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THE 
 
 EX CURSION 
 
 UiUase CTurate; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE FRUITS AND GLEANINGS OF A MONTH'S 
 RAMBLE IN QUEST OF HEALTH. 
 
 Dulce est desipere in loco. 
 
 Hot. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LUPTON RELFE, 13, CORNHILL. 
 
 1827. 
 
MARCHAST,iPKISTEB, IKGRAM-COCRT. 
 
,fi^f» 
 
 HARM ^DISTIXGUISIIED PATRO^HTKSS 
 
 \ V ( THE 
 
 OF ITHER STEAD LODGE.^UFFOLBj 
 
 
 A. 
 
 ^' 
 
 ■y //^i om/-a^^y }^./ui//^n//ey ^r^yf-^/f-rii 
 
 
 AlTTTLWfL':* 
 
A WORD AT GREETING. 
 
 A Preface is for the most part but aa 
 unread and vain attempt of an author, either 
 to insinuate himself and his book into the good 
 opinion of his readers, or to conciliate the 
 favour of his critics ;— but as I am well content 
 to leave the former the privilege of judging for 
 themselves, and the latter the free exercise of 
 that liberal and gentlemanly spirit of criticism 
 which distinguishes the learned of the present 
 age, I shall not presume to make one other 
 
IV A WORD AT GREETING. 
 
 remark than this — that I have endeavoured to 
 amuse, if not to instruct such as may honour my 
 little volume with a perusal : — if I have failed, 
 surely the merit of good intentions will not be 
 denied me. 
 
^^m 
 
 t^ ^; : j^ 
 
 Broohholme -Rectory. 
 
THE 
 
 EXCURSION, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MOTIVES FOR MINE EXCURSION, ETC. 
 
 *' Go to the hills," said one ; " remit awhile 
 This baleful diligence ; — at early morn 
 Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods ; 
 And there, for your own benefit, construct 
 A calendar of flowers, plucked as they blow 
 Where health abides, and cheerfulness, and peace." 
 Wordsworth's Excursion, p. 257. 
 
 . In the autumn of the year , after an indis- 
 position of some long continuance, brought on by 
 a sedentary course of life and an unremitting 
 attention to the duties of my profession, I was 
 earnestly recommended by a medical friend to 
 
 B 
 
2 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 exchange the confined walls of my study and the 
 narrow boundary of my curacy, for the broad and 
 variegated face of nature, — or, in other words, to 
 try how far change of air and variety of scene 
 would relieve the depression of my spirits, and 
 recruit the enfeebled powers of my body. I had 
 always possessed a keen relish for the beauties of 
 nature, and an ardent desire to be better ac- 
 quainted with them, than the " stale, flat, and 
 (almost) unprofitable" district which surrounded 
 my home would afford me ; consequently, the advice 
 I received was not uncongenial to my feelings and 
 desires. For although I can easily see, feel, and 
 believe, that a man of a meditative and reflective 
 turn of mind may learn much in his silent musings 
 even on the most barren and uncultivated heath ; 
 (when a simple daisy, — a withered tree, — a solitary 
 spring, — a lonely shepherd, with his watchful dog 
 and nibbling sheep, are all to him as so many 
 fountains of thought, or centres from whence irra- 
 diate feelings and ideas filling the mind with 
 instruction and refreshment pure as the dews which 
 fall from heaven ;) still, if he wish to moralize on 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 3 
 
 man, the noblest of created beings, he must b© 
 content to mingle with the common herd of his 
 fellow-creatures. If he desire to elevate bis con- 
 ceptions, enlarge his ideas, and fill his soul with 
 the magnificence of nature, he must see her in all 
 her varied moods and forms, not only in the 
 passive beauty of her peace, but in the mingled 
 wildness and grandeiur of her storms. If his soul 
 yearn to become more intimately conversant with 
 the attributes of his Lord and his God, — his dis- 
 pensations to his creatures of goodness and mercy, 
 — his marvellous works of wisdom and might, — 
 he must not confine his gaze to one small spot or 
 part of his creation, — one isolated manifestation of 
 his power, love, or skill, — but look with steadfast 
 eye through all his works and all his ways, — now 
 visiting him in the beauty of his holiness and 
 grace, — the wonderful temple of his creation, — 
 and now beholding how all things work together 
 for good to those, into whose nostrils he hath 
 breathed the breath of life, — the spirit that shall 
 never die. Like the melancholy Jaques in the 
 forest, he may moralize the simplest spectacle 
 
