‘You have told us a very melancholy story,’ said Mr. Forester; ‘but at present, I fear, a very common one, and one of which, if the present system continue, every succeeding year will multiply examples.’
‘Ah, zur!’ said the old man, ‘there was them as vorezeed it long ago, and voretold it too, up in the great house in Lunnon, where they zettles the affairs o’ the nation: a pretty of zettling it be, to my thinking, to vill the country wi’ tax-gatherers and vundholders, and peaper-money men, that turns all the old families out o’ the country, and zends their tenants to the workhouse: but there was them as vorezeed and voretold it too, but nobody minded ’em then: they begins to mind ’em now.’
‘But how do you manage in these times?’ said Mr. Forester.
‘I lives, measter,’ said the old man, ‘and pretty well too, vor myself. I had a little vreehold varm o’ my own, that has been in my vamily zeven hundred year, and we woan’t part wi’ it, I promise you, vor all the tax-collectors and vundholders in England. But my zon was never none o’ your gentleman varmers, none a’ your reacing and hunting bucks, that it’s a shame vor a honest varmer to be: he always zet his shoulder to the wheel — alway a-vield by peep o’ day: zo now I be old, I’ve given up the varm to him; and that I wouldn’t ha’ done to the best man in all the county bezide: but he’s my son, and I loves un. Zo I walks about the vields all day, and sits all the evening in the chimney-corner wi’ an old neighbour or zo, and a jug o’ ale, and talks over old times, when the Openhands, and zuch as they, could afford to live in the homes o’ their vorevathers. It be a bad state o’ things, my measters, and must come to a bad end, zooner or later; but it’ll last my time.’
‘ You are not in the last stage of a consumption, are you, honest friend?’ said Mr. Fax.
‘Lord love you, no, measter,’ said the old farmer, rather frightened; ‘ do I look zo?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Fax; ‘but you talked so.’
‘ Ah! thee beest a wag, I zee,’ said the farmer. ‘ Things be in a conzumption zure enough, but they’ll last my time vor all that; and if they doan’t it’s no fault o’ mine; and I’se no money in the vunds, nor no sinecure pleace, zo I eats my beefsteak and drinks my ale, and lets the world slide.’
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PHANTASM
THE COURSE OF their perambulations brought them into the vicinity of Melincourt, and they stopped at the Castle to inquire if any intelligence had been obtained of Anthelia. The gate was opened to them by old Peter Gray, who informed them that himself and the female domestics were at that time the only inmates of the Castle, as the other male domestics had gone off at the same time with Mr. Hippy in search of their young mistress; and the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss Danaretta were gone to London, because of the opera being open.
Mr. Forester inquired of the manner of Anthelia’s disappearance. Old Peter informed him that she had gone into her library as usual after breakfast, and when the hour of dinner arrived she was missing. The central window was open, as well as the little postern-door of the shrubbery that led into the dingle, the whole vicinity of which they had examined, and had found the recent print of horses’ feet on a narrow green road that skirted the other side of the glen; these traces they had followed till they had totally lost them in a place where the road became hard and rocky, and divided into several branches: the pursuers had then separated into parties of two and three, and each party had followed a different branch of the road, but they had found no clue to guide them, and had hitherto been unsuccessful. He should not himself, he said, have remained inactive, but Mr. Hippy had insisted on his staying to take care of the Castle. He then observed that, as it was growing late, he should humbly advise their continuing where they were till morning. To this they assented, and he led the way to the library.
Everything in the library remained precisely in the place in which Anthelia left it. Her chair was near the table, and the materials of drawing were before it. The gloom of the winter evening, which was now closing in, was deepened through the stained glass of the windows. The moment the door was thrown open, Mr. Forester started, and threw himself forward into the apartment towards Anthelia’s chair; but before he reached it, he stopped, placed his hand before his eyes, and, turning round, leaned for support on the arm of Mr. Fax. He recovered himself in a few minutes, and sate down by the table. Peter Gray, after kindling the fire, and lighting the Argand lamp that hung from the centre of the apartment, went to give directions on the subject of dinner.
Mr. Forester observed, from the appearance of the drawing materials, that they had been hastily left, and he saw that the last subject on which Anthelia had been employed was a sketch of Redrose Abbey. He sate with his head leaning on his hand, and his eyes fixed on the drawing in perfect silence. Mr. Fax thought it best not to disturb his meditations, and took up a volume that was lying open on the table, the last that Anthelia had been reading. It was a posthumous work of the virtuous and unfortunate Condorcet, in which that most amiable and sublime enthusiast, contemplating human nature in the light of his own exalted spirit, had delineated a beautiful vision of the future destinies of mankind.
