Erema; Or, My Father's Sin

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  SHOXFORD

  Are there people who have never, in the course of anxious life, feltdesire to be away, to fly away, from every thing, however good and dearto them, and rest a little, and think new thought, or let new thoughtflow into them, from the gentle air of some new place, where nobody hasheard of them--a place whose cares, being felt by proxy, almost seemromantic, and where the eyes spare brain and heart with a critic'sself-complacence? If any such place yet remains, the happy soul may seekit in an inland English village.

  A village where no billows are to stun or to confound it, no crag orprecipice to trouble it with giddiness, and where no hurry of restlesstide makes time, its own father, uneasy. But in the quiet, at the bottomof the valley, a beautiful rivulet, belonging to the place, hastens orlingers, according to its mood; hankering here and there, not to be awayyet; and then, by the doing of its own work, led to a swift perplexityof ripples. Here along its side, and there softly leaning over it, freshgreen meadows lie reposing in the settled meaning of the summer day. Forthis is a safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, whenthe impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleakeast wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their brightlips browned with cold. Then, moreover, must the meads have felt theworry of scarcely knowing yet what would be demanded of them; whether tocarry an exacting load of hay, or only to feed a few sauntering cows.

  But now every trouble has been settled for the best; the long grassis mown, and the short grass browsed, and capers of the fairies andcaprices of the cows have dappled worn texture with a deeper green.Therefore let eyes that are satisfied here--as any but a very bad eyemust be, with so many changes of softness--follow the sweet lead of thevalley; and there, in a bend of the gently brawling river, stands thenever-brawling church.

  A church less troubled with the gift of tongues is not to be found inEngland: a church of gray stone that crumbles just enough to enticefrail mortal sympathy, and confesses to the storms it has undergone ina tone that conciliates the human sigh. The tower is large, and highenough to tell what the way of the wind is without any potato-bury onthe top, and the simple roof is not cruciated with tiles of misguidedfancy. But gray rest, and peace of ages, and content of lying calmlysix feet deeper than the bustle of the quick; memory also, and oblivion,following each other slowly, like the shadows of the church-yardtrees--for all of these no better place can be, nor softer comfort.

  For the village of Shoxford runs up on the rise, and straggles away fromits burial-place, as a child from his school goes mitching. There aresome few little ups and downs in the manner of its building, as well asin other particulars about it; but still it keeps as parallel with thecrooked river as the far more crooked ways of men permit. But the wholeof the little road of houses runs down the valley from the church-yardgate; and above the church, looking up the pretty valley, stands nothingbut the mill and the plank bridge below it; and a furlong above thatagain the stone bridge, where the main road crosses the stream, and isconsoled by leading to a big house--the Moonstock Inn.

  The house in which my father lived so long--or rather, I should say, mymother, while he was away with his regiment--and where we unfortunateseven saw the light, stands about half-way down the little village,being on the right-hand side of the road as you come down the valleyfrom the Moonstock bridge. Therefore it is on the further and upper sideof the street--if it can be called a street--from the valley and theriver and the meads below the mill, inasmuch as every bit of Shoxford,and every particle of the parish also, has existence--of no mean sort,as compared with other parishes, in its own esteem--on the right side ofthe river Moon.

  My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the street,was higher at one end than at the other. That is to say, the ground camesloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said, from one end to theother of it, so that it looked like a Noah's ark tilted by Behemothunder the stern-post. And a little lane, from a finely wooded hill, herefell steeply into the "High Street" (as the grocer and the butcher lovedto call it), and made my father's house most distinct, by obeying agood deal of its outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply ofwater under the weather-board of our front-door. This front-door openedon the little steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road,while the back-door led into a long but narrow garden running along theroad, but raised some feet above it; the bank was kept up by a roughstone wall crested with stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian, andfaced with rosettes and disks and dills of houseleek, pennywort, andhart's-tongue.

  Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used tobe; for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his grandson,having proved his will, was resolved to make short work with it. Thepoor house was blamed for the sorrows it had sheltered, and had therepute of two spectres, as well as the pale shadow of misfortune. For mydear father was now believed by the superstitious villagers to haunt theold home of his happiness and love, and roam from room to room in searchof his wife and all his children. But his phantom was most careful notto face that of his father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooveda lord, and pointed forever to a red wound in its breast. No wonder,therefore, that the house would never let; and it would have beenpulled down long ago if the owner had not felt a liking for it, throughmemories tender and peculiar to himself. His grandson, having none ofthese to contend with, resolved to make a mere stable of it, and builda public-house at the bottom of the garden, and turn the space betweenthem into skittle-ground, and so forth.

  To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of asacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would haveoffered hundreds to prevent it. But I found myself now in a delicatestate of mind concerning money, having little of my own, and doubtinghow much other people might intend for me. So that I durst not offer tobuy land and a house without any means to pay.

  And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselvesquiet. We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such as myname might at once set going--would once for all destroy all hopeof doing good by coming. Betsy knew more of such matters than I did,besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great superiorityof age; therefore I left to her all little management, as was in everyway fair and wise. For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a large and goodcompany of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look after them--andwho was he among them? If she trod on one side of her foot, or felt atingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear, she knew in a moment whatit was--of pounds and pounds was she being cheated, a hundred miles off,by foreigners!