 B 3 
 
4 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 " into a thousand similes," or, with his ducal 
 master in 
 
 «* life, exempt from public haunt. 
 
 Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 
 
 Still he will have much to learn and many things 
 to unlearn, as his wanderings and ideas become 
 more excursive, and his feet venture to tread the 
 more beaten paths of life, before his conclusions 
 may bear the stamp of truth, or his reflections the 
 character of true wisdom. 
 
 An anchorite in his cell, or a scholar in his 
 study, may form an ideal picture of life, — its 
 strange commixture of pleasure and pain, hopes 
 and fears, — or attempt to penetrate the mysterious 
 mind, or thread the devious windings of the human 
 heart, to find the spring of action, or the germ of 
 thoughts, good and evil ; but let him once leave 
 his solitude to mingle with man, and apply the 
 rules and axioms he has there theoretically esta- 
 blished, and he will soon find, to the overthrow of 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 5 
 
 his beau-ideal of life, and his reflections on man, 
 that he has indeed looked through a glass darkly, 
 and that he has been employed but as a child 
 drawing figures in sand, which a gust of wind may 
 obliterate, or a wave destroy. 
 
 Impressed with these ideas, and ardently longing 
 to be free for a season, to range abroad the 
 licensed denizen of nature in search of health, 
 mental refreshment, and well-timed recreation ; 
 I easily assented to the reasonableness of my 
 friend's recommendation, and began to make pre- 
 parations forthwith for the journey before me. 
 
 Having therefore, as a necessary preliminary 
 step, obtained the assistance of one, to whose 
 pastoral care I could conscientiously entrust the 
 charge of my little flock during my absence, I 
 next laid out a plan for my pursuance, embracing 
 the advantages of recruiting my strength and im- 
 proving my mind, without, at the same time, 
 materially diminishing the small store of wealth 1 
 had laid up for occasional exigencies ; being > 
 
6 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 scarcely less troubled with bodily ailment than 
 with the " deficiens crumena,^^ a disease beyond 
 the reach of a poor curate's skill to ease or 
 remedy. Had I consulted my friends in this 
 matter, it is more than probable (although with 
 due reverence be it spoken, " in the multitude of 
 counsellors there is safety, alias wisdom") that one 
 would have recommended a trip to Paris; a 
 second, a visit to a watering-place ; or a third, a 
 six weeks* residence in town ; but, as I had little 
 inclination to pace the Palais Royale, or climb the 
 steeps of Mont-Martre, and still less desire to 
 drench my attenuated figure with chalybeate or 
 saline draughts, or mingle with the votaries of 
 fashion and false pleasure in the metropolis, I 
 deemed it best therefore to act upon my own 
 views of expediency, asking no farther question, 
 and taking all the consequences of my wilfulness 
 on my own head. 
 
 I had seen some little of the world, as far as 
 the more refined and aristocratical part of mankind 
 may deserve that appellation, in my earlier days. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 7 
 
 and that little was sufficient to deter me from 
 searching further for health and instruction amongst 
 them : I therefore resolved to penetrate the more 
 cool and sequestered pathways of life, there to 
 mingle with those whose habits, means and modes 
 of living had effectually barred them from the pos- 
 sibility of being essentially corrupted by the luxury 
 of the rich, or the vices of the indolent victims 
 of voluptuousness and frivolity. I had already 
 perceived the demoralizing effect of example on 
 such as fate had thrown into the way of those 
 whom fortune had made great, and depravity of 
 conduct little. At the same time, I prepared 
 myself to meet with infirmity, vice and obliquity 
 of intellect, to say nothing of ignorance and its 
 brood of attendant errors, even amongst those 
 with whom I designed to hold that fellowship 
 which should neither place me on a level with 
 themselves, nor so far aloof as to render my en- 
 deavours to acquaint myself with the incidents and 
 feelings of common life a nugatory task. 
 
