THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE.
May no wolfe howle; no screech owle stir A wing about thy sepulchre! No boysterous winds or stormes come hither, To starve or wither Thy soft sweet earth! but, like a spring, Love kept it ever flourishing. HERRICK.
IN the course of an excursion through one of the remote counties ofEngland, I had struck into one of those cross-roads that lead throughthe more secluded parts of the country, and stopped one afternoon at avillage the situation of which was beautifully rural and retired. Therewas an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants not to be foundin the villages which lie on the great coach-roads. I determined topass the night there, and, having taken an early dinner, strolled out toenjoy the neighboring scenery.
My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon led me to thechurch, which stood at a little distance from the village. Indeed, itwas an object of some curiosity, its old tower being completely overrunwith ivy so that only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle ofgray wall, or a fantastically carved ornament peered through the verdantcovering. It was a lovely evening. The early part of the day had beendark and showery, but in the afternoon it had cleared up, and, thoughsullen clouds still hung overhead, yet there was a broad tract of goldensky in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through the drippingleaves and lit up all Nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed like theparting hour of a good Christian smiling on the sins and sorrows of theworld, and giving, in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that hewill rise again in glory.
I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, and was musing, as oneis apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past scenes and earlyfriends--on those who were distant and those who were dead--andindulging in that kind of melancholy fancying which has in it somethingsweeter even than pleasure. Every now and then the stroke of a bell fromthe neighboring tower fell on my ear; its tones were in unison with thescene, and, instead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings; and it wassome time before I recollected that it must be tolling the knell of somenew tenant of the tomb.
Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village green; itwound slowly along a lane, was lost, and reappeared through the breaksof the hedges, until it passed the place where I was sitting. The pallwas supported by young girls dressed in white, and another, about theage of seventeen, walked before, bearing a chaplet of white flowers--atoken that the deceased was a young and unmarried female. The corpsewas followed by the parents. They were a venerable couple of the betterorder of peasantry. The father seemed to repress his feelings, but hisfixed eye, contracted brow, and deeply-furrowed face showed the strugglethat was passing within. His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud withthe convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow.
I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was placed in thecentre aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers, with a pair of whitegloves, was hung over the seat which the deceased had occupied.
Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the funeral service, for whois so fortunate as never to have followed some one he has loved to thetomb? But when performed over the remains of innocence and beauty, thuslaid low in the bloom of existence, what can be more affecting? At thatsimple but most solemn consignment of the body to the grave-"Earthto earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"--the tears of the youthfulcompanions of the deceased flowed unrestrained. The father still seemedto struggle with his feelings, and to comfort himself with the assurancethat the dead are blessed which die in the Lord; but the mother onlythought of her child as a flower of the field cut down and witheredin the midst of its sweetness; she was like Rachel, "mourning over herchildren, and would not be comforted."
On returning to the inn I learnt the whole story of the deceased. It wasa simple one, and such as has often been told. She had been the beautyand pride of the village. Her father had once been an opulent farmer,but was reduced in circumstances. This was an only child, and brought upentirely at home in the simplicity of rural life. She had been the pupilof the village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little flock. The goodman watched over her education with paternal care; it was limited andsuitable to the sphere in which she was to move, for he only sought tomake her an ornament to her station in life, not to raise her above it.The tenderness and indulgence of her parents and the exemption fromall ordinary occupations had fostered a natural grace and delicacy ofcharacter that accorded with the fragile loveliness of her form. Sheappeared like some tender plant of the garden blooming accidentally amidthe hardier natives of the fields.
The superiority of her charms was felt and acknowledged by hercompanions, but without envy, for it was surpassed by the unassuminggentleness and winning kindness of her manners. It might be truly saidof her:
"This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems But smacks of something greater than herself; Too noble for this place."
The village was one of those sequestered spots which still retain somevestiges of old English customs. It had its rural festivals and holidaypastimes, and still kept up some faint observance of the once popularrites of May. These, indeed, had been promoted by its present pastor,who was a lover of old customs and one of those simple Christians thatthink their mission fulfilled by promoting joy on earth and good-willamong mankind. Under his auspices the May-pole stood from year to yearin the centre of the village green; on Mayday it was decorated withgarlands and streamers, and a queen or lady of the May was appointed, asin former times, to preside at the sports and distribute the prizes andrewards. The picturesque situation of the village and the fancifulnessof its rustic fetes would often attract the notice of casual visitors.Among these, on one May-day, was a young officer whose regiment had beenrecently quartered in the neighborhood. He was charmed with the nativetaste that pervaded this village pageant, but, above all, with thedawning loveliness of the queen of May. It was the village favorite whowas crowned with flowers, and blushing and smiling in all the beautifulconfusion of girlish diffidence and delight. The artlessness of ruralhabits enabled him readily to make her acquaintance; he gradually wonhis way into her intimacy, and paid his court to her in that unthinkingway in which young officers are too apt to trifle with rusticsimplicity.
