Class. Book / Kmnovtia^tion ot ^uvopmn i^ooi^^. WILEY & PUTNAM Respectfully announce to the Literary Public, that their arrangements for importing English and other Books are fully matured by the fa- cilities afforded by their London Agency, established some years since, and conducted by Mr. PUTNAM, at Stationers' Hall Court, Pater- noster Row, and they are thereby enabled to execute all Orders en- trusted to their care, with the utmost fidelity and despatch. As they are in constant communication with the various Publish- ing Houses established on the Continent of Europe, they are enabled to undertake with certainty the supply of all Books published in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, &c. ; and in addition to this, a well selected stock of Classical and other Books in the languages of these nations is constantly kept on hand. The want of the facilities enumerated above has long been felt, and it will scarcely be necessary to point out all the advantages which they offer to Universities, Colleges, Public Institutions, Professional Gentlemen, and Men of Letters. It will be sufficient to observe that there is no other Establishment peculiarly devoted to the same branch of business, or maintaining so frequent a communication with the Book-markets of Europe. t4.t Single copies of European Books imported with the same care and despatch as larger quantities. Wiley & Putnam's •' Literary News-Letter and Monthly Register of New Books, Foreign and American," will be forwarded by mail, gratis, to any persons furnishing their address. No. 161 Broadway, New YorTc^ February, 1842. Wiley 6^ Putnam's New Publications. JOURNAL AND CORRESPONDENCE OF MISS ADAMS, Daughter of John Adams, second President of the United States. Edited by her Daughter. 2 vols. 12mo. A COMPANION TO THE BOOK OF GENESIS. By Samuel H. Turner, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature and In- terpreter of Scripture in the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and of the Hebrew Language and Litera- ture in Columbia College, New York. In 1 vol, 8vo. NOTICES OF THE WAR IN 1812; By General John Armstrong. In 2 volumes, l2mo. ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS, HISTOniCAL AND ROMANTIC. Translated, with notes, by J. G. Lockhart, Esq. New edition, revised. With a Preliminary Essay on the Origin, Antiquity, Character, and Influence of the Ancient Ballads of Spain; and an Analytical Account^ with Specimens, of the ROMANCE OF THE CID. 1 vol. Svo. THE SERMONS AND POETICAL REMAINS OF THE REV. BENJ. D. WINSLOW, A. M. Assistant to the Rector of St. Mary's, Burlington, N. J. Edited by Bishop Doane. 1 vol. Svo. A NEW TALE OF A TUB. With humorous illustrations. 1 vol. 8va. Wiley 4* Putnam's New Publications, A TREATISE ON THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING; Adapted to North America, with a view to the improvement of Country Residences. By A. J. Downing. 1 vol. 8vo. THE THEORY OF HORTICULTURE ; Or an Attempt to explain the Principal Operations of Gardening upon Physiological Principles. By John Lindley. First American edi- tion, with notes, &c. by Dr. A. Gray and A. J. Downing, Esq. With numerous illustrations on wood. 1 vol. 12mo. LECTURES ON AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY; Read before the Durham County Agricultural Society and the Members of the Durham Farmers' Club. By James F. W. Johnston, Professor of Chemistry and Geology in the tlniversity of Durham. Part I. BLACKLOCK'S TREATISE ON SHEEP ; With the Best Means for their Improvement, General Management, and the Treatment of their Diseases. With a.Chapter on Wool, and History of the Wool Trade. 1 vol. 12mo. BOSWELL'S POULTRY- YARD. A Practical View of the Best Method of Selecting, Rearing, and Breed- ing the various species of Domestic Fowl. 1 vol. royal l8mo. A FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA. By John Torre y, M. D. and Asa Gray, M. D. Vol. I. (Vol. II. in press.) Wiley 4* PutnarrCs New Publications. PASSAIC; A Group of Poems touching that River, with other Musings, By Flaccus. 1 vol. 12mo. A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE DISEASES OF CHILDREN. By James Stewart, M. D. 1 vol. 8vo. A CRITICAL GRAMMAR OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. By Isaac Nordheimer, Phil. Doc, Professor of Arabic and other Ori- ental Languages in the University of New York. 3 vols. 8vo. A GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF SELECTIONS FROM THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES, By the same Author, 1 vol. 8vo. A COMPLETE HEBREW AND CHALDEE CONCORD- ANCE TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Together with an Introduction and Appendices. By Dr. Isaac Nordheimer and W. Wadden Turner. *** This work, in which is also embodied a Hebrew-English Lexicon, will be published at short intervals, in 9 parts. A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ; From the Ascension of Jesus Christ to the Conversion of Constantine. By the Rev. Edward Burton. With a Memoir of the Author, &c. &c. 1 vol. 12mo. WAR AND PEACE ; The Evils of the first, and a Plan for preserving the last. By William Jay. 1 vol. 12mo. > U , aj 0^:^^^-%^^"^^-^: /^^> CHAPTERS O N CHURCHYARDS. JAS. P. WEIGHT, PRINTER, 18 New Street, near Wall, New York. CHAPTERS O N CHURCHYARDS. B Y CAROLINE SOUTHEY, AUTHORESS OF "SOLITARY HOURS,' &C. &G. &C. NEW. YORK : WILEY AND PUTNAM. M DCCCXLir. ~?R ^^^ ^ r\ V CONTENTS. PAGE Churchyards Chap. I. 1 Chap. II 7 Chap. Ill 14 Chap. IV 29 Chap.V ■. 38 Chap. VI 50 Chap. VII 62 Chap. VIII 74 Chap. IX 85 Broad Summerford Chap. X 103 Chap. XI 116 Chap. XII 133 The Haunted Churchyard Chap. XIII 147 Andrew Cleaves Chap. XIV 164 Chap. XV 182 Chap. XVI 195 Chap. XVII 203 Chap. XVIII 212 Chap. XIX 224 Grave of the Broken Heart. ..Chap. XX 234 Chap. XXI 246 Chap. XXII 256 Chap. XXIII 272 Chap. XXIV ■ 285 Chap. XXV 296 Chap. XXVI 311 TO CAROLINE BOWLES Could I look forward to a dietant day With hope of building some elaborate lay, Then would I wait till worthier strains of mine Might bear inscribed thy name, O Caroline ! For I would, while my voice is heard on earth. Bear witness to thy genius and thy worth. But we have both been taught to feel with fear, How frail the tenure of existence here, What unforseen calamities prevent, Alas ! how oft, the best resolved intent ; And therefore this poor volume* I address To thee, dear friend, and sister Poetess. ROBERT SOUTHEY. Keswick, 21 Feb., 1829. * All for Love, or a Sinner well saved. CHAPTERS ON CHURCHYARDS, CHAPTER I. Many are the idle tourists who have hahbled of country churchyards — many are the able pens which have been employed on the same sul)jocts. One in particular, in the deli^htlul olio of the " Sketch-book," has traced a picture so true to nature, so beautifully simple and pathetic, that succeeding essayists might well despair of success in at- tempting similar descriptions, wore not the theme, in fact, inexhaustible, a source of endless variety, a volume of in- structive records, whereof those marked with least incident are yet replete with interest for that human being who stands alone amongst the quiet graves, musing on the mys- tery of his own existence, and on the j)ast and present state of those poor relics of mortality which every where surround him, mouldering beneath his feet — mingling with the common soil — f(;eding the rank churchyard vege- tt'ition — once sentient like himself with vigorous life, sub- ject to all the tumultuous passions that agitate his own heart, j)regnant with a thousand busy sch(;mes, elevated and depressed by alternate hopes and f(;ars — liahh;, in a word, to all the pains, the pleasures, and " the ills, that flesh is heir to." The leisurely traveller arriving at a country inn, with the intention of tarrying a day, an hour, or a yet shorter 1 Hr'' ^ CHURCHYARDS. period, in the town or village, generally finds time to saun- ter towards the church, and even to loiter about its sur- rounding graves, as if his nature (solitary in the midst of the living crowd) claimed affinity, and sought communion, with the populous dust beneath his feet. Such, at least, are the feelings with which I have often lingered in the churchyard of a strange place, and about the church itself — to which, .indeed, in all places, and in all countries, the heart of the Christian pilgrim feels itself at- tracted as towards his very home, for there at least, though alone amongst a strange people, he is no stranger : It is his Father's house. I am not sure that I heartily approve the custom — rare in this country, but frequent in many others — of planting flowers and flowering shrubs about the graves. I am quite sure that I hate all the sentimental mummery with which the far-famed burying-place of the Pere la Chaise is gar- nished out. It is faithfully in keeping with Parisian taste, and perfectly in unison with French feeling ; but I should * wonder at the profound sympathy with which numbers of my own countrymen expatiate on that pleasure-ground of Death, if it were still possible to feel surprise at any in- stance of degenerate taste and perverted feeling in our tra- velled islanders — if it were not, too, the vulgarest thing in the world to wonder at any thing. The custom, so general in Switzerland, and so common in our own principality of Wales, of strewing flowers over the graves of departed friends, either on the anniversaries of their deaths, or on other memorable days, is touching and beautiful. Those frail blossoms scattered over the green sod, in their morning freshness, but for a little space retain their balmy odours, and their glowing tints, till the sun goes down, and the breeze of evening sighs over them, and the dews of night fall on their pale beauty, and the withered and fading wreath becomes a yet more appropri- ate tribute to the silent dust beneath. But rose-trees in full bloom, and tall staring lilies, and flaunting lilacs, and pert priggish spirafrutexes, are, methinks, ill in harmony with that holiness of perfect repose which should pervade the CHAPTER I. last resting-place of mortality. Even in our own unsenti- mental England, I have seen two or three of these flower- plot graves. One, in particular, I remember, had been planned and planted by a young disconsolate widow, to the memory of her deceased partner. The tomb itself was a common square erection of freestone, covered over with a slab of black marble, on which, under the name, age, dec, of the defunct, was engraven an elaborate epitaph, com- memorating his many virtues, and pathetically intimating, that, at no distant period, the vacant space remaining on the same marble would receive the name of " his inconsola- ble Eugenia." The tomb was hedged about by a basket- work of honey-suckles. A Persian lilac drooped over its foot, and, at the head, (substituted for the elegant cypress, coy denizen of our ungenial clime,) a young poplar perked up its pyramidical form. Divers other shrubs and flower- ing plants completed the ring-fence, plentifully interspersed with " the fragrant weed, the Frenchman's darling," whose perfume, when I visited the spot, was wafted over the whole churchyard. It was then the full flush of summer. The garden had been planted but a month ; but the lady had tended, and propped, and watered those gay strangers with her own delicate hands, evermore in the dusk of eve- ning returning to her tender task, so that they had taken their removal kindly, and grew and flourished as carelessly round that cold marble, and in that field of graves, as they had done heretofore in their own sheltered nursery. A year afterwards — a year almost to a day — I stood once more on that same spot, in the same month — " the leafy month of June." But — it was leafless there. The young poplar still stood sentinel in its former station, but dry, withered, and sticky, like an old broom at the mast-head of a vessel on sale. The parson's cow, and his half score fat- ting wethers, had violated the sacred enclosure, and trodden down its flowery basket-work into the very soil. The plants and shrubs were nibbled down to miserable stumps, and from the sole survivor, the poor straggling lilac, a