May-day fête should have been disgraced by such a
brawl. He ordered Phoebe to appear before him; but the girl was so
frightened and distressed, that she came sobbing and trembling, and,
at the first question he asked, fell again into hysterics. Lady
Lillycraft, who had understood that there was an affair of the heart
at the bottom of this distress, immediately took the girl into great
favour and protection, and made her peace with the Squire.
This was the only thing that disturbed the harmony of the day, if we
except the discomfiture of Master Simon and the general by the
radical. Upon the whole, therefore, the Squire had very fair reason to
be satisfied that he had ridden his hobby throughout the day without
any other molestation.
The reader, learned in these matters, will perceive that all this was
but a faint shadow of the once gay and fanciful rites of May. The
peasantry have lost the proper feeling for these rites, and have grown
almost as strange to them as the boom of La Mancha were to the customs
of chivalry, in the days of the valorous Don Quixote. Indeed, I
considered it a proof of the discretion with which the Squire rides
his hobby, that he had not pushed the thing any farther, nor attempted
to revive many obsolete usages of the day, which, in the present
matter-of-fact times, would appear affected and absurd. I must say,
though I do it under the rose, the general brawl in which this
festival had nearly terminated, has made me doubt whether these rural
customs of the good old times were always so very loving and innocent
as we are apt to fancy them; and whether the peasantry in those times
were really so Arcadian, as they have been fondly represented. I begin
to fear--
--"Those days were never; airy dream
Sat for the picture, and the poet's hand,
Imparting substance to an empty shade,
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.
Grant it; I still must envy them an age
That favour'd such a dream."
THE MANUSCRIPT.
Yesterday was a day of quiet and repose, after the bustle of May-day.
During the morning, I joined the ladies in a small sitting-room, the
windows of which came down to the floor, and opened upon a terrace of
the garden, which was set out with delicate shrubs and flowers. The
soft sunshine that fell into the room through the branches of trees
that overhung the windows, the sweet smell of the flowers, and the
singing of the birds, seemed to produce a pleasing yet calming effect
on the whole party; for some time elapsed without any one speaking.
Lady Lillycraft and Miss Templeton were sitting by an elegant
work-table, near one of the windows, occupied with some pretty
lady-like work. The captain was on a stool at his mistress' feet,
looking over some music; and poor Phoebe Wilkins, who has always been
a kind of pet among the ladies, but who has risen vastly in favour
with Lady Lillycraft, in consequence of some tender confessions, sat
in one corner of the room, with swoln eyes, working pensively at some
of the fair Julia's wedding ornaments.
The silence was interrupted by her ladyship, who suddenly proposed a
task to the captain. "I am in your debt," said she, "for that tale you
read to us the other day; I will now furnish one in return, if you'll
read it: and it is just suited to this sweet May morning, for it is
all about love!"
The proposition seemed to delight every one present. The captain
smiled assent. Her ladyship rung for her page, and despatched him to
her room for the manuscript. "As the captain," said she, "gave us an
account of the author of his story, it is but right I should give one
of mine. It was written by the parson of the parish where I reside. He
is a thin, elderly man, of a delicate constitution, but positively one
of the most charming men that ever lived. He lost his wife a few years
since; one of the sweetest women you ever saw. He has two sons, whom
he educates himself; both of whom already write delightful poetry. His
parsonage is a lovely place, close by the church, all overrun with ivy
and honeysuckles; with the sweetest flower-garden about it; for, you
know, our country clergymen are almost always fond of flowers, and
make their parsonages perfect pictures.
"His living is a very good one, and he is very much beloved, and does
a great deal of good in the neighbourhood, and among the poor. And
then such sermons as he preaches! Oh, if you could only hear one taken
from a text in Solomon's Song, all about love and matrimony, one of
the sweetest things you ever heard! He preaches it at least once a
year, in springtime, for he knows I am fond of it. He always dines
with me on Sundays, and often brings me some of the sweetest pieces of
poetry, all about the pleasures of melancholy, and such subjects, that
make me cry so, you can't think. I wish he would publish. I think he
has some things as sweet as any thing of Moore or Lord Byron.
"He fell into very ill health some time ago, and was advised to go to
the continent; and I gave him no peace until he went, and promised to
take care of his two boys until he returned.
"He was gone for above a year, and was quite restored. When he came
back, he sent me the tale I'm going to show you.--Oh, here it is!"
said she, as the page put in her hands a beautiful box of satinwood.
She unlocked it, and from among several parcels of notes on embossed
paper, cards of charades, and copies of verses, she drew out a crimson
velvet case, that smelt very much of perfumes. From this she took a
manuscript, daintily written on gilt-edged vellum paper, and stitched
a light blue riband. This she handed to the captain, who read the
following tale, which I have procured for the entertainment of the
reader.
ANNETTE DELARBRE.