  For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to herfaithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my goodnurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so she neverwould have come if I had not written myself to Mrs. Price, then visitingBetsy in European Square, that if the landlady was too busy to bespared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord Castlewood to spare mehis housekeeper. Upon this Mrs. Strouss at once declared that Mrs.Price would ruin every thing; and rather than that--no matter what shelost--she herself would go with me. And so she did, and she managed verywell, keeping my name out of sight (for, happen what might, I would haveno false one); and she got quiet lodgings in her present name, whichsounded nicely foreign; and the village being more agitated now about myfather's material house, and the work they were promised in pulling itdown, than about his shattered household, we had a very favorable timefor coming in, and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not beallowed to run up bills.

  This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed itunwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American dollar atthe shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we were looked uponwith some pity, and yet a kind desire for our custom. Thus, without anyattempt of ours at either delusion or mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailedthroughout the place as "Madam Straw," while I, through the sagacityof a deeply read shoe-maker, obtained a for
eign name, as will by-and-byappear.

  We lodged at the post-office, not through any wisdom or even any thoughton our part, but simply because we happened there to find the cleanestand prettiest rooms in the place. For the sun being now in the heightof August, and having much harvest to ripen, at middle day came rampingdown the little street of Shoxford like the chairman of the guild ofbakers. Every house having lately brightened up its whitewash--whichthey always do there when the frosts are over, soon after the feast ofSt. Barnabas--and the weeds of the way having fared amiss in the absenceof any water-cart, it was not in the strong, sharp character of the sunto miss such an opportunity. After the red Californian glare, I had nofear of any English sun; but Betsy was frightened, and both of us wereglad to get into a little place sheltered by green blinds. This chancedto be the post-office, and there we found nice lodgings.

  By an equal chance this proved to be the wisest thing we could possiblyhave done, if we had set about it carefully. For why, that nobody everwould impute any desire of secrecy to people who straightway unpackedtheir boxes at the very head-quarters of all the village news. And themistress of the post was a sharp-tongued woman, pleased to speak freelyof her neighbors' doings, and prompt with good advice that they shouldheed their own business, if any of them durst say a word about her own.She kept a tidy little shop, showing something of almost every thing;but we had a side door, quite of our own, where Betsy met the baker'swife and the veritable milkman; and neither of them knew her, which wasjust what she had hoped; and yet it made her speak amiss of them.

  But if all things must be brought to the harsh test of dry reason, Imyself might be hard pushed to say what good I hoped to do by comingthus to Shoxford. I knew of a great many things, for certain, that neverhad been thoroughly examined here; also I naturally wished to see, beinga native, what the natives were; and, much more than that, it was alwayson my mind that here lay my mother and the other six of us.

  Therefore it was an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out theafternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating nowas a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would alloweven to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had daredso much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expectedgratis, she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that thelodgings for such people must be looked for down the alley. However,Mrs. Busk, our new landlady, although she had a temper of her own (asany one keeping a post-office must have) was forced by the rarityof lodgers here to yield many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her ownboards, would not even have allowed to be debated. All this was entirelyagainst my wish; for when I have money, I spend it, finding really noother good in it; but Betsy told me that the purest principle of allwas--not to be cheated.

  So I left her to have these little matters out, and took that occasionfor stealing away (as the hours grew on toward evening) to a place whereI wished to be quite alone. And the shadow of the western hills shedpeace upon the valley, when I crossed a little stile leading intoShoxford church-yard.

  For a minute or two I was quite afraid, seeing nobody any where about,nor even hearing any sound in the distance to keep me company. For thechurch lay apart from the village, and was thickly planted out from it,the living folk being full of superstition, and deeply believing in thedead people's ghosts. And even if this were a wife to a husband, or evena husband reappearing to his wife, there was not a man or a woman in thevillage that would not run away from it.

  This I did not know at present, not having been there long enough;neither had I any terror of that sort, not being quite such a coward, Ishould hope. But still, as the mantles of the cold trees darkened, andthe stony remembrance of the dead grew pale, and of the living there wasnot even the whistle of a grave-digger--my heart got the better ofmy mind for a moment, and made me long to be across that stile again.Because (as I said to myself) if there had been a hill to go up, thatwould be so different and so easy; but going down into a place likethis, whence the only escape must be by steps, and where any flight mustbe along channels that run in and out of graves and tombstones, I triednot to be afraid, yet could not altogether help it.

  But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely thinkingwhat to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place which made mestop and wonder. Here were six little grassy tuffets, according to thelength of children, all laid east and west, without any stint of room,harmoniously.

  From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at whichtheir lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.

  And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage them, asa hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to shelter. Withouta name to any of them, all these seven graves lay together, as in afairy ring of rest, and kind compassion had prevented any stranger fromcoming to be buried there.

  I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the prettygrass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its foot, andbent my head, and counted all the little ones. Then I thought of myfather in the grove of peaches, more than six thousand miles away, onthe banks of the soft Blue River. And a sense of desolate sorrow and ofthe blessing of death overwhelmed me.