fat old wad- dling ewe had just cropped the last sickly flower-branch, and stood staring at rae with a pathetic vacancy of counte- 4 CHURCHYARDS. nance, the half-munched consecrated blossom dangling from her sacrilegious jaws. "And is it even so?" I half-articu- lated, with a sudden thrill of irrepressible emotion. " Poor widowed mourner ! lovely Eugenia ! Art thou already re- united to the object of thy faithful affection ? And so late- ly ! Not yet on that awaiting space on the cold marble have they inscribed thy gentle name. And those fragile memorials ! were there none to tend them for thy sake ?" Such was my sentimental apostrophe ; and the unwonted impulse so far incited me, that I actually pelted away the sheep from that last resting-place of faithful love, and reared against its side the trailing branches of the neglected lilac. Well satisfied with myself for the performance of this pious act, I turned from the spot in a mood of calm, pleasing melancholy, that, by degrees, (while I yet lingered about the churchyard,) resolved itself into a train of poetic reverie, and I was already far advanced in a sort of elegiac tribute to the memory of that fair being, whose tender na- ture had sunk under the stroke " that reft her mutual heart," when the horrid interruption of a loud shrill whistle startled me from my poetic vision, cruelly disarranging the beautiful combination of high-wrought tender, pathetic feel- ings, which were flowing naturally into verse, as from the very fount of Helicon. Lifting my eyes towards the vul- gar cause of this vulgar disturbance, the cow-boy (for it was he, "who whistled as he went, for want of thought") nod- ded to me his rustic apology for a bow, and passed on to- wards the very tomb I had just quitted, near which his milky charge, the old brindled cow, still munched on, avaricious of the last mouthful. If the clown's obstreperous mirth had before broken in on my mood of inspiration, its last delicate glow was utterly dispelled by the uncouth vociferation, and rude expletives, with which he proceeded to dislodge the persevering animal from her rich pasture-ground. Insensi- ble alike to his remonstrances, his threats, or his tender per- suasion — to his " Whoy ! whoy, old girl ! Whoy, Blossom ! Whoy, my lady ! — I say, come up, do ; come up, ye plaguey baste !" Blossom continued to munch and ruminate with the most imperturbable calmness — ^backing and sideling CHAPTER I. O away, however, as her pursuer made nearer advances, and ever and anon looking up at him with most provoking as- surance, as if to calculate how many tufts she might ven- ture to pull before he got fairly within reach of her. And so, retrograding and manoeuvring, she at last intrenched herself behind the identical tombstone beside which I had stood so lately in solemn contemplation. Here — the cow- boy's patience being completely exhausted — with the inten- tion of switching old Blossom from her last stronghold, he caught up, and began tearing from the earth, that one long straggling stem of lilac which I had endeavoured to replace in somewhat of its former position. "Hold! hold!" I cried, springing forward with the vehement gesture of im- passioned feeling — " have you no respect for the ashes of the dead ? Dare you thus violate with sacrilegious hands the last sad sanctuary of faithful love ?" The boy stood like one petrified, stared at me for a moment with a look of indescribable perplexity, then screwing one corner of his mouth almost into contact with the corresponding corner of one crinkled-up eye — at the same time shoving up his old ragged hat, and scratching his curly pate ; and having, as I suppose, by the help of that operation, construed my ve- hement address into the language of inquiry, he set himself very methodically about satisfying my curiosity on every point wherever he conceived it possible I might have inter- rogated him — taking his cue, with some ingenuity, from the one word of my oration which was familiar to his ear — " Dead ! Ees, Squoire been dead twelve months last Whit- suntide ; and thick be his'n moniment, an' madam was mar- ried last week to our measter, an' thick be our cow — " Oh, Reader ! Is it to be wondered at, that, since that adventure, I have ever been disposed to look wth an wwglisteniing, and even cynical eye, on those same flower-plot graves] Nay, that at sight of them I feel an extraordinary degree of hardheartedness stealing over me ? I cannot quit the sub- ject without offering a word or two of well-meant advice to all disconsolate survivors — widows more especially — as to the expediency or non-expediency of indulging this flowery 1* 6 CHURCHYARDS. grief. Possibly, were I to obey the dictates of my own tastes and feelings, I should say, "Be content with a simple record- — ^perhaps a scriptural sentence, on a plain headstone. Suffer not the inscription to become defaced and illegible, nor rank weeds to wave over it ; and smooth be the turf of the green hillock ! But if — ^to use a French phrase — 11 faut afficher ses regrets — if there must be effect, sentimen- talities, prettinesses, urns, flowers — not only a few scattered blossoms, but a regular planted border, like the garnish of a plateau — then, let me beseech you, fair inconsolables ! be cautious in your proceedings. Temper with discreet fore- sight (if that be possible) the first agonizing burst of sensi- bility — Take the counsels of sage experience — temporize with the as yet unascertained nature of your own feelings — Proclaim not those vegetable vows of eternal fidelity — Re- frain, at least, from the trowel and the spade — Dig not — plant not — For one year only — for the first year, at least — For one year only, I beseech you — sow annuals." CHAPTER II. CHAPTER II. In parts of Warwickshire, and some of the adjacent coun- ties, more especially in the churchyards of the larger towns, the frightful fashion of black tombstones is almost universal. Black tombstones, tall and slim, and lettered in gold, look- ing, for all the world, like bolt upright coffin lids. I mar- vel the worthy natives do not go a step farther in their tasteful system, and coat their churches over with the same lugubrious hue, exempting only the brass weathercocks, and the gilded figures on the clock faces. The whole scene would unquestionably be far more in keeping, and even sublime in stupendous ugliness. Some village burying- grounds have, however, escaped this barbarous adornment ; and in Warwickshire particularly, and within the circuit of a few miles round Warwick itself, are very many small, pic- turesque, hamlet churches, each surrounded by its lowly flock of green graves, and grey headstones ; the church- yards, for the most part, separated only by a sunk fence, or a slight railing, from the little sheltered grass-plot of a small neat rectory, the casements of which generally front the long east window of the church. I like this proximity of the pastor's dwelling to his Master's house ; nay, of the abode of the living to the sanctuary of the dead. It seems to me to remove in part the great barrier of separation be- tween the two worlds. The end of life, it is true, lies be- fore us. The end of this life, with all its host of vanities and perturbations ; but immediately from thence we step upon the threshold of the holy place, before the gates of v/hich no commissioned angel stands with a flaming sword, barring our entrance to the tree of life. It would seem to me that thus abiding, as it were, under the very shadow of the sacred walls, and within sight of man's last earthly resting-place, I should feel, as in a charmed circle, more '8 CHURCHYARDS. secure from the power of evil influences, than if exposed to their assaults, on the great open desert of the busy world. Therefore, I like this proximity so frequently observable in the little hamlets I have described. In one or two instan- ces, indeed, I perceived that attempts had been made to ex- clude the view of the church and churchyard from the rec- tory windows, by planting a few clumps of evergreens, that looked as unmeaningly stuck there as heart could wish. Miserable taste that ! " but let it pass," as the Courier said lately of one of your finest poetical articles, Mr. North. I never saw a more perfect picture of beautiful repose, than presented itself to me in one of my evening walks last summer. One of the few evening walks it was possible to enjoy during the nominal reign of that freezing, dripping summer. I came abruptly upon a small church, and burial ground, and rectory, all combined and embowered within a space that the eye could take in at one glance, and a pleasant glance it was ! The west window of the church was lighted up with red and glowing effulgence — not with the gorgeous hues of ar- tificial colouring, but with the bright banners of the setting sun ; and strongly-defined shadows, and mouldings of gold- en light, marked out by the rude tracery of the low ivied tower, and the heavy stone-work of the deep narrow win- dows, and the projections of the low massy buttresses, ir- regularly applied, in defiance of all architectural proportion, as they had become necessary to the support of the ancient edifice. And here and there on the broken slanting of the buttresses, and on their projecting ledges, might be seen patches of green and yellow moss, so exquisitely bright, that methought the jewelry with which Aladdin enchased the windows of his enchanted palace, was dull and colour- less compared with the vegetable emeralds and topases, wherewith " Nature's own sweet and cunning hand" had blazoned that old church. And the low headstones also — some half-sunk into the churchyard mould — many carved out into cherubim, with their trumpeters' cheeks and ex- panded wings, or with the awful emblems of death's-heads, CHAPTER 11. 9 cross-bones, and hour-glasses ! The low headstones, with their rustic scrolls, " that teach us to live and die," those also were edged and tinted with the golden gleam, and it stretched in long floods of amber light athwart the soft green turf, kissing the nameless hillocks ; and, on one lit- tle grave in particular, (it must have been that of an in- fant,) methought the departing glory lingered with peculiar brightness. Oh ! it was a beautiful churchyard. A stream of running water intersected it almost close to the church wall. It was clear as crystal, running over grey pebbles, with a sound that chimed harmoniously in with the general character of the scene, low, soothing, monotonous, dying away into a liquid whisper, as the rivulet shrank into a shallow and still shallower channel, matted with moss and water plants, and closely overhung by the low underwood of an adjoining coppice, within whose leafy labyrinth it stole at last silently away. It was an unusual and a lovely thing to see the grave-stones, and the green hillocks, with the very wild-flowers (daisies and buttercups) growing on them, reflected in the little rill as it wound among them — the reversed objects, and glancing colours, shifting, blend- ing, and trembling, in the broken ripple. That and the voice of the water! It was " Life in Death." One felt that the sleepers below were but gathered for a v/hile into their quiet chambers. Nay, their very sleep was not voiceless. On the edges of the graves — on the moist margin of the stream, grew many tufts of the beautiful " Forget me not." Never, sure, was such appropriate station for that meek elo- quent flower ! Such was the churchyard, from which, at about ten yards' distance from the church, a slight low railing, with a latch wicket, divided ofl* a patch of the loveliest green sward, (yet but a continuation of the churchyard turf,) backed with tall elm, and luxuriant evergreens, amongst which peeped modestly out the little neat rectory. It was constructed of the same rough grey stone with the church. Long, low, with far projecting eaves, and casement win- dows facing that large west window of the church, still flaming with the reflected splendour of the setting sun. 10 CHURCHYARDS. His orb was sinking to rest behind the grove, half-embow- ering the small dwelling, which stood in the perfect quiet- ness of its own