 Having thus put you, ray gentle reader, into 
 
8 THB EXCURSION OF 
 
 possession of the motives for my excursion, and 
 the plan I intended to pursue, I shall no longer 
 dally with my subject, but at once proceed to a 
 brief relation of the various incidents which befel 
 me in my pilgrimage, and a plain narration of 
 the few simple specimens of legendary lore I col- 
 lected from those who were only able to commu- 
 nicate their information as they gathered it, by 
 word of mouth, or, as my tutor of flagellating 
 memory would say, orally. 
 
 Having, therefore, settled all things to my mind 
 and taken a farewell of my parishioners, I lost no 
 time in packing into a portmanteau such things as 
 I might require during my absence, with a few 
 books for amusement after a day's pedestrianism, 
 or to relieve " the languor of a rainy day," and 
 then retired to rest, for the last time it might he, 
 in mine ain wee chamber, full of future hopes, and 
 thirsting for coming enjoyments. My sleep was 
 broken and disturbed ; — dreams and strange phan- 
 tasies kept floating continually athwart my brain, 
 with here and there a shadow of probability, during 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 9 
 
 the livelong night, and I felt more than glad when, 
 waking in the midst of an almost tragical event, 
 the sun with A/elcome morning face, bade me 
 good morrow, and a cock at some short distance, 
 told me, with his not then unmelodious hc»:n, that 
 it was time to be a-foot and a-field. I had two miles 
 to go ere I could enter a stage which would convey 
 
 me to H , a short distance from the place of 
 
 my birth, the very spot of all others I intended to 
 visit first. These miles I knew I must walk, or 
 deviate from my original intention of being a 
 pedestrian, unless necessity compelled me to 
 journey otherwise. I had also, my valise, or port-r 
 manteau-bearer, a fat lubberly boy to rouse from 
 his truckle-bed, where he lay in a room not far 
 distant from mine, making most sonorous discourse 
 with a nose tuned to the lowest note in the scale 
 of swinish chromatics. I had therefore, no time 
 to waste in curtain reflections, for the coach passed 
 
 through W at seven, and my wooden clock 
 
 had already hammered six of these horary divisions 
 of time, and was rapidly ticking away to add 
 another period to the one just elapsed. I there- 
 
 B 3 
 
10 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 fore sounded the note of preparation at the door of 
 my dormitory, and in a few minutes I heard sounds 
 around me indicative of something more like life in 
 the house than the nasal voluntary of my musical 
 Achates. Having thus eCFectually roused the in- 
 mates of my residence, I began with that more- 
 haste-less-speed kind of celerity which is the usual 
 attendant of raw travellers to equip myself for my 
 journey. Now, indeed, my troubles began ; every 
 thing appeared to be in its wrong place, — I wanted 
 my cravat, a pair of gaiters presented themselves, 
 to be flung any where but where I might wish to find 
 them. I hunted for my favourite and only gold- 
 headed pin, a hair-brush occupied its place ; — I put 
 on my shoes, and a string was missing ; in fact the 
 whole of my poor personals seemed bewitched, and 
 the more I endeavoured to hasten my equipment, 
 the less progress I appeared to make, so true is it 
 
 " Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdin.^' 
 
 At length, however, I succeeded, and hurrying 
 down stairs found my companion, Jerry, ready 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 11 
 
 for his expedition, and my good old housekeeper 
 busily arranging the breakfast-table, whilst my 
 before-mentioned Achates, alias Jerry, " silici 
 scintillam excudit," or in other words, hammered 
 away at a stubborn flint with all the fury of a 
 second Mac Adam. But my time was too pre- 
 cious to admit of dalliance, I therefore slung my 
 valise on the broad shoulders of my attendant, 
 thanked my excellent Mary for her hospitable in- 
 tentions, looked round a long farewell, and, with 
 the blessings of all my home contained. 
 