The soldier frae the war returns,
And the merchant from the main,
But I hae parted with my love,
And ne'er to meet again,
My dear.
And ne'er to meet again.
When day is gone, and night is come,
And a' are boun to sleep,
I think on them that's far awa
The lee-lang night, and weep,
My dear,
The lee-lang night, and weep.
--_Old Scotch Ballad_.
In the course of a tour that I once made in Lower Normandy, I remained
for a day or two at the old town of Honfleur, which stands near the
mouth of the Seine. It was the time of a fête, and all the world was
thronging in the evening to dance at the fair, held before the chapel
of Our Lady of Grace. As I like all kinds of innocent merry-making, I
joined the throng.
The chapel is situated at the top of a high hill, or promontory, from
whence its bell may be heard at a distance by the mariner at night. It
is said to have given the name to the port of Havre-de-Grace, which
lies directly opposite, on the other side of the Seine. The road up to
the chapel went in a zigzag course, along the brow of the steep coast;
it was shaded by trees, from between which I had beautiful peeps at
the ancient towers of Honfleur below, the varied scenery of the
opposite shore, the white buildings of Havre in the distance, and the
wide sea beyond. The road was enlivened by groups of peasant girls, in
their bright crimson dresses and tall caps; and I found all the flower
of the neighbourhood assembled on the green that crowns the summit of
the hill.
The chapel of Notre Dame de Grace is a favourite resort of the
inhabitants of Honfleur and its vicinity, both for pleasure and
devotion. At this little chapel prayers are put up by the mariners of
the port previous to their voyages, and by their friends during their
absence; and votive offerings are hung about its walls, in fulfilment
of vows made during times of shipwreck and disaster. The chapel is
surrounded by trees. Over the portal is an image of the Virgin and
child, with an inscription which struck me as being quite poetical:
"Etoile de la mer, priez pour nous!"
(Star of the sea, pray for us.)
On a level spot near the chapel, under a grove of noble trees, the
populace dance on fine summer evenings; and here are held frequent
fairs and fêtes, which assemble all the rustic beauty of the loveliest
parts of Lower Normandy. The present was an occasion of the kind.
Booths and tents were erected among the trees; there were the usual
displays of finery to tempt the rural coquette, and of wonderful shows
to entice the curious; mountebanks were exerting their eloquence;
jugglers and fortune-tellers astonishing the credulous; while whole
rows of grotesque saints, in wood and wax-work, were offered for the
purchase of the pious.
The fête had assembled in one view all the picturesque costumes of the
Pays d'Auge, and the Coté de Caux. I beheld tall, stately caps, and
trim bodices, according to fashions which have been handed down from
mother to daughter for centuries, the exact counterparts of those worn
in the time of the Conqueror; and which surprised me by their faithful
resemblance to those which I had seen in the old pictures of
Froissart's Chronicles, and in the paintings of illuminated
manuscripts. Any one, also, that has been in Lower Normandy, must have
remarked the beauty of the peasantry, and that air of native elegance
that prevails among them. It is to this country, undoubtedly, that the
English owe their good looks. It was from hence that the bright
carnation, the fine blue eye, the light auburn hair, passed over to
England in the train of the Conqueror, and filled the land with
beauty.
The scene before me was perfectly enchanting: the assemblage of so
many fresh and blooming faces; the gay groups in fanciful dresses;
some dancing on the green, others strolling about, or seated on the
grass; the fine clumps of trees in the foreground, bordering the brow
of this airy height, and the broad green sea, sleeping in summer
tranquillity in the distance.
Whilst I was regarding this animated picture, I was struck with the
appearance of a beautiful girl, who passed through the crowd without
seeming to take any interest in their amusements. She was slender and
delicate in her form; she had not the bloom upon her cheek that is
usual among the peasantry of Normandy, and her blue eyes had a
singular and melancholy expression. She was accompanied by a
venerable-looking man, whom I presumed to be her father. There was a
whisper among the bystanders, and a wistful look after her as she
passed; the young men touched their hats, and some of the children
followed her at a little distance, watching her movements. She
approached the edge of the hill, where there is a little platform,
from whence the people of Honfleur look out for the approach of
vessels. Here she stood for some time waving her handkerchief, though
there was nothing to be seen but two or three fishing-boats, like mere
specks on the bosom of the distant ocean.
These circumstances excited my curiosity, and I made some inquiries
about her, which were answered with readiness and intelligence by a
priest of the neighbouring chapel. Our conversation drew together
several of the by-standers, each of whom had something to communicate,
and from them all I gathered the following particulars.
Annette Delarbre was the only daughter of one of the higher order of
farmers, or small proprietors, as they are called, who lived at Pont
l'Eveque, a pleasant village not far from Honfleur, in that rich
pastoral part of Lower Normandy called the Pays d'Auge. Annette was
the pride and delight of her parents, and was brought up with the
fondest indulgence. She was gay, tender, petulant, and susceptible.