shadow, the dark green masses of jasmine, clustering round its porch and windows, scarcely revealing (but by their exquisite odour) the pure white blossoms that starred "its lovely gloom." But their fragrance floated on the gentle breath of even- ing, mingled with the perfume of mignonette, and the long- fingered marvels of Peru, (the pale daughters of twilight,) and innumerable sweet flowers, blooming in their beds of rich black mould, close under the lattice windows. These were all flung wide, for the evening was still and sultry ; and one, opening down to the ground, showed the interior of a very small parlour, plainly and modestly furnished, but panelled all round with well-filled book-cases. A lady's harp stood in one corner, and in another two fine globes, and an orrery. Some small flower-baskets, filled with roses, were dispersed about the room ; and at a table near the window sat a gentleman writing, or rather leaning over a writing desk with a pen in his hand, for his eyes were di- rected towards the gravel-walk before the window, where a lady — an elegant-looking woman, whose plain white robe and dark uncovered hair well became the sweet matronly expression of her fax^e and figure — was anxiously stretching out her encouraging arms to her little daughter, who came laughing and tottering towards her on the soft green turf, her tiny feet, as they essayed their first independent steps in the eventful walk of life, twisting and turning with graceful awkwardness, and unsteady pressure, under the disproportionate weight of her fair^ fat person. It was a sweet, heart-thrilling sound, the joyous, crowing laugh of that little creature, when with one last, bold, mighty effort, she reached the maternal arms, and was caught up to the maternal bosom, and half-devoured with kisses, in an ecsta- sy of unspeakable love. As if provoked to emulous loudness by that mirthful out- cry, and impatient to mingle its clear notes with that young, innocent voice, a blackbird, embowered in a tall, neighbour- ing bay-tree, poured out forthwith such a flood of full, rich CHAPTEE II. 11 melody, as stilled the baby's laugh, and for a moment ar- rested its observant ear. — But for a moment, — The kindred natures burst out into full chorus ; — the baby clapped her hands, and laughed aloud, and after her fashion, mocked the unseen songstress. The bird redoubled her tuneful ef- forts ; and still the baby laughed, and still the bird re- joined ; and both together raised such a melodious din that the echoes of the old church rang again ; and never since the contest of the nightingale with her human rival, was heard such an emulous conflict of musical skill. I could have laughed for company, from my unseen lurking-place, within the dark shadow of one of the church buttresses. It was altogether such a scene as I shall never forget — one from which I could hardly tear myself away. Nay, I did not. I stood motionless as a statue in my dark- grey niche, till the objects before me became indistinct in twihght — till the last slanting sunbeams had withdrawn from the highest panes of the church window — till the blackbird's song was hushed, and the baby's voice was still, and the mother and her nursling had retreated into their quiet dwelling, and the evening taper gleamed through the fallen white curtain, and still open window. But yet be- fore that curtain fell, another act of the beautiful pantomime had passed in review before me. The mother, with her in- fant in her arms, had seated herself in a low chair within the little parlour. She untied the frock-strings, drew off that and the second upper garments dexterously, and at inter- vals, as the restless frolics of the still unwearied babe af- forded opportunity ; and there it was in its little coat and stay, the fat white shoulders shrugged up in antic merri- ment far above the slackened shoulder-straps. Then the mother's hand slipped off one soft red shoe ; and, having done so, her lips were pressed, almost, as it seemed, involun- tarily, to the little naked foot she still held. The other, as if in proud love of liberty, had spurned off to a distance the fellow shoe ; and now the darling, disarrayed for its inno- cent slumbers, was hushed and quieted, but not yet to rest ; the night-dress was still to be put on, and the little crib was not there : — not yet to rest, but to the mighty duty already 12 CHURCHYARDS. required of the young Christian ! — And in a moment it was hushed — and in a moment the small hands were pressed to- gether between the mother's hands, and the sweet serious eyes were raised and fixed upon the mother's eyes, (there beamed, as yet, the infant's heaven,) and one saw that it was lisping out its unconscious prayer — unconscious, not surely unaccepted. A kiss from the maternal lips was the token of God's approval : — and then she rose, and, gather- ing up the scattered garments in the same clasp with the half-naked babe, she held it smiling to its father, and one saw in the expression of his face, as he upraised it after hav- ing imprinted a kiss on that of his child — one saw in it all the holy fervour of a father's blessing. Then the mother withdrew with her little one — and then the curtain fell, — and still I lingered ; for, after the inter- val of a few minutes, sweet sounds arrested my departing footsteps. A few notes of the harp, a low prelude stole sweetly out — a voice still sweeter, mingling its tones with a simple, quiet accompaniment, swelled out gradually into a strain of sacred harmony, and the words of the evening hymn came wafted towards the house of prayer. Then all was still in the cottage, and around it ; and the perfect si- lence, and the deepening shadows, brought to my mind more forcibly the lateness of the hour, and warned me to turn my face homewards. So I moved a few steps, and yet again I lingered, lingered still ; for the moon was rising, and the stars were shining out in the clear, cloudless heaven, and the bright reflection of one danced and glittered like a liquid fire-fly, on the ripple of the stream, just where it gli- ded into a darker, deeper pool, beneath a little rustic foot- bridge, which led from the churchyard into a shady green lane, communicating with the neighbouring hamlet. On that bridge I stopped a minute longer — and yet ano- ther and another minute — for I listened to the voice of the running water : and methought it was yet more mellifluous, more soothing, more eloquent, at that still shadowy hour, when only that little star looked down upon it with its tremulous beam, than when it danced and glittered in the CHAPTER II. 13 warm glow of sunshine. There are hearts like that stream, and they will understand the metaphor. The unutterable things I felt and heard in that mysterious music ! — Every sense became absorbed in that of hearing ; and so spell-bound, I might have stayed on that very spot till midnight, nay, till the stars paled before the morning beam, if the deep, solemn sound of the old church clock had not broken in on my dream of profound abstraction, and startled me away with half incredulous surprise, as its iron tongue proclaimed, stroke after stroke, the tenth hour of the night. fi^ 14 CHURCHYARDS. '.^' CHAPTER III. Within a short distance of my own habitation stands a picturesque old church, remote from any town or hamlet, save that village of the dead contained within the precincts of its own sequestered burial-ground. It is, however, the parish church of a large rural district comprising several small hamlets, and numerous farms and cottages, together with the scattered residences of the neighbouring gentry ; and hither (there being no other place of worship within the parish boundary) its population may be seen for the most part resorting on Sundays, by various roads, lanes, heath- tracks, coppice and field-paths, all diverging from that con- secrated centre. The church itself, nearly in the midst of a very beautiful churchyard, rich in old carved head-stones, and bright verdure roofing the nameless graves — the church itself stands on the brow of a finely wooded knoll, command- ing a diversified expanse of heath, forest, and cultivated land ; and it is a beautiful sight on Sundays, on a fine au- tumn Sunday in particular, when the ferns are assuming their rich browns, and the forest-trees their exquisite grada- tions of colour, such as no limner upon earth can paint — to see the people approaching in all directions, now winding in long straggling files over the open common, now abrupt- ly disappearing amongst its innumerable shrubby declivities, and again emerging into sight through the boles of the old oaks that encircle the churchyard, standing in their majes- tic beauty, like sentinels over the slumbers of the dead. From two several quarters across the heath, approach the more condensed currents of the living stream ; one, the in- habitants of a far distant hamlet, the other, comprising the population of two smaller ones within a shorter dis- tance of the church. And from many lanes and leafy glades, and through many field-paths and stiles, advance CHAPTER in. 15 small groups of neighbours, and families, and social pairs, and here and there a solitary aged person, who totters lei- surely along, supported by his trusty companion, his stout oak staff, not undutifully consigned by his neglectful chil- dren to that silent companionship, but willingly loitering behind to enjoy the luxury of the aged, the warmth of the cheerful sunbeams, the serene beauty of nature, the fruitful aspect of the ripening corn-fields, the sound of near and mirthful voices, the voices of children and grandchildren, and a sense of quiet happiness, partaking surely of that peaQC which passeth all understanding. And sometimes the venerable Elder comes, accompanied by his old faithful helpmate, and then they may be seen once more side by side, her arm again locked within his as in the days of courtship, not, as then, resting on his more vigorous frame, for they have grown old and feeble to- gether ; and of the twain, the burden of years lies heaviest upon the husband, for his has been the hardest portion of labour. In the prime of life, during the full flush of his manly vigour, and of her healthful comeliness, he was wont to walk sturdily onward, discoursing between-whiles with his buxom partner, as she followed with her little ones ; but now they are grown up into men and women, dispersed about in their several stations, and have themselves young ones to care and provide for ; and the old couple are, as it were, left to begin the world again, alone in their quiet cot- tage. Those two alone together, as when they entered it fifty years agone, bridegroom and bride — alone, but not for- saken — sons, and daughters, and grandchildren, as each can snatch an interval of leisure, or when the labours of the day are over, come dropping in under the honeysuckle porch, with their hearty greetings ; and many a chubby great-grandchild finds its frequent way to Grannum's cot- tage ; many a school truant, and many a " toddlin' wee thing," whose little hand can hardly reach the latch of the low wicket, but whose baby call of "flichterin' noise an' glee" gains free and fond admittance. And now they are on their way together, the old man and his wife. See ! — they have just passed through the last field-gate leading 16 CHURCHYARDS. thitherward to the church. They are on their way together towards the house of God, and towards the place where they shall soon lie down to rest "in sure and certain hope ;" and they lean on one another for mutual support ; and would it not seem as they are thus again drawn closer to- gether, as they approach nearer to the term of their earthly union, as if it were a type and token of an eternal reunion in a better and a happier state ? I love to gaze upon that venerable pair — ay, even to note their decent, antiquated Sabbath raiment. What mortal tailor — no modern one to-he-sure — can have carved out that coat of indescribable colour — something of orange tawny with a reddish tinge ! I suspect it has once been a rich Devonshire brown, and perhaps the wedding-suit of the squire's grandfather, for it has had a silk