Sir Oran Haut-ton kept his eyes fixed on the door with looks of anxious impatience, and showed manifest and increasing disappointment at every re-entrance of Old Peter, who at length summoned them to dinner.
Mr. Fax was not surprised that Mr. Forester had no appetite, but that Sir Oran had lost his appeared to him extremely curious. The latter grew more and more uneasy, rose from table, took a candle in his hand, and wandered from room to room, searching every closet and corner in the Castle, to the infinite amazement of Old Peter Gray, who followed him everywhere, and became convinced that the poor gentleman was crazed for love of his young mistress, who, he made no doubt, was the object of his search; and the conviction was strengthened by the perfect inattention of Sir Oran to all his assurances that his dear young lady was not in any of those places which he searched so scrupulously. Sir Oran at length, having left no corner of the habitable part of the Castle unexamined, returned to the dining-room, and throwing himself into a chair began to shed tears in great abundance.
Mr. Fax made his two disconsolate friends drink several glasses of Madeira, by way of raising their spirits, and then asked Mr. Forester what it was that had so affected him on their first entering the library.
Mr. Forester. It was the form of Anthelia, in the place where I first saw her, in that chair by the table. The vision was momentary, but, while it lasted, had all the distinctness of reality.
Mr. Fax. This is no uncommon effect of the association of ideas when external objects present themselves to us after an interval of absence, in their remembered arrangement, with only one form wanting, and that the dearest among them, to perfect the resemblance between the present sensation and the recollected idea. A vivid imagination, more especially when the nerves are weakened by anxiety and fatigue, will, under such circumstances, complete the imperfect scene, by replacing for a moment the one deficient form among those accustomed objects which had long formed its accompaniments in the contemplation of memory. This single mental principle will explain — the — greater number — of credible tales of apparitions, and at — the — same time give — a very — satisfactory reason why a particular spirit is usually found haunting a particular place.
Mr. Forester. Thus Petrarch’s beautiful pictures of the Spirit of Laura on the banks of the Sorga are assuredly something more than the mere fancies of the closet, and must have originated in that system of mental connection, which, under peculiar circumstances, gives ideas the force of sensations. Anxiety and fatigue are certainly great promoters of the state of mind most favourable to such impressions.
Mr. Fax. It was under the influence of such excitements that Brutus — saw the spirit of — Caesar; — and in similar states of feeling — the — phantoms of poetry are — usually supposed to be visible: the ghost of Banquo, for example, and that of Patroclus. But this only holds true of the
poets who paint from nature; for their artificial imitators, when they wish to call a spirit from the vasty deep, are not always so attentive to the mental circumstances of the persons to whom they present it. In the early periods of society, when apparitions form a portion of the general creed; when the life of man is wandering, precarious, and turbulent; when the uncultured wildness of the heath and the forest harmonises with the chimaeras of superstition; and when there is not, as in later times, a rooted principle of reason and knowledge, to weaken such perceptions in their origin, and destroy the seeming reality of their subsequent recollection, impressions of this nature will be more frequent, and will be as much invested with the character of external existence, as the scenes to which they are attached by the connecting power of the mind. They will always be found with their own appropriate character of time, and place, and circumstance. The ghost of the warrior will be seen on the eve of battle by him who keeps his lonely watch near the blaze of the nightly fire, and the spirit of the huntress maid will appear to her lover when he pauses on the sunny heath, or rests in the moonlit cave.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE CHURCHYARD
THE NEXT MORNING Mr. Forester determined on following the mountain road on the other side of the dingle, of which Peter Gray had spoken: but wishing first to make some inquiries of the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, they walked to his vicarage, which was in a village at some distance. Just as they reached it, the reverend gentleman emerged in haste, and seeing Mr. Forester and his friends, said he was very sorry that he could not attend to them just then, as he had a great press of business to dispose of; namely, a christening, a marriage, and a funeral; but he would knock them off as fast as he could, after which he should be perfectly at their service, hoped they would wait in the vicarage till his return, and observed he had good ale and a few bottles of London Particular. He then left them to despatch his affairs in the church.
They preferred waiting in the churchyard. ‘A christening, a marriage, and a funeral!’ said Mr. Forester. ‘With what indifference he runs through the whole drama of human life, raises the curtain on its commencement, superintends the most important and eventful action of its progress, and drops the curtain on its close!’
Mr. Fax. Custom has rendered them all alike indifferent to him. In every human pursuit and profession the routine of ordinary business renders the mind indifferent to all the forms and objects of which that routine is composed. The sexton ‘sings at grave-making’; the undertaker walks with a solemn face before the coffin, because a solemn face is part of his trade; but his heart is as light as if there were no funeral at his heels: he is quietly conning over the items of his bill, or thinking of the party in which he is to pass his evening; and the reverend gentleman who concludes the process, and consigns to its last receptacle the shell of extinguished intelligence, has his thoughts on the wing of the sports of the field or the jovial board of the Squire.