 At once strode forth amid the morning dew, 
 
 And bade good morrow to the fields and pastures new." 
 
 Nothing material occurred during our walk to 
 the neighbouring town, except that at times 
 thoughts of the home behind me, (** the little cove, 
 the parsonage of rest,") with other fond recollec- 
 tions, passed over the fair picture of the future in 
 my mind, like clouds o'er April's sunny skies. 
 My companion, too insensate and unmindful of 
 the passing to taste with zest the beauties of the 
 
12 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 saffron-skirted morn a tip-toe on the hills, or to 
 drink as I did the pure and refreshing influence 
 of the gentle morning zephyr, " whistled as he 
 went for want of thought," or, every now and then, 
 threw a tempting pebble at some merry minstrel 
 of the rising day pouring forth its wood-notes wild 
 on its accustomed spray. 
 
 At length, after a most delightful specimen of 
 pedestrianism, over sands mid-leg deep, — through 
 lanes crossed and intersected by ruts, never filled 
 since the days of Boadicea, and by paths through 
 spiky furze, hung with the stolen remnants of the 
 wandering fleecy tenants of the heath, and dripping 
 with early dew, we reached the Rampant Lion, 
 in time to see the last passenger insinuating his 
 rotundity into the hollow of the Highflyer, and 
 only exactly at the point of time to permit me the 
 possibiUty of flying, " fervidis rotisy' to the tune 
 of seventy-two miles before night. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 13 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 TRAVELLING INCIDENTS. 
 
 Which prove this proverb /aZs«; birds of a feather. 
 Will, fearelesse, use to flocke and feed together. 
 
 G. Withers. 
 
 Having lost but little time in making my wishes 
 known to the jolly and rubicund roysterer, the 
 jehu of the old north road, who was examining 
 the lash of his whip, and adjusting his reins by the 
 side of his impatient steeds, with the utmost non- 
 chalance imaginable, I found by great good for^ 
 tune, that he had stowage for me in his already 
 heavily-laden vehicle ; I, therefore, dismissed my 
 late companion, and taking instant possession of 
 my place, perceived, in looking beside me, that I 
 
14 THB EXCURSION OP 
 
 had become fellow-partner, with a gentleman of no 
 mean circumference, of that seat so much dreaded 
 by nervous ladies and hypochondriacal old maids, 
 namely, the one best calculated for giving you 
 faint glimpses of the land you leave behind you. 
 However, as I had little to dread, on the score of 
 intestinal commotion, however debilitated in other 
 respects my constitution might be, I rested per- 
 fectly satisfied with my situation, and maintained 
 the first mile or two, a silence and gravity be- 
 coming an intruder on a society already cemented 
 together by the feelings of stage-coach equality and 
 the ideas of common rights and common dangers. 
 At length I began to look abroad with something 
 like confidence — my noviciate had passed away — 
 and I thought it but fair to know who were the 
 members of our little community. 
 
 The first face that underwent scrutiny was one 
 which excited no common interest : it was the face 
 of one who had evidently been deeply tried in the 
 school of affliction — a mourner's — and, it might be, 
 a widow's, for I perceived something like a widow's 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 15 
 
 bonnet, overshadowing a brow pale as Parian 
 marble, though somewhat traced with those fur- 
 rows which care and mental suffering infix on the 
 foreheads of their victims. Still she was young, 
 and sorrow had not succeeded in removing the 
 Unes of a countenance once eminently beautiful 
 and expressive, — it had done its worst, but the 
 soft and pensive tone it had spread over her fea- 
 tures in part repaid the havock it had made. 
 Once she had been bewitchingly fair, now she was 
 peculiarly interesting and affecting; the beauty 
 which erst had doubtlessly charmed all eyes, now 
 softened by grief and sobered with care, looked 
 unutterable things. 
 