lining, and it has been trimmed with some sort of lace, gold probably ; and there adown each side are still the resplendent rows of em- bossed, basket-work, gilt buttons, as large as crown-pieces : it must have been the squire's grandfather's wedding-suit. And how snowy-white, and how neatly plaited is the single edge of his old dame's plain mob cap, surmounted by that little black poke bonnet, flounced with rusty lace, and se- cured upon her head, not by strings, but by two long black corking pins ! That bit of black lace, of real lace, is a treasured remnant of what once trimmed her mistress's best cloak, when she herself was a blithe and buxom lass, in the days of her happy servitude ; and the very cloak itself, once a rich mode silk of ample dimensions, now narrowed and curtailed, to repair, with many cunning ingraftings, the ravages of time — the very cloak itself, with a scrap of the same lace frilled round the neck, is still worn on Sundays, through the summer and autumn, till early frosts and keen- er winds pierce through the thin old silk, and the good red-hooded cloak is substituted in its stead. They have reached the churchyard wicket ; they have passed through it now, and wherefore do they turn aside from the path, a few steps beyond it, and stop and look down upon that grassy hillock ? It is no recent grave, the daisies are thickly matted on its green sod, and the heap CHAPTER III. 17 itself has sunk to a level nearly even with the flat ground. The little headstone is half-buried too, but you may read thereon the few words, the only ones ever engraven there — "William Moss, aged 22:"" Few living now remember William Moss. Few at least think of him. The play- mates of his childhood, the companions of his youth, his brothers and sisters, pass weekly by his lonely grave, and none turn aside to look upon it, or to think of him who sleeps beneath. But in the hearts of his parents the memo- ry of their dead child is as fresh as their affections for their living children. He is not dead to them, though eight-and- twenty years ago they saw that turf heaped over his coffin — over the coffin of their eldest born. He is not dead to them ; and every Sabbath-day they tarry a moment by his lowly grave, and even now, as they look thereon in silence, does not the heart of each parent whisper, as if to the sleeper below, " My son ! we shall go to thee, though thou shalt not return to us." Look down yonder under those arching hawthorns ! — what mischief is confederating there amongst those sun- burnt, curly-pated boys, clustering together, over the stile and about it, like a bunch of swarming bees ? The con- fused sound of their voices is like the hum of a swarm too ; and they are debating of grave and weighty matters — of nuts ripening in thick clusters down in Fairlee Copse — of trouts, of prodigious magnitude, leaping by the bridge be- low the Mill-head — of apples — and the young heads crowd closer together, and the buzzing voices sink to a whisper — " of cherry-cheeked apples, hanging just within reach of one who should climb upon the roof of the old shed, by the corner of the south wall of Squire Mills' orchard." — Ah, Squire Mills ! I would not give sixpence for all the apples you shall gather off that famous red-streak to-morrow. But who comes there across the field towards the stile ? A very youthful couple — sweethearts, one should guess, if it were not that they were so far asunder, and look as if they had not spoken a word to each other this half hour. Ah ! they were not so far asunder before they turned out of the shady lane into that open field, in sight of all the folk 3* 18 CHURCHYARDS. gathering into the churchyard, and of those mischievous boys, one of whom is brother to that pretty Fanny Payne, whose downcast looks, and grave sober walk, so far from the young miller, will not save her from running the gauntlet of their teasing jokes as she passes — and pass she must, through the knot of conspirators. Never mind it, Fanny Payne ! put a good face on the matter, and, above all, beware of knitting up that fair brow into any thing like a frown, as you steal a passing glance at that provoking brother of yours ; it will only bring down upon you a thicker shower of saucy jests. See, see ! that little old man — so old and shrivelled, and lean and wizen, and mummy-coloured ; he looks as if he had been embalmed and inhumed a century ago, and had just now walked out of his swathing-bands, a specimen of the year one thousand seven hundred and ten. His peri- wig is so well plastered with flour and hog's lard, that its large sausage side-curls look as durably consistent, as the " eternal buckles cut in Parian stone" that have immortal- ized Sir Cloudesley Shovel ; and from behind dangles half- way down his back, a long taper pig-tail, wound round with black riband, the which, about half-way, is tied into an ele- gant rosette. On the top of that same periwig is perched a diminutive cocked hat — with such a cock ! — so fierce ! — so triangular ! — the little squat .crown so buried within its triple fortification ! The like was never seen, save in the shape of those coloured sugar comfits called cocked hats, that are stuck up in long glasses in the confectioners' windows, to at- tract the eyes of poor longing urchins ; and his face is tri- angular too, the exact centre of his forehead, where it meets the periwig, being the apex thereof; his nose is tri- angular ; his little red eyes are triangular ; his person is altogether triangular, from the sloping narrow shoulders, to where it widens out, corresponding with the broad, square, fantail flaps of that green velveteen coat. He is a walking triangle ! and he carries his cane behind him, holding it with both hands wide apart, exactly parallel with the square line of his coat flaps. See ! he is bustling up to join that small group of substantial farmers, amongst whom he is evidently CHAPTER III. 19 a person of no small consequence ; they think him, " as one should say, Sir Oracle," for he knows every fluctuation of stocks to a fraction ; criticises the minister's discourses ; expounds the prophecies ; explains all about the millennium, and the number of the beast ; foretells changes of weather ; knows something of physic and surgery ; gives charms for the ague and rheumatiz ; makes ink, mends pens, and writes a wonderful fine hand, with such flourishes, that, without taking his pen oflTthe paper, he can represent the fig- ures of Adam and Eve, in the involutions composing the initial capitals of their names ! He is " Sir Oracle ;" and not the less so, because people do not exactly know what he has been, and where he comes from. Some think he has been a schoolmaster ; others conjecture that he has been a doctor of some sort, or a schemer in mechanics, about which he talks very scientifically ; or in the funds ; or in some foreign commercial concern ; for he has certainly lived long in foreign parts, and is often heard talking to his old grey parrot in some outlandish tongue, and the bird seems to understand it well, and replies in the same language. There are not wanting some who suspect that he has not been always in his perfect mind ; but however that may be, he is perfectly harmless now, and has conducted himself unexceptionably ever since he came to settle in the village of Downe, ten years ago. In all that time he has never been known to receive within his dwelling any for- mer friend or kinsman, and he has never stirred beyond the boundary of the parish, but to go once a-year to the bank- er's in the nearest town, to receive a small sum of money, for which he draws on a mercantile house in Lombard Street. He boards and lodges with a widow who has a neat little cottage in the village, and he cultivates the finest polyanthuses and auriculas in the flower-plot, of which she has yielded up the management to him, that were ever beheld in that neighbourhood. He is very fond of flowers, and dumb animals, and children ; and all the children in the place love him, and the old white Pomeranian dog, blind of one eye, who follows his master every where except to 20 CHURCHYARDS. church. Now, you know as much as I or any one know3 of Master Jacob Marks, more, perhaps, than was worth telling, but I could not leave such an original subject half- sketched. Behold that jolly -looking farmer and his family approach- ing up the green lane that leads from their habitation, that old substantial-looking farm-house yonder, half embowered in its guardian elms. They are a portly couple, the farmer and his wife ! He a hale, florid, fine-looking man, on whose broad open brow time has scarcely imprinted a furrow, though it has changed to silky whiteness the raven hue of those locks once so thickly clustered about his temples. There is a conscious- ness of wealth and prosperity, and of rural consequence, in his general aspect and deportment ; but if he loves the good things of this world, and prides himself in possessing them, there is nothing in the expression of his countenance that bespeaks a selfish and narrow heart, or a covetous dis- position. He looks willing to distribute of his abundance ; and greetings of cordial good will, on both sides, are ex- changed between the farmer and such of his labourers as fall into the same path in their way to the church. Arm- in-arm with her spouse marches his portly help-mate, fat, florid, and, like himself, " redolent" of the good things of this world, corn, and wine, and oil, that sustaineth the heart of man, and maketh him of a cheerful countenance. A comely and a stately dame is the lady of Farmer Buckwheat, when, as now, she paces by his side, resplen- dent in her Sunday-going garb of ample and substantial materials, and all of the very best that can be bought for money. One can calculate the profits of the dairy and the bee-hives, the pin-money of the farmer's lady — not to men- tion his weightier accumulations — by the richness of that black satin cloak and bonnet, full trimmed with real lace, and by the multitudinous plaits of that respectable-looking snuff'-coloured silk gown and coat. It is true her old fashioned prejudices would have been in favour of a large double silk handkerchief, pinned neatly down, and a flowered chintz gown, drawn up through the CHAPTER III. 21 pocket-holes over a white quilted petticoat ; but the worthy dame has two fair daughters, and they have been brought up at a boarding-school ; and they have half-coaxed, half- teased their Ma'a out of such antiquated vulgar tastes, though even those pertinacious reformists have been obliged to concede the point of a peHsse in favour of a satin cloak. But when they have conceded one point,, they have gained at least two. See the old lady's short sleeves, neatly frilled just below the elbow, are elongated down to the wrists, and finished there by a fashionable cuff, out of which protrudes the red, fat, fubsy hand, with short dumpy fingers webbed between, broad, and turning up at the tips, looking as if they had been created on purpose to knead dough, press curds, and pat up butter ; and lo ! on the forefinger of the right hand a great garnet ring set in silver, massy enough for the edge of a soup tureen. It is an heirloom from some great-grandmother, who was somehow related to somebody who was first cousin to a " Barrow-knight,^' and was herself so very rich a lady — and so the misses have rummaged it out, and forced it down upon their Ma'a's poor dear fat finger, which sticks out as stiffly from the sensa- tion of that unwonted compression, as if it were tied up and poulticed for a whitlow ; and the poor lady, in spite of all hints and remonstrances, will walk with her gloves dangling in her hands, instead of on them ; and, altogether, the short pillowy arms cased up in those tight cerements, with both the hands and all the fingers spread out as if in act to swim, look, for all the world, like the fins of a turtle, or the flaps of a frightened gosling. Poor worthy dame ! but a sense of conscious grandeur supports her under the infliction of this fashionable penance. And then come the Misses Buckwheat, mincing delicately in the wake of their Pa'a and Ma'a, with artificial