Mr. Forester. Your observation is just. It is this hardening power of custom that gives steadiness to the hand of the surgeon, firmness to the voice of the criminal judge, coolness to the soldier ‘in the imminent deadly breach,’ self-possession to the sailor in the rage of the equinoctial storm. It is under this influence that the lawyer deals out writs and executions as carelessly as he deals out cards at his evening whist; that the gaoler turns the key with the same stern indifference on unfortunate innocence as on hardened villainy; that the venal senator votes away by piecemeal the liberties of his country; and that the statesman sketches over the bottle his series of deliberate schemes for the extinction of human freedom, the enchaining of human reason, and the waste of human life.
Mr. Fax. Contemplate any of these men only in the sphere of their routine, and you will think them utterly destitute of all human sympathy. Make them change places with each other, and you will see symptoms of natural feelings. Custom cannot kill the better feelings of human nature: it merely lays them asleep.
Mr. Forester. You must acknowledge, then, at least, that their sleep is very sound.
Mr. Fax. In most cases certainly as sound as that of Epimenides, or of the seven sleepers of Ephesus. But these did wake at last, and, therefore, according to Aristotle, they had always the capacity of waking.
Mr. Forester. You must allow me to wait for a similar proof before I admit such a capacity in respect to the feelings of some of the characters we have mentioned. Yet I am no sceptic in human virtue.
Mr. Fax. You have no reason to be, with so much evidence before your eyes of the excellence of the past generation, and I do not suppose the present is much worse than its predecessors. Read the epitaphs around you, and see what models and mirrors of all the social virtues have left the examples of their shining light to guide the steps of their posterity.
Mr. Forester. I observe the usual profusion of dutiful sons, affectionate husbands, faithful friends, kind neighbours, and honest men. These are the luxuriant harvest of every churchyard. But is it not strange that even the fertility of fiction should be so circumscribed in the variety of monumental panegyric? Yet a few words comprehend the summary of all the moral duties of ordinary life. Their degrees and diversities are like the shades of colour, that shun for the most part the power of language: at all events, the nice distinctions and combinations that give individuality to historical character scarcely come within the limits of sepulchral inscription, which merely serves to testify the regret of the survivors for one whose society was dear, and whose faults are forgotten. For there is a feeling in the human mind, that, in looking back on former scenes of intercourse with those who are passed for ever beyond the limits of injury and resentment, gradually destroys all the bitterness and heightens all the pleasures of the remembrance; as, when we revert in fancy to the days of our childhood, we scarcely find a vestige of their tears, pains, and disappointments, and perceive only their fields, their flowers, and their sunshine, and the smiles of our little associates.
Mr. Fax. The history of common life seems as circumscribed as its moral attributes: for the most extensive information I can collect from these gravestones is, that the parties married, lived in trouble, and died of a conflict between a disease and a physician. I observe a last request, which I suppose was very speedily complied with — that of a tender husband to his loving wife not to weep for him long. If it be as you say, that the faults of the dead are soon forgotten, yet the memory of their virtues is not much longer lived; and I have often thought that these words of Rabelais would furnish an appropriate inscription for ninety-nine gravestones out of every hundred: — Sa mémoire expira avecque le son des cloches qui carillonèrent à son enterrement.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE RUSTIC WEDDING
THE BRIDE AND bridegroom, with half a dozen of their friends, now entered the churchyard. The bride, a strong, healthy-looking country girl, was clinging to the arm of her lover, not with the light and scarcely perceptible touch with which Miss Simper complies with the request of Mr. Giggle, ‘that she will do him the honour to take his arm,’ but with a cordial and unsophisticated pressure that would have made such an arm as Mr. Giggle’s black and blue. The bridegroom, with a pair of chubby cheeks, which in colour precisely rivalled his new scarlet waistcoat, and his mouth expanded into a broad grin that exhibited the total range of his teeth, advanced in a sort of step that was half a walk and half a dance, as if the preconceived notion of the requisite solemnity of demeanour were struggling with the natural impulses of the overflowing joy of his heart.
Mr. Fax looked with great commiseration on this bridal pair, and determined to ascertain if they had a clear notion of the evils that awaited them in consequence of the rash step they were about to take. He therefore accosted them with an observation that the Reverend Mr. Portpipe was not at leisure, but would be in a few minutes. ‘In the meantime,’ said he, ‘I stand here as the representative of general reason, to ask if you have duly weighed the consequences of your present proceeding.’
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 30