All her feelings were quick and ardent; and having never experienced
contradiction or restraint, she was little practised in self-control:
nothing but the native goodness of her heart kept her from running
continually into error.
Even while a child, her susceptibility was evinced in an attachment
which she formed to a playmate, Eugene La Forgue, the only son of a
widow, who lived in the neighbourhood. Their childish love was an
epitome of maturer passion; it had its caprices, and jealousies, and
quarrels, and reconciliations. It was assuming something of a graver
character, as Annette entered her fifteenth and Eugene his nineteenth
year, when he was suddenly carried off to the army by the
conscription.
It was a heavy blow to his widowed mother, for he was her only pride
and comfort; but it was one of those sudden bereavements which mothers
were perpetually doomed to feel in France, during the time that
continual and bloody wars were incessantly draining her youth. It was
a temporary affliction also to Annette, to lose her lover. With tender
embraces, half childish, half womanish, she parted from him. The tears
streamed from her blue eyes, as she bound a braid of her fair hair
round his wrist; but the smiles still broke through; for she was yet
too young to feel how serious a thing is separation, and how many
chances there are, when parting in this wide world, against our ever
meeting again.
Weeks, months, years flew by. Annette increased in beauty as she
increased in years, and was the reigning belle of the neighbourhood.
Her time passed innocently and happily. Her father was a man of some
consequence in the rural community, and his house was the resort of
the gayest of the village. Annette held a kind of rural court; she was
always surrounded by companions of her own age, among whom she alone
unrivalled. Much of their time was passed in making lace, the
prevalent manufacture of the neighbourhood. As they sat at this
delicate and feminine labour, the merry tale and sprightly song went
round; none laughed with a lighter heart than Annette; and if she
sang, her voice was perfect melody. Their evenings were enlivened by
the dance, or by those pleasant social games so prevalent among the
French; and when she appeared at the village ball on Sunday evenings,
she was the theme of universal admiration.
As she was a rural heiress, she did not want for suitors. Many
advantageous offers were made her, but she refused them all. She
laughed at the pretended pangs of her admirers, and triumphed over
them with the caprice of buoyant youth and conscious beauty. With all
her apparent levity, however, could any one have read the story of her
heart, they might have traced in it some fond remembrance of her early
playmate, not so deeply graven as to be painful, but too deep to be
easily obliterated; and they might have noticed, amidst all her
gayety, the tenderness that marked her manner towards the mother of
Eugene. She would often steal away from her youthful companions and
their amusements, to pass whole days with the good widow; listening to
her fond talk about her boy, and blushing with secret pleasure, when
his letters were read, at finding herself a constant theme of
recollection and inquiry.
At length the sudden return of peace, which sent many a warrior to his
native cottage, brought back Eugene, a young sun-burnt soldier, to the
village. I need not say how rapturously his return was greeted by his
mother, who saw in him the pride and staff of her old age. He had
risen in the service by his merits; but brought away little from the
wars, excepting a soldier-like air, a gallant name, and a scar across
the forehead. He brought back, however, a nature unspoiled by the
camp. He was frank, open, generous, and ardent. His heart was quick
and kind in its impulses, and was perhaps a little softer from having
suffered: it was full of tenderness for Annette. He had received
frequent accounts of her from his mother; and the mention of her
kindness to his lonely parent, had rendered her doubly dear to him. He
had been wounded; he had been a prisoner; he had been in various
troubles, but had always preserved the braid of her hair, which she
had bound round his arm. It had been a kind of talisman to him; he had
many a time looked upon it as he lay on the hard ground, and the
thought that he might one day see Annette again, and the fair fields
about his native village, had cheered his heart, and enabled him to
bear up against every hardship.
He had left Annette almost a child--he found her a blooming woman. If
he had loved her before, he now adored her. Annette was equally struck
with the improvement which time had made in her lover. She noticed,
with secret admiration, his superiority to the other young men of the
village; the frank, lofty, military air, that distinguished him from
all the rest at their rural gatherings. The more she saw him, the more
her light, playful fondness of former years deepened into ardent and
powerful affection. But Annette was a rural belle.
She had tasted the sweets of dominion, and had been rendered wilful
and capricious by constant indulgence at home, and admiration abroad.