flowers in their Leghorn bon- nets, sky-blue spencers, fawn-coloured boots, flounces up to their knees, a pink parasol in one hand, and a pocket-hand- kerchief dangling from the other ; not neatly folded and carried with the handsome prayer-book, in the pretty fash- ion that so well becomes that fair modest girl, their neigh- bour's daughter, whose profound ignorance of fashionable 22 CHURCHYARDS. dress and manners is looked on as quite pitiable, "poor thing !" by the Misses Buckwheat. For what are iliey in- tended, I wonder ! For farmers' wives ? To strain milk, churn butter, fat pigs, feed poultry, weigh out cheeses, and cure bacon hogs 1 Good-lack ! They paint landscapes ! and play on the piano ! and dance quadrilles ! and make bead-purses ! and. keep albums ! and doat on Moore's Melo- dies and Lord Byron's Poems ! They are to be " tutor- esses," or companions, or — something or other very genteel — ladies, for certain, any way. So they have settled them- selves, and so the weak doating mother fondly anticipates, though the father talks as yet only of their prosperous es- tablishment, (all classes talk of establishing young ladies now,) as the wives of wealthy graziers, or substantial yeo- men, or farmers, or thriving tradesmen. But he drinks his port wine, and follows the hounds. And then, bringing up the rear of the family procession, lounges on its future repre- sentative, its sole son and heir. And he is a smart buck, far too genteel to walk arm-in-arm with his sisters ; so he saunters behind, cutting off the innocent heads of the dang- ling brier-roses, and the tender hazel-shoots, with that little jemmy switch, wherewith ever and anon he flaps the long- looped sides of his yellow-topped boots ; and his white hat is set knowingly on one side, and he wears a coloured silk handkerchief knotted closely round his throat, and fastened down to the shirt bosom by a shining brooch — and waist- coat of three colours, pink, blue, and buff — a grass green coat, with black velvet collar — and on his little finger (the wash leather glove is off on that hand) a Belcher ririg as thick as the coil of a ship's cable. Well done, young Hope- ful ! That was a clever aim ! There goes a whole shower of hazel-tops. What a pity your shearing ingenuity is not as active among the tiiistles in your father's fields. The family has reached the church-gate — they are entering now — and the farmer, as he passes through, vouchsafes a patronising nod, and a good-humoured word or two to that poor widow and her daughter who stand aside hold- ing the gate open for him, and dropping humble curtsies to every member of the family. The farmer gives them now CHAPTER III. 23 and then a few days' work — hoeing, weeding, or stoning, or at hay and harvest time, on his broad acres ; but his daugh- ters wonder " Pa'a should demean himself so far as to nod familiarly to such poor objects." They draw up their chins, jflirt their handkerchiefs, and pass on as stiff as pokers. And last, in stragg'les Master Timothy. — (He hates that name, by-the-by, and wishes his sponsors had favoured him with one that might have shortened buckishly into Frank or Tom, or — Tim won't do, and his sisters scout the barbarous appellation, and have re-christened him " Alonzo." They would fain have bestowed on him the name of Madame Cotton's interesting Saracen, Malek Adhel, but it was im- possible to teach their mamma the proper pronunciation of that word, which she persisted in calling " Molly Coddle") — In straggles Timothy Alonzo, but he is even more conde- scending than his papa, and bestows a very tenderly expres- sive glance at the widow's daughter as she drops her eyes, with her last and lowest curtsy to him. Well, they are gone by, thank Heaven ! and the poor woman and her child follow at humble distance to their Master's house. They will not always be abased there. The widow Maythorn and her daughter Rachel are a very poor, but a very happy pair. Her daughter is sickly and delicate ; and folks say, in our country phrase, " hardly so sharp as she should be ;" but she has sense enough to be a dutiful child — to suffer meekly — to hope humbly — to believe steadfastly. What profiteth other knowledge ? The mo- ther and daughter possess a little cottage, a bit of garden, '^ and a cow that picks its scanty pasture on the waste. They work hard — they want often — but they contrive to * live, and are content. The widow Maythorn and her daughter are a happy pair ! Yonder, winding slowly up that shady green lane, come the inmates of the parish workhouse — the in-door poor. First, the master, a respectable-looking middle-aged man, with somewhat of pompous sternness in his deportment ; but there is nothing hard or cruel in the expression of his eye, as ever and anon he looks back along the line of pau- pers, of all ages and sexes, so decently marshalled under 24 CHURCHYARDS. his command. On the contrary, he hangs back to speak a few words of hearty encouragement to that very old man who totters along so feebly on his crutches, under the bur- den of his fourscore years of toil and trouble, and the in- creasing load of his bodily infirmities. And the grateful look of old Matthew, and his cheerful "-Lord love ye, mas- ter !" are elegant vouchers that, for once, the man " armed with a little brief authority" abuseth not his trust. The mistress has less dignity, but more severity of aspect, as her sharp, quick glance runs back, often and suspiciously, along the line of females ; and she calls them peremptorily to or- der if their voices are heard too voluble ; and she rebukes the straggling children, and denounces exemplary vengeance against those two detected urchins in particular — detected in the misdemeanour of skulking behind to pull those tempt- ing clusters of almost ripe nuts that peep so invitingly from the high hazel hedge. But her denunciations are not lis- tened to, it should appear, with any very vehement demon- strations of dread. I believe, o' my conscience, " her bark is waur than her bite ;" and that half her terrors lie in that long bowsprit nose, that looks as if it were sharpened to a point by the cross fire of those little red gimlet eyes, and in the sound of a voice shrill, cracked, and squeaking, like the tone of a penny trumpet. Very neat, decent, and respect- able is the appearance of the long line of parish poor. They are all comfortably clad in whole and clean apparel ; and even that poor idiot who brings up the rear, straggling in and out of the file of children — (who can restrain his vaga- ries 1) — Even he is clothed in good grey woollen, and a whole new hat, in lieu of the scarlet tatters, and old bat- tered soldier's helmet, with its ragged red and white feather, in which he delights to decorate his poor little deformed fi- gure on week-days, calling himself corporal, captain, gen- eral, or drum-major, as the whim of the moment rules his wayward fancy — each grade, as he assumes it, the most honourable in his estimation. They are gone by, all of them — men, women, and children — the two culprits still lagging in the rear. I wager they have another pluck at the forbidden fruit or thoir way back to the workhouse. CHAPTER III* 25 More children still !— marshalled in double files ! Boys and girls, three scores at least ; each sex uniformly clad ; the master and mistress leading the van of their respective divisions. That is the subscription charity-school, and the children have just donned their new clothing ; and do but see, poor urchins ! what hogs in armour some of them look like ! Good clothing it is — warm and decent, and of dura- ble material ; thick grey frieze for the boys, with dark blue worsted hose, and black beaver hats — hlack hats, at least : and for the girls, grogram gowns, and wild-boar petticoats ; (reader, did you ever hear of such materials ?) and stiff enough they are. Heaven knows ; and as the things are all sent down ready-made from a London warehouse, they are of necessity pretty much of the same size, as having the better chance to jit, or, at all events, to do for all. So you shall see a poor little boy muffled up in a coat that looks like his grandfather's great-coat, the flaps of which dangle almost to the ground ; the collar is turned half-way down his back, or it would mount up so high as to bury his head, which is indeed already buried under a hat, the brim of which rests upon his shoulders and the bridge of his nose ; and when he hangs down his arms, you cannot see so much as the tip of his fingers peeping from within those long enor- mous sleeves. To complete the picture of comfort, he skufFs along in a pair of shoes, the stiff upper leathers of which reach up to the middle of his shins, and the poor little legs stick in them like two chumpers in a couple of butter churns. Altogether, he looks like a dangling scarecrow set up in a corn-field. But, then, the little muffled man presents a fine contrast to his alongside mate. His long-tailed coat makes him a short jacket. His arms are squeezed through the sleeves to-be-sure, but then they stick out like wooden pins on either side, with excessive tightness ; and there, see ! dan- gles half-a-yard of red lean wrist, and all the blood in his body seems forced down into those great, blue, bony knuckles. It was a good hearty thump, certes, that jammed down that stiff skimming-dish of a hat, even to where it now reaches on his unlucky pate. The great, flat, un- 3 26 CHURCHYARDS. hemmed red ears stick out from under it like two red-cab- bage leaves ; and for his shoes ! — the blacksmith would have shod him better, and have inflicted less pain in the operation ; for, see ! his feet are doubled up in them, into the form of hoofs, and he hobbles along, poor knave ! like a cat in pattens, or as if the smooth green lane were paved with red-hot flints. And the girls are not much better ofl". Some draggle long trains after them, and have waists down to their hips ; others are wellnigh kilted ; and that long lanky girl there, Jenny Andrews, would reveal far more than a decent proportion of those heron legs of hers, were it not that she has ingeniously contrived to tie the wild- boar petticoat a reef below the grogram gown, thereby sup- plying the deficiencies of the latter. — Well, they are all new clothed, however, spick and span, and all very proud of being so, — even he of the crumpt-up toes, who will soon poke his way through those leathern fetters, and in the mean time limps along in contented misery. " New clothes !" thinks he. — " Good clothes ! handsome clothes !" thinks Madam Buckwheat. — " Fine clothes ! fashionable clothes !" think the Misses Buckwheat. — "Brave clothes! pretty clothes !" thinks the poor idiot, when Monday comes, and he is allowed to resume his old scarlet tatters. All are puffed up with the self-same species of conceit, variously modified, and so are many greater and many finer folks than they — ay, and many wiser ones too — many more talented. Witness Goldsmith, in his peach-blossom coat ; and Johnson, (who ridiculed the poor poet's puerile vanity,) in his gala suit of fine brown broad-cloth. One spread his tail like a peacock, and strutted about to show off* its gaudy colours ; the other, arrayed like the bird of wisdom, in grave and sombre plumage, was equally proud of the dignity it conferred, and oraculously opined that a gentleman WcLS twice a gentleman in a full dress suit. Vanity ! vanity ! thou universal leaven ! from what human heart art thou absolutely excluded ? Hark ! the trampling of horses, and the sound of wheels. The Squire's carriage sweeps round the corner of the churchyard. He and his family arrive thus early, that the CHAPTER III. 27 horses may be stabled in that long low shed, appropriated for the purpose, and the servants ready to enter the church at the same time with their master, and to partake with him of the benefit and comfort of the confession and absolution. Some people seem to consider those parts of the service as a mere prelude — a sort of overture, as hackneyed, and about as solemn, as that to Lodoiska ; and if they reach their pews by the time they are half over, it is well. As for the ser- vants, what can it