There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. He never eventalked of love, but there are modes of making it more eloquent thanlanguage, and which convey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart.The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesseswhich emanate from every word and look and action,--these form the trueeloquence of love, and can always be felt and understood, but neverdescribed. Can we wonder that they should readily win a heart young,guileless, and susceptible? As to her, she loved almost unconsciously;she scarcely inquired what was the growing passion that was absorbingevery thought and feeling, or what were to be its consequences. She,indeed, looked not to the future. When present, his looks and wordsoccupied her whole attention; when absent, she thought but of what hadpassed at their recent interview. She would wander with him through thegreen lanes and rural scenes of the vicinity. He taught her to see newbeauties in Nature; he talked in the language of polite and cultivatedlife, and breathed into her ear the witcheries of romance and poetry.
Perhaps there could not have been a passion between the sexes more purethan this innocent girl's. The gallant figure of her youthful admirerand the splendor of his military attire might at first have charmed hereye, but it was not these that had captivated her heart. Her attachmenthad something in it of idolatry. She looked up to him as to a being ofa superior order. She felt in his society the enthusiasm of a mindnaturally delicate and poetical, and now first awakened to a keenperception of the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinctionsof rank and fortune she thought nothing; it was the difference ofintellect, of demeanor, of manners, from those of the rustic societyto which she had been accustomed, that elevated him in her opinion. Shewould listen to him with charmed ear and downcast
look of mute delight,and her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm; or if ever she ventured ashy glance of timid admiration, it was as quickly withdrawn, and shewould sigh and blush at the idea of her comparative unworthiness.
Her lover was equally impassioned, but his passion was mingled withfeelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the connection in levity,for he had often heard his brother-officers boast of their villageconquests, and thought some triumph of the kind necessary to hisreputation as a man of spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervor.His heart had not yet been rendered sufficiently cold and selfish by awandering and a dissipated life: it caught fire from the very flame itsought to kindle, and before he was aware of the nature of his situationhe became really in love.
What was he to do? There were the old obstacles which so incessantlyoccur in these heedless attachments. His rank in life, the prejudices oftitled connections, his dependence upon a proud and unyielding father,all forbade him to think of matrimony; but when he looked down uponthis innocent being, so tender and confiding, there was a purity in hermanners, a blamelessness in her life, and a beseeching modesty in herlooks that awed down every licentious feeling. In vain did he try tofortify himself by a thousand heartless examples of men of fashion, andto chill the glow of generous sentiment with that cold derisive levitywith which he had heard them talk of female virtue: whenever he cameinto her presence she was still surrounded by that mysterious butimpassive charm of virgin purity in whose hallowed sphere no guiltythought can live.
The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair to the Continentcompleted the confusion of his mind. He remained for a short time in astate of the most painful irresolution; he hesitated to communicate thetidings until the day for marching was at hand, when he gave her theintelligence in the course of an evening ramble.
The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It broke in atonce upon her dream of felicity; she looked upon it as a sudden andinsurmountable evil, and wept with the guileless simplicity of a child.He drew her to his bosom and kissed the tears from her soft cheek; nordid he meet with a repulse, for there are moments of mingled sorrowand tenderness which hallow the caresses of affection. He was naturallyimpetuous, and the sight of beauty apparently yielding in his arms, theconfidence of his power over her, and the dread of losing her foreverall conspired to overwhelm his better feelings: he ventured to proposethat she should leave her home and be the companion of his fortunes.
He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and faltered at his ownbaseness; but so innocent of mind was his intended victim that she wasat first at a loss to comprehend his meaning, and why she should leaveher native village and the humble roof of her parents. When at lastthe nature of his proposal flashed upon her pure mind, the effect waswithering. She did not weep; she did not break forth into reproach; shesaid not a word, but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper, gave him alook of anguish that pierced to his very soul, and, clasping her handsin agony, fled, as if for refuge, to her father's cottage.