 Her eyes, deep as heaven's own blue, moved 
 softly in orbs whence bitter tears had flown, to 
 cool the anguish of the wounded heart. Her 
 nose was slightly aquiline, and gracefully bowed 
 to a mouth perfectly beautiful, the pale ruby lips 
 of which, occasionally quivering, betrayed those 
 grand essentials of feminine loveliness, pearl-like 
 teeth, as, ever and anon, she cast her eyes, suf- 
 
16 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 fused with tears, on a lovely baby-boy that slept 
 and smiled in her closely-folded vest. At times, 
 too, as she shifted her little treasure, I perceived 
 half shrouded by her veiled breast, a miniature of 
 one I half remembered to have seen in years gone 
 by. 
 
 Imagination was now alive, and I began to form 
 conjectures who this mother and child might be, 
 and had nearly concluded, from the glimpse I 
 had seen of the picture, that it represented one 
 whom, in early life, I had known as a fellow- 
 student, when a sudden jerk of the coach, as it 
 rattled over some recently-laid stones, at once de- 
 cided the matter by showing me, in miniature, in 
 the garb of a pensioner of St. John's, my old 
 college-companion, Henry Audley. For a moment 
 I felt half-inclined to address the young sufferer — 
 make known my acquaintance with him whose 
 portrait hung suspended to her neck, and offer her 
 my services for the rest of our journey, when, on 
 stooping to remove a parcel which rather incom- 
 moded my feet, she begged me in the sweetest 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 17 
 
 tone possible, to allow her to place it on her knee, 
 being- fearful that it might, otherwise prove very 
 troublesome to me. Happy that T had the oppor- 
 tunity of addressing her without breaking through 
 those cold formalities which etiquette and modem 
 politeness have established, I besought her to give 
 herself no disquietude respecting it, and expressed 
 a wish that she would permit me to take charge of 
 it for her. A faint gleam of pleasure passed over 
 her face as she accepted my proffered aid, and re- 
 turned me her kind thanks for my polite attentions, 
 and I was about to unburthen the secret I wished 
 yet feared to disclose, when the address of Mrs. 
 Neville, passenger, upon the parcel, at once told 
 me that my conjectures must be wrong, and my 
 silence on that subject at least prudent and neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Thus foiled in my speculations, and unwilling to 
 disturb the silent sorrow of my fair companion by 
 observations as trite and common-place as those 
 which usually form stage-coach conversation, I 
 looked around me for another object whereupon to 
 
18 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 exercise my imagination, and fixed my gaze on one, 
 a female, the very opposite in all respects, of the 
 silent mourner before me, but the very counter- 
 part, in personal proportion and vulgarity, of my 
 right-hand friend, whose fleshly mansion evidently 
 appeared to have been widened at the expense of 
 the corporation — of London, I guessed, since they 
 discoursed most eloquently and ostentatiously of 
 their respective friends in Candlewick-ward, and 
 their acquaintances in Norton- Falgate. 
 
 1 took them at first, for husband and wife, but 
 the unusual complaisant things bandied between 
 them, soon convinced me that I had the honour of 
 being elbowed by no less a man than Alderman 
 Griskin, orator and soap-boiler, of Puddle-Dock, 
 and the supreme felicity of travelling with Mrs. 
 Nobbs, wife of a celebrated biscuit-baker of that 
 name, and Common- Councilman, of Dowgate, 
 (quaere, Doughgate). It were a waste of words 
 to describe the personal pecuUarities of this worthy 
 pair, sufiicient be it to say that London never dis- 
 gorged from her yawning outlets two worthier re- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 19 
 