signify to them ? — -There alights another carriage load — and another — ^and another — and the comers in a car, and in two tax-carts, and on sundry steeds ; and there the patrician party is congregating together round the great east door ; and there stands the clerk, with hat in hand, peering down the vicarage lane, under the penthouse of his other shading hand, for the first glimpse of the minis- ter. Now, he descries the white face of the old roan mare. Another look, to-be-sure ; — it is indeed that sober-footed palfrey, bearing her reverend burden. And then he turns hastily into the belfry ; and immediately the cracked chimes subside into a few quick single strokes, announcing the near approach of the clergyman, and the speedy com- mencement of divine service. That fine ruddy lad, with the white smock-frock, has been immovably posted at the churchyard wicket for the last half-hour. His patience will accomplish its purpose. He is the first to start for- ward — hat in hand, and smoothing down his glossy yel- low hair — to receive the bridle of the old man, which the vicar resigns into the hand of careful Will, with the usual charges, and a smile, and a few words of kind notice. The minister has passed into the vestry ; the clerk has followed him. A few more strokes and the bell ceases ; a few more seconds and the churchyard is left to its lonely silence, and to its quiet occupants ; and the living are gathered together, within those sacred walls, to hear the words of eternal life, on the surety whereof, the sleepers without — with whom they must one day lie down in the dust — have been committed to their narrow beds, " in sure and certain hope." 28 CHURCHYARDS. But my discourse purported to be of Churchyards only, and I have rambled from my text. No matter ; I am come, as we all must, to the churchyard at last, and my next chapter shall be of "graves, and stones, and epi- taphs." i CHAPTER IV. 29 CHAPTER IV. My next chapter, I think, was to be of " graves, and stones, and epitaphs." Come, then, to the churchyard with me, whoever shrinketh not from thoughtful inspection of those eloquent sermon books. Come to that same churchyard where lately we saw the assembled congregation — the aged and the young — the proud and the lowly — the rich and poor collecting together on the Sabbath morning to worship their Creator within those sacred walls. Many months since then have slipped away ; the green leaves have withered, and dropped, and decayed, and the bare branches have been hung with icicles, and bent down under the weight of win- ter snows ; and again they have budded and put forth their tender shoots, and the thick foliage of summer has cast its broad shadow on the dark green sod ; and again " decay's effacing fingers" are at work, and the yellow tints of autumn are gaining on the rich verdure of summer. And man ! — the ephemeron ! who perisheth as the flower of the field — whose time on earth is like the shadow that departeth — how hath it fared with him during the revolving seasons ? How many have gone to their long home, and their place on earth knoweth them no more ! How many of those who, when last we looked upon this scene, stood here among their friends and neighbours, full of life and health, and the anticipation of long years to come, full of schemes, and hopes, and expectations, and restless thoughts, and cumbersome cares, and troubles, and pleasures of this life ! How many of these are since returned to this spot ! — Yea — but to tarry here — to occupy the house appointed for all living — to lie down and sleep, and take their rest, undis- turbed by winter winds or summer storms, unawakened by the chime of the church-bells when they summon hither the Sabbath congregation, or by the voices of those they loved 3* 30 CHURCHYARDSj in life, who pass by their lowly graves, already, perhaps, forgetful of " the form beloved," so recently deposited there ! " So music past is obsolete — And yet 'twas sweet ! 'twas passing sweet ! But now 'tis gone away." This is again a Sabbath-day — the evening of an autumnal Sabbath ; morning and afternoon divine service has been performed within those walls, and now Nature is offering up her own pure homage. The hymns of her winged choris- ters — the incense of her flowery censer — the flames of her great altar, that glorious setting sun. See ! how his de- parting beams steal athwart the churchyard between those old oaks, whose stately trunks, half defined in the blackness of their own shadow, half gilded by the passing brightness, prop that broad canopy of " many twinkling leaves" now glittering underneath with amber light ; while above, the dense mass of foliage, towering in heavy grandeur, stands out in bold and bleak relief against the golden glory of the western horizon. How magnificent that antique colonnade ! How grand that massy superstructure ! Lo ! the work of the great Architect, which might well put to shame the puny efforts of his creatures and the frail structures they erect to his glory, were it not that He whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, hath vouchsafed to promise, that where a few faithful hearts are gathered together to wor- ship him in spirit and in truth, He will be there in the midst of them, even in their perishable temples. Therefore, though yon majestic oaks overtop with their proud shadow the low walls, and even the ivied tower of that rustic church, yet are they but a fitting portico, an " outer porch," to the sanctuary more especially hallowed by his presence. Neither is their spreading arch too magnificent a canopy for those obscure graves so peacefully ranged beneath it. Many a sincere and humble Christian rests from his labours beneath those green hillocks. Many a faithful believer, who has drunk without a murmur his earthly cup of bitter- ness, because it was awarded to him by the divine will, and CHAPTER IV. , 31 because, trusting in the merits of his Redeemer, he cast down his burden at his feet, looking forward through his pro- mises to be a partaker of the glory which shall be r.evealed hereafter. Many a one, " to fortune and to fame unknown," who walked thus humbly with his God, sleeps unrecorded in the majestic shadow of those venerable trees. But when those giants of the earth shall have stood their appointed season — shall have lived their hfe of centuries — them also the un- sparing hand shall smite, and they too shall lie prostrate in the dust, and for their sapless trunks there shall be no re- novation ; while the human grain, now hidden beneath their roots, retains, even in corruption, the principles of immor- tality, and shall, in the fulness of time, spring up to life eternal. What histories — not of great actions, or of proud for- tunes, or of splendid attainments, but of the human heart — that inexhaustible volume ! — might be told over these graves, by one who should have known their quiet tenants, and been a keen and feeling observer of their infinitely va- rying natures ! nay, by one who should relate, from his own remembrance, even the more ol)vious circumstances of their obscure lives ! What tales of love, and hope, and dis- appointment, and struggling care, and unmerited contume- ly and uncomplaining patience, and untold suffering, and broken hearts, might be extracted from this cold earth we tread on ! What heartwrung tears have been showered down upon these quiet graves ! What groans, and sighs, and sobs of uncontrollable grief, have burst out in this spot from the bosoms of those who have stood even here, on the brink of the fresh-opened grave, while the coffin was low- ered into it, and the grating cords were withdrawn, and the first spadeful of earth rattled on the lid, and the solemn words- were uttered — "Dust to dust!" And where are those mourners now, and how doth it fare with them ? — Here ! they are here ! And it fareth well with them, for their troubles are over, and they sleep in peace amongst their friends and kindred ; and other mourners have wept beside their graves, and those in turn shall be brought back here, to mingle their dust with that of foregone generations. 32 CHURCHYARDS. Even the living multitude assembled here this day twelve- months, how many, in the short interval between that and the present time, have taken up their rest within these con- secrated precincts ! And already, over the graves of many, the green sods have again united in velvet smoothness. Here, beside that of William Moss, in a fresher and higher hillock, to which his headstone likewise serves for a memo- rial ; and underneath his name, there are engraven on it — yes— two other names. The aged parents and the blooming son at last repose together ; and what matters now that the former went down to the grave by the slow and gradual de- scent of good old age, and that the latter was cut off in the prime and vigour of his manhood ? If each performed faith- fully the task allotted to him, then was his time on earth suf- ficient ; and, after the brief separation of a few years, they arc reunited in eternity. But here — behold a magnificent contrast to that poor plain stone ! Here stands a fine tall free-stone, the top of which is ornamented in basso-relievo, with a squat white urn swaddled up in ponderous drapery, over which droops a gilt weeping willow ; it looks like a sprig of samphire, the whole set off by a blue ground, encircled by a couple of goose-wings. Oh ! no — ^I cry the sculptor mer- cy — they are the pinions of a pair of cherubim. There are the little trumpeters' cheeks puffing out from under them ; and the obituary is engraven on a black ground in grand gold letters ; and it records — Ah ! Madam Buck- wheat — is it come to this ? Is all that majesty of port laid low 1 That fair exuberance of well-fed flesh ? That broad expanse of comely red and white, " by Nature's sweet and cunning hand laid on." Doth all this mingle with the common earth ? That goodly person clad in rustling silks ! is it shrunken within the scanty folds of the shroud, and the narrow limits of a cold brick grave ! What ! in the very flush of worldly prosperity — when the farmer's granaries were overflowing with all manner of store — when your dairy had yielded double produce — when the stock of cheeses was unprecedented — when your favourite Norman had pre- sented you with twin calves — when you had reared three broods of milkwhite turkeys, and the China sow had littered CHAPTER IV. 33 thirteen pigs ! — just as the brindled heifer of that famous cross was coming into milk — and just as the new barn was built, and the parish rates were lowered, and the mulberry- tree was beginning to bear — and just as you had brought yourself to feel at home in your long sleeves, and unfet- tered by the great garnet ring, and to wear gloves when you were out visiting ; and, to crown all, just as your youngest hope — your favourite daughter — had made a splen- did conquest of a real gentleman — one who had come down from Lunnon in his own shay, and talked about " Hast- ley's," and "the Hoppera," and " Wauxhall," and the " Vild Beasts," and "Vaterloo Bridge," and all them there things, and was to install Betsey (the old lady always forgot to say Eliza) lady and mistress of a beautiful "ouse" in Fleet Street. Oh ! at such a time to be torn from " Life and all the joys it yields!" Ah, Madam Buckwheat! is it so indeed ? Alas ! too true — " A heap of dust is all remains of thee, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be," Take care ! — never tread upon a grave — What ! you saw it not, that scarce distinguishable hillock, overshadowed by its elevated neighbour 1 It is, however, recently thrown up, but hastily and carelessly, and has of late been trodden down almost to a surface, by the workmen employed in erecting that gilded " tribute of affection" to the memory of the farmer's deceased spouse. A few more weeks and it will be quite level with the even sod, and the village chil- dren will gambol over it unmindful of their old friend, whom yet they followed to that grave with innocent re- gretful tears, the only tears that were shed for the poor out- cast of reason. The parish pauper sleeps in that grave — the workhouse idiot. He