She was conscious of her power over Eugene, and delighted in
exercising it. She sometimes treated him with petulant caprice,
enjoying the pain which she inflicted by her frowns, from the idea how
soon she would chase it away again by her smiles. She took a pleasure
in alarming his fears, by affecting a temporary preference to some one
or other of his rivals; and then would delight in allaying them, by an
ample measure of returning kindness. Perhaps there was some degree of
vanity gratified by all this; it might be a matter of triumph to show
her absolute power over the young soldier, who was the universal
object of female admiration. Eugene, however, was of too serious and
ardent a nature to be trifled with. He loved too fervently not to be
filled with doubt. He saw Annette surrounded by admirers, and full of
animation; the gayest among the gay at all their rural festivities,
and apparently most gay when he was most dejected. Every one saw
through this caprice, but himself; everyone saw that in reality she
doted on him; but Eugene alone suspected the sincerity of her
affection. For some time he bore this coquetry with secret impatience
and distrust; but his feelings grew sore and irritable, and overcame
his self-command. A slight misunderstanding took place; a quarrel
ensued. Annette, unaccustomed to be thwarted and contradicted, and
full of the insolence of youthful beauty, assumed an air of disdain.
She refused all explanations to her lover, and they parted in anger.
That very evening Eugene saw her, full of gayety, dancing with one of
his rivals; and as her eye caught his, fixed on her with unfeigned
distress, it sparkled with more than usual vivacity. It was a
finishing blow to his hopes, already so much impaired by secret
distrust. Pride and resentment both struggled in his breast, and
seemed to rouse his spirit to all its wonted energy. He retired from
her presence, with the hasty determination never to see her again.
A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because
love is more the study and business of her life. Annette soon repented
of her indiscretion; she felt that she had used her lover unkindly;
she felt that she had trifled with his sincere and generous
nature--and then he looked so handsome when he parted after their
quarrel--his fine features lighted up by indignation. She had intended
making up with him at the evening dance; but his sudden departure
prevented her. She now promised herself that when next they met she
would amply repay him by the sweets of a perfect reconciliation, and
that, thenceforward, she would never--never tease him more! That
promise was not to be fulfilled. Day after day passed--but Eugene did
not make his appearance. Sunday evening came, the usual time when all
the gayety of the village assembled--butEugene was not there. She
inquired after him; he had left the village. She now became alarmed,
and, forgetting all coyness and affected indifference, called on
Eugene's mother for an explanation. She found her full of affliction,
and learnt with surprise and consternation that Eugene had gone to
sea.
While his feelings were yet smarting with her affected disdain, and
his heart a prey to alternate indignation and despair, he had suddenly
embraced an invitation which had repeatedly been made him by a
relation, who was fitting out a ship from the port of Honfleur, and
who wished him to be the companion of his voyage. Absence appeared to
him the only cure for his unlucky passion; and in the temporary
transports of his feelings, there was something gratifying in the idea
of having half the world intervene between them. The hurry necessary
for his departure left no time for cool reflection; it rendered him
deaf to the remonstrances of his afflicted mother. He hastened to
Honfleur just in time to make the needful preparations for the voyage;
and the first news that Annette received of this sudden determination
was a letter delivered by his mother, returning her pledges of
affection, particularly the long-treasured braid of her hair, and
bidding her a last farewell, in terms more full of sorrow and
tenderness than upbraiding.
This was the first stroke of real anguish that Annette had ever
received, and it overcame her. The vivacity of her spirits was apt to
hurry her to extremes; she for a time gave way to ungovernable
transports of affliction and remorse, and manifested, in the violence
of her grief, the real ardour of her affection. The thought occurred
to her that the ship might not yet have sailed; she seized on the hope
with eagerness, and hastened with her father to Honfleur. The ship had
sailed that very morning. From the heights above the town she saw it
lessening to a speck on the broad bosom of the ocean, and before
evening the white sail had faded from her sight. She turned full of
anguish to the neighbouring chapel of Our Lady of Grace, and throwing
herself on the pavement, poured out prayers and tears for the safe
return of her lover.
When she returned home, the cheerfulness of her spirits was at an end.
She looked back with remorse and self-upbraiding at her past caprices;
she turned with distaste from the adulation of her admirers, and had
no longer any relish for the amusements of the village. With
humiliation and diffidence, she sought the widowed mother of Eugene;
but was received by her with an overflowing heart; for she only beheld
in Annette one who could sympathize in her doting fondness for her
son. It seemed some alleviation of her remorse to sit by the mother
all day, to study her wants, to beguile her heavy hours, to hang about
her with the caressing endearments of a daughter, and to seek by every
means, if possible, to supply the place of the son, whom she
reproached herself with having driven away.
In the mean time, the ship made a prosperous voyage to her destined
port. Eugene's mother received a letter from him, in which he lamented
the precipitancy of his departure. The voyage had given him time for
sober reflection. If Annette had been unkind to him, he ought not to
have forgotten what was due to his mother, who was now advanced in
years. He accused himself of selfishness, in only listening to the
suggestions of his own inconsiderate passions. He promised to return
with the ship, to make his mind up to his disappointment, and to think
of nothing but making his mother happy--"And when he does return,"
said Annette, clasping her hands with transport, "it shall not be my
fault if he ever leaves us again."