The officer retired confounded, humiliated, and repentant. It isuncertain what might have been the result of the conflict of hisfeelings, had not his thoughts been diverted by the bustle of departure.New scenes, new pleasures, and new companions soon dissipated hisself-reproach and stifled his tenderness; yet, amidst the stir of camps,the revelries of garrisons, the array of armies, and even the din ofbattles, his thoughts would sometimes steal back to the scenes of ruralquiet and village simplicity--the white cottage, the footpath alongthe silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the little village maidloitering along it, leaning on his arm and listening to him with eyesbeaming with unconscious affection.
The shock which the poor girl had received in the destruction of all herideal world had indeed been cruel. Faintings and hysterics had at firstshaken her tender frame, and were succeeded by a settled and piningmelancholy. She had beheld from her window the march of the departingtroops. She had seen her faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph,amidst the sound of drum and trumpet and the pomp of arms. She straineda last aching gaze after him as the morning sun glittered about hisfigure and his plume waved in the breeze; he passed away like a brightvision from her sight, and left her all in darkness.
It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after story. Itwas, like other tales of love, melancholy. She avoided society andwandered out alone in the walks she had most frequented with her lover.She sought, like the stricken deer, to weep in silence and lonelinessand brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul. Sometimesshe would be seen late of an evening sitting in the porch of the villagechurch, and the milk-maids, returning from the fields, would now andthen overhear her singing some plaintive ditty in the hawthorn walk. Shebecame fervent in her devotions at church, and as the old people saw herapproach, so wasted away, yet with a hectic gloom and that hallowed airwhich melancholy diffuses round the form, they would make way for her asfor something spiritual, and looking after her, would shake their headsin gloomy foreboding.
She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb, but lookedforward to it as a place of rest. The silver cord that had bound her toexistence was loosed, and there seemed to be no more pleasure under thesun. If ever her gentle bosom had entertained resentment against herlover, it was extinguished. She was incapable of angry passions, and ina moment of saddened tenderness she penned him a farewell letter. It wascouched in the simplest language, but touching from its very simplicity.She told him that she was dying, and did not conceal from him that hisconduct was the cause. She even depicted the sufferings which she hadexperienced, but concluded with saying that she could not die in peaceuntil she had sent him her forgiveness and her blessing.
By degrees her strength declined that she could no longer leave thecottage. She could only totter to the window, where, propped up inher chair, it was her enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon thelandscape. Still she uttered no complaint nor imparted to any one themalady that was preying on her heart. She never even mentioned herlover's name, but would lay her head on her mother's bosom and weep insilence. Her poor parents hung in mute anxiety over this fading blossomof their hopes, still flattering themselves that it might again reviveto freshness and that the bright unearthly bloom which sometimes flushedher cheek might be the promise of returning health.
In this way she was seated between them one Sunday afternoon; her handswere clasped in theirs, the lattice was thrown open, and the softair that stole in brought with it the fragrance of the clusteringhoneysuckle which her own hands had trained round the window.
Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible: it spoke of thevanity of worldly things and of the joys of heaven: it seemed to havediffused comfort and serenity through her bosom. Her eye was fixed onthe distant village church: the bell had tolled for the evening service;the last villager was lagging into the porch, and everything had sunkinto that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parentswere gazing on her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sorrow, whichpass so roughly over some faces, had given to hers the expression of aseraph's. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. Was she thinking ofher faithless lover? or were her thoughts wandering to that distantchurchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?
Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard: a horseman galloped to thecottage; he dismounted before the window; the poor girl gave a faintexclamation and sunk back in her chair: it was her repentant lover. Herushed into the house and flew to clasp her to his bosom; but herwasted form, her deathlike countenance--so wan, yet so lovely in itsdesolation--smote him to the soul, and he threw himself in agony at herfeet. She was too faint to rise--she attempted to extend her tremblinghand--her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was articulated; shelooked down upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, and closedher eyes forever.
Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village story. Theyare but scanty, and I am conscious have little novelty to recommendthem. In the present rage also for strange incide
nt and high-seasonednarrative they may appear trite and insignificant, but they interestedme strongly at the time; and, taken in connection with the affectingceremony which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on my mindthan many circumstances of a more striking nature. I have passed throughthe place since, and visited the church again from a better motive thanmere curiosity. It was a wintry evening: the trees were stripped oftheir foliage, the churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the windrustled coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had beenplanted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were bentover it to keep the turf uninjured.
The church-door was open and I stepped in. There hung the chaplet offlowers and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral: the flowers werewithered, it is true, but care seemed to have been taken that no dustshould soil their whiteness. I have seen many monuments where art hasexhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of the spectator, but I havemet with none that spoke more touchingly to my heart than this simplebut delicate memento of departed innocence.
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