for whom no heart was tenderly interested ; for he had long, long outlived the poor parents to whom their only child, their harmless Johnny, (for they thought him not an idiot,) was an object of the fondest af- fection. There were none to take to him when they were gone, so the workhouse afforded him refuge, and sustenance, 34 CHURCHYARDS. and humane treatment ; and his long life — for it was ex- tended nearly to the term of seventy years — was not, on the whole, joyless or forsaken. His intellect was darkened and distorted ; but not so as to render him an object of dis- gust or terror, or to incapacitate him from performing many tasks of trifling utility. He even exercised a sort of rude ingenuity in many little rustic handicrafts. He wove rush baskets and mats, and neatly and strongly wove them ; and of the refuse straw he plaited coarse hats, such as are worn by pjoughboys ; and he could make wicker cages for black- birds and magpies, and mouse-traps, and rabbit-hutches ; and he had a pretty notion of knitting too, only that he could never be brought to sit still long enough to make any great proficiency in that way. But he was useful, besides, in many offices of household drudgery ; and though his kind master never suffered poor Johnny to be "put upon," he had many employers, and, as far as his simple wits en- abled him to comprehend their several wills, he was content to fulfil them. So he was sent to fetch water, and to watch that the coppers did not boil over, and to feed the fire, and blow the bellows, and sift the cinders, and to scrape carrots and potatoes, and to shell beans, and to sweep the floor, (but then he would always waste time in making waves and zig- zags on the sand,) and to rock the cradles ; and that office he seemed to take peculiar delight in, and would even pre- tend to hush the babies, as he had seen practised by their mothers, with a sort of droning hum which he called sing- ing. But besides all these, and other tasks innumerable, more extended trust was committed to him, and he was never known but to discharge it faithfully. He was al- lowed (in exception of those rules of the house imperative on its sane inmates) to wander out whole days, having the charge of a few cows or pigs, and for a trifling remunera- tion, which he brought regularly home to his master, who expended it for him with judicious kindness, in the purchase of such simple luxuries as the poor idiot dehghted in — a little snuff* and tobacco, or the occasional treat of a little coarse tea and brown sugar. Then was old Johnny in his glory, when, seated on some CHAPTER IV. 35 sunny roadside bank, or nestling among the fern leaves in some bosky dingle, within ken of his horned or grunting charge, of which he never lost sight, he had collected about him a little cluster of idle urchins, with whom he would vie in dexterity in threading daisy necklaces, or sticking the little white flowers on a leafless thorn branch, or in tying up cowslip balls, or in making whistles, or arrow-heads of hollow elder stalks ; or in weaving high conical caps of green rushes ; and then was Caesar in his element, for then would he arm with those proud helmets the heads of his childish mates, and marshal them (nothing loath) in mili- tary order, each shouldering a stick, his supposed musket ; and, flourishing his wooden sword, and taking the command of his new levies, he marched up and down before the line of ragged rogues, gobbling like a turkey-cock, with swelling pride, in all the martial magnificence of his old cocked-hat and feathers, and of his scarlet tatters with their tarnished lace. But sometimes was he suddenly cast down from that pin- nacle of earthly grandeur by the malicious wantonness of an unlucky boy, who would slyly breathe out a few notes from an old flute, well anticipating their effect on poor Johnny. Rude as were those notes, they "entered into his soul." In a moment his proud step was arrested ; his au- thoritative, uplifted hand fell nerveless by his side ; his erect head dropped, and large tears rolled down his aged face ; and at last sobs — deep, heavy, convulsive sobs ! — burst from the bosom of the poor idiot, and then even his mischievous tormentor almost wept to see the pain he had inflicted. Yes, such was the power of music, of its rudest, simplest tones, over some spring of sensibility, deep hidden in the benighted soul of that harmless creature ; and he had apparently no control over the tempestuous ebullition of its excited vehemence, except at church during the time of divine service. There, while the psalm was being sung, he was still, and profoundly silent. But when others rose up from the form beside him, he sunk still lower in his sitting posture, and cowering down, bent forward his head upon his knees, 36 CHURCHYARDS. hiding his face there within the fold of his crossed arms, and no sound or sob escaped him, but his poor frame trembled universally ; and when the singing was over, and he looked up again, the thin grey hair on his wrinkled forehead was wet with perspiration. Now, let the clarion sound, or the sweet hautboy pour out its melodious fulness, or the thrilling flute discourse, or the solemn organ roll over his grave its deep and mighty volume, and he will sleep on undisturbed — ay, till the call of the last trumpet shall awaken hind, and the mystery of his earthly existence shall be unfolded, and the soul, emerging from its long eclipse, shall shine out in the light of immortality. At that day of solemn reckoning, how many, whose brilliant talents and luminous intellect have blazed out with meteoric splendour not to enlighten, but to dazzle and mislead, and bewilder the minds of their fellow-mortals in the mazes of inextricable error — how many of those who have so miserably abused the great trust reposed in them, shall be fain to exchange places with that unoffending innocent, crying out, in the agony of their despair, " to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us !" Farewell, old Johnny — quiet be thy rest ! — harmless and lowly was thy life ! — peaceful and unnoticed thy departure ! Few had marked the gradual decline of the poor crea- ture ; but for many months he had wasted away, and his feeble, deformed frame had bowed nearer and nearer to the earth ; and he cared little for any nourishment, except his favourite regale of tea, and the mistress's occasional bounty — a slice of white bread and butter ; and there was less willingness to exert himself than formerly. He still crept about his accustomed tasks, but slowly and silently, and would sometimes fall asleep over his more sedentary em- ployment ; and when spoken to, he seldom replied but by a nod and a smile — that peculiar smile of idiotic intelligence. Some said the old man grew lazy and sullen, " for what could ail him ?" they wondered. Nothing — nothing ailed him — nothing to signify — only the cold hand of death was on him, and he dropped at last with the leaves in autumn. One evening, long after milking-time, the cows he had CHAPTER IV. 87 been intrusted to watch came straggling home without their keeper. Search was made for him, and he was soon discovered by the children, who were well acquainted with his favourite haunts and hiding-places. They found him gathered up in his usual form, among the dry fern leaves, at the foot of an old hawthorn, near which ran a reedy streamlet. His back rested against the hawthorn's twisted stem, his old grey head was bare, and a few withered leaves had dropped upon it. Beside him lay a half- finished cap of woven rushes ; one hand was on it, and the other still grasped the loose materials of his simple fabric. There was a smile upon his countenance, (he was always smiling to himself,) but his head had dropped down on his bosom, and his eyes were closed as if in slce[). He was dead — quite cold and stiff; so they took him from his pleasant fern bank to his late home, the workhouse, and the next day he was screwed down in the shell of rough boards, the last allowance of parish bounty, and before sunset those green sods were trampled down over the pauper's grave. — Farewell, old Johnny ! 38 CHURCHYARDS. CHAPTER V. A LITTLE longer, yet a iiitle longer, let us tarry in this se- cluded burial-ground. The sun'.s golden rim touches not yet the line of that bright horizon. Not yet have the small birds betaken themselves to their leafy homes, nor the bees to their hives, nor the wild rabbits to their burrows on the heath. Not yet, sailing like a soft fleecy cloud through the grey depths of twilight, hath the light-shunning owl ven- tured abroad on her wide winnowing vans, nor is the bat come forth, cleaving the dewy air with his eccentric circles. Tarry a little longer, even till the moon, that pale, dull, sil- very orb, shines out un-eclipsed by the glories of her efful- gent brother. Then will her tender light, glancing in be- tween those ancient oaks, sleep sweetly on the green graves, and partially illumine that south-east angle of the Chuitih Tower, and those two long narrow windows. And then will our walk homeward be delightful — far more so than even in the warm glow of sunset ; for then every bank and hedge-row will be glittering with dew in the pale silvery light, and every fern leaf will be a diamond spray, and every blade of grass a crystal spear ; and sparks ojf living fire will tremble on them, and glance out with their emer- ald rays from between the broad leaves of the coltsfoot and the arum. And then the wild honeysuckles (our hedge- rows are full of them) will exhale such sweets as I would not exchange for all the odours of the gardens of Damascus ; or if we go home by the heath-track, the wild thyme, and the widows'-wail, will enrich the air with their aromatic fragrance. On such a night as this will be, I never unre- luctantly re-enter the formal dwellings of man, or resign myself to oblivious slumbers. Methinks how exquisite it would be, to revel, like a creature of the elements, the long night through in the broad flood of moonshine ! To pass CHAPTER V. 39 from spaee to space with the fleetness of thought, " putting a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," or to skim silently along on the stealthy moonbeams, to lonely places, where wells of water gush up in secret, where the wild deer come fearlessly to drink, where the halcyon rears her young, and the water-lily floats like a fairy ship, unseen by human eye — and so, admittecl to nature's sanctuary, blend- ing as it were in essence with its pervading soul of raptur- ous repose — to be abstracted for a while from dull realities, the thoughts and cares of earth that clog the inextinguisha- ble spirit with their dense vapours, and intercept its higher aspirations. What living soul, conscious of its divine ori- gin, and of its immortal destination, but must at times feel weary of this probationary state, impatient of the conditions of its human nature, and of bondage in its earthly taberna- cle ! What living soul, that has proved the vanity of all sublunary things, but has at times aspirated with the royal Psalmist, " Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest !" Hark ! there's a stir near us — a stir of footsteps and of human voices. It proceeds from within the church ; and see ! the porch doors are ajar, and also that low-arched doorway opening into the belfry. Those steps are ascend- ing its dark, narrow stair ; and then, hark again ! from within, a low, dull, creaking sound ; and then one long, deep, startling toil — another, ere the echoes of the first have died away over the distant woods. That sound is the summons of the grave. Some neighbouring peasant is borne to-night to his long home ; and, see ! as we turn this angle of the church, there, beside that broad old maple, is a fresh-opened grave. The dark cavity is covered in by two boards laid loosely over — but it v/ill not be long untenant- ed. Let us look abroad for the approaching funeral, for, by the tolling of the bell, it must be already within sight. It comes not up that shady lane — no, nor by the broad heath road, from the further hamlet — nor from the direction of the Grange farm — but there- — ah ! there it is, and close at hand, emarging from that little shrubby hollow, through which the road dips to the near village ofDowne. Is it not 40 CHURCHYARDS. a beautiful thing to gaze on, in this lovely secluded spot, by the light of that yellow sunset, the mellow hue of which falls with such a rich yet tempered brightness on the white draperies of those foremost in the procession ? It is a maiden's funeral — that, probably, of some young person ; for, see ! the pall is borne by six girls, each shroud- ed like a nun in her long white flowing hood, and in lieu of the black pall, a white sheet is flung over the coffin. The lower classes are very tenacious of those distinctive observ- ances ; and many a young creature I have known, whose delight it seemed, during the last stages of some lingering malady, to arrange every thing for her own burial — the fashion of her shroud, and the flowers they should strew over her in the coffin — the friends who should follow her to the grave, and the six of her young companions to be se- lected for her pall-bearers. Almost the very poorest con- trive, on such occasions, what they call " a creditable bury- ing" — even to the coarse refreshments distributed amongst the funeral guests. Poor souls ! long and sorely do they pinch for it, in their own few comforts, and in their scanty meals ; but the self-inflicted privation is unrepiningly en- dured, and who would take upon him, if it were possible, to restrain that holy and natural impulse to honour the memo- ry of the dead ? See ! the train lengthens into sight as it winds up the ascent from that wild dingle. The bearers and their insensible burden are already near, and there fol- low the female mourners foremost. Ah ! I know now for whom that bell tolls — for whom that grave is prepared — whose remains are there borne along to their last resting- place. Close behind the coffin comes a solitary mourner — solitary in her grief — and yet she bears in her arms a help- less innocent, whose loss is even more deplorable than hers. That poor old woman is the widowed mother of Rachel Maythorne, whose corpse she is following to the grave ; and that unconscious baby who stretches out its little hands with laughing glee towards the white drapery of the cof- fin, is the desolate orphan of her only child — alas ! of its unwedded mother. , A dark and foul offence lies at his door who seduced that CHAPTER V. 41 simple creature from the paths of innocence ! A few words will tell her story ; but let us stop till the funeral-train has passed on into the church, from which the minister now advances to meet it. That poor childless mother ! with what rapid strides have age and infirmities overtaken her, since we saw her this time twelvemonth holding open that very gate for the farmer's prosperous family, and following them into church with contented humility, accompanied by her duteous Rachel. Then she was still a comely matron, looking cheerful in her poverty, and strong to labour. Now, how bent down with age and feebleness does that poor frame appear ! The burden of the little infant is one she can ill sustain, but to whom would she resign the precious charge ? She has contrived a black frock for the little creature — probably from her old gown — her widow's gown — for she herself has on no mourning garment ; only an old rusty black willow bonnet, with a little crape about it of still browner hue, and a large black cotton shawl, with which she has covered over, as nearly as possible, that dark linen gown. She holds up no handkerchief to her eyes with the idle parade of ceremonial woe ; but her face is bent down over the baby's bosom, and drops are glistening there, and on its soft cheek, that never fell from those young, joy- ous eyes. A few neighbours follow her — a few poor women — two and two, who have all contrived to make some show of de- cent mourning ; and those three or four labouring men who walk last, have each a crape hat-band that has served for many funerals. They are all gone by now, the dead and the living. For the last time on earth the departed mortal has entered the House of God. While that part of the bu- rial-service appointed to be read there is proceeding, a few words will tell her story. Rachel Maythorne was the only child of her mother, and she was a widow, left early to struggle with extreme pov- erty, and with the burden of a sickly infant, afflicted with epileptic fits, almost from its birth. The neighbours, many of them, said, " It would be a mercy, if so be God Almighty were pleased to take away the poor baby ; she would never 4.* 42 CHURCHYARDS. thrive, or live to be a woman, and was a terrible hindrance to the industrious mother." But she thought not so, nei- ther would she have exchanged her puny wailing infant, for the healthiest and the loveliest in the land : — she thought it the loveliest, ay, the most intelligent too, though every body else saw well enough that it was more backward in every thing than almost any child of the same age. But it did weather out the precarious season of infancy, and did live to be a woman, and even to enjoy a moderate share of health, though the fits were never wholly subdued, and they undoubtedly had weakened and impaired, though not de- stroyed her intellect. Most people at first sight would have called Rachel a plain girl, and she was, in truth, far from pretty, slight and thin in her person, and, from the feebleness of her frame, stooping almost like a woman in years. Her complexion, which might have been fair and delicate, had she been a lady and luxuriously reared up, was naturally pallid ; and exposure to sun and wind, in her out-door labours, had thickened it to a dark and muddy hue ; but there was a meek and tender expression in her mild hazel eyes, and in her dimpled smile, and in the tone of her low quiet voice, even in the slight hesitation which impeded her utterance, that never failed to excite interest, when once they had attracted observation. The mother and daughter lived a life of contented poverty ; the former, strong and healthful, found frequent employment as a char- woman, or in going out to wash, or in field labour ; the lat- ter, brought up almost delicately, though the child of indi- gence, and still occasionally subject to distressing fits, was principally occupied at home, in the care of their cow, the management of the little dairy, in the cultivation of their small patch of garden, (and small though it was, Rachel had her flower-knot in a sunny corner,) and in knitting and coarse needle-work. In summer, however, she shared her mother's task in the hay-field, in mushroom-picking, and in the pleasant labour of the gleaners ; and how sweet was the frugal meal of that contented pair, when the burden of the day was over, and they sat just within the open door of CHAPTER V. 43 their little cottage, over which a luxuriant jessamine had wreathed itself into a natural porch. If Nature had been niggardly in storing the simple head of poor Rachel, she had been but too prodigal of feeling to a heart which overflowed with the milk of human kindness, whose capacity of loving seemed boundless, embracing with- in its scope every created thing that breathed the breath of life. We hear fine ladies and sentimental misses making a prodigious fuss about sensibility, and barbarity, and "the poor beetle that we tread upon ;" but I do firmly believe simple Rachel, without even thinking of her feelings, much less saying a word about them, would have gone many steps out of her way rather than set her foot upon a worm. It was a sore trouble to her, her annual misery, when Daisey's calf, that she had patted so fondly, was consigned to the butcher's cart, and while the poor mother lowed disconso- lately about in quest of her lost little one, there was no peace for Rachel. Every moan went to her heart. But her love, and pity, and kindness of nature, were not all ex- pended (as are some folks' sensibilities) on birds, and beasts, and black beetles. Her poor services were at the command of all who needed them ; and Rachel was in truth a wel- come and a useful guest in every neighbour's cottage. She was called in to assist at the wash-tub, to take a turn at the butter-churn, to nurse the baby while the mother was more actively occupied, or to mind the house while the good woman stepped over to the shop, or to watch the sick, while others of the family were necessitated to be about the daily labour that gained their daily bread ; she could even spell out a chapter of the Bible, when the sick person desired to hear its comfortable words. True, she was not always very happy in her selections. "It was all good;" so she gene- rally began reading first where the book fell open, no matter if at the numbering of the twelve tribes, or at "The Song of Solomon," or the story of "Bel and the Dragon." "It was all good," said Rachel ; so she read on boldly through thick and thin ; and fine work, to-be-sure, she made of some of the terrible hard names. But the simple soul was 44 CHURCHYARDS. rigid, — it was "all good." The intention was perfect ; and the spirit in which those inapplicahle portions of Scripture were almost unintelligibly read, found favour doubtless with Him who claims the service of the heart, and cares little for the outward form of sacrifice. A child miglit have practised on the simplicity of Rachel Maythorne ; and when April-fool day came round, on many a bootless errand was she sent, and many a marvellous be- lief was palmed upon her by the village urchins, who yet, in the midst of their merry mischief, would have proved sturdy champions in her cause, had real insult or injury been offered to the kind creature, from whom all their tor- menting ingenuity could never provoke a more angry ex- clamation than the short pathetic words, "Oh dear !" One would have thought none but a child could have had the heart to abuse even in jest the credulous innocence of that unoffending creature. But the human " heart is despe- rately wicked ;" and one there was, so callous and corrupt, and absorbed in its own selfishness, as to coiivert into " an occasion of falling," the very circumstances which should have been a wall of defence about poor Rachel. It chanced that, towards the end of last year's harvest, the Widow Maythorne was confined to her cottage by a sprained ankle, so that, for the first time in her life, Rachel went out to the light labour of gleaning, unaccompanied by her tender parent. Through the remainder of the harvest season, she followed Farmer Buckwheat's reapers, and no gleaner returned at evening so heavily laden as the widow's daughter. For the farmer himself favoured the industry of simple Rachel, and no reaper looked sharply towards her, though she followed him so close as to glean a chance hand- ful, even from the sheaf he was binding together. And she followed in the wake of the loaded waggons, from whose toppling treasures, as they rustled through the deep narrow lanes, the high hedges on either side took tribute ; and though her sheaf acquired bulk more considerably than even from the golden hangings of the road side, no one rebuked the widow's daughter, or repelled her outstretched hand ; and one there was, who gave more than passive encourage- C1TAPTJ5R V. 45 merit to her hnmhlo oiuMoaclimonts. And wlu^ii tlio last wajj^goii turned into the spacious licUyard, and th(^ «i;l('an(>r3 retired slowly from i\\c <),at(^, to retra,c-M, th(Mi KaclK^l also turned towards her houu^, hu( not in (•on>j)any witli licr lellovv-.an(irs. l''or tlu^ y<>""^!,' lartner \ca\ Ikm- hy a n(^arer and a |)leasaiit(U" way, (hrou^h the; (iraiir<;ed from tli(5 dark copsi;, acc()ntit(Hl lor her la|;-n, again (inKM'ging from her unseen |)a,ths, she hung out her goldcMi lamp, to ligiit the hunler's morilh. 'riuMi camo the dark days and cloudy niglils of Novcunlx^r, and the candle was lit early in tho widow's cotlage, and Iho motluM- and daughler resumed Iheir winter tasks of tho spinning wheel and the knitting ne(!dl(\s. And th<; widow's h(;:irt was cheery, for the nxnil-chest was full, arul tlie po- talo-])a((d) had yielded abundantly, and (here; slood a goodly peat-stack by llie door; a,nd, through (h<; bhvssing