 presentatives of the feasting and fattening part of 
 her subjects on one day than on this. The truism, 
 *' pares cum paribus facillime congregantur" or, 
 birds of a feather flock together, (by imitation,) 
 was, as far as related to themselves, in strict 
 keeping ; but, as far as it regarded the lone one 
 sitting by Mrs. Nobb's puffy elbows, and my poor 
 diminished, starveling self, (like a skewer under 
 the wing of a fat capon — Alderman Griskin,) I 
 felt, with something like joy, that even this rule, 
 general as it might be, had its exceptions. To the 
 poor young thing Mrs. Nobbs occasionally blurted 
 forth something like the sound of commiseration, 
 but she touched the chord of the widow's wo with 
 such a barbarous and unskilful hand that it sounded 
 only the note of sorrow deeper and deeper still to 
 her shattered and wounded spirit. The Alderman 
 too, would at times revert to her sorrows, and 
 with witty leer and joyous chuckle, at the end of 
 his oration on the miseries of life, (miseries he had 
 plainly never felt,) venture to surmise that her 
 " eyes would not want lovers long, or else 'twould 
 sartinly be her own fault." She said little in re- 
 
20 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 turn to these sallies ; but, acknowledging their ill- 
 directed kindness with a few half-breathed words, 
 looked at her babe slumbering in her lap, and 
 gently passed her delicate and faded hand over her 
 eyes, filled with sorrow to the brim, to restrain, 
 if not to hide, the feelings of a soul struggling 
 with its load of sorrows, and refusing to be com- 
 forted by such poor and weak devices. Stage 
 after stage we thus travelled ; and, although I un- 
 remittingly offered to procure her any little comfort 
 the different inns at which we changed horses 
 might afford, she invariably (with the greatest pos- 
 sible delicacy and expression of kindness received) 
 declined troubling me, farther than to request a 
 servant, at our second stage, to bring her a glass 
 of milk and a biscuit. At length, however, after 
 sundry and several yawns and guttural groans of 
 impatience on the part of Alderman G. for his 
 customary mid-day meal^ and sundry expressive 
 opes from Mrs. N. that she might be enabled to 
 find a nice ot fowl at the next hinn for her lunch, 
 
 the coach drove into the populous town of S , 
 
 and stopped at the principal inn, where our guard 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 21 
 
 politely informed us, passengers usually dined, 
 during their stay of half an hour. The Alderman 
 lost but little time in withdrawing his unwieldiness 
 from the thraldom of the coach at the cheerful 
 sound of dinner, nor did his worthy ally, the 
 common-councilman's lady, snuff the gale for 
 nought, but, with admirable celerity and ingenuity, 
 by the aid of her deputy-attendant, extricated 
 herself from the seat, and dragged her slow length 
 behind, leaning on her cicisbeo's arm, to the 
 dining-room of the Bear and Ragged Staff. 
 Leaving these worthies to regale themselves, I 
 shall briefly relate what transpired in reference to 
 myself and my sorrow-stricken companion. 
 
 Alighting from the coach, I once more offered 
 all the aid I could give to the widow and her help- 
 less babe, entreating her to alight and take such 
 nourishment as the inn afforded. She thanked 
 me with that ease, good breeding, and feeling for 
 my poor attentions, which completely told me in 
 what society she had moved. She looked wistfully 
 around, as she accepted my proffered assistance. 
 
22 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 and gave her babe into my arms, informing me 
 at the same time, to my deep regret, that she had 
 reached her destination. She had scarcely uttered 
 these words, when a genteel young man rushed 
 forth from the inn-yard and pressed her to his 
 breast. They stood enfolded a few moments, she 
 like the ivy clinging to some goodly tree, he hke 
 its protecting stem, and the only words I could 
 hear were— my dearest Ellen ! — my good brother ! 
 Instantly, as if retiring from the vulgar gaze, he 
 essayed to lead her forward to the inn, when, as 
 if some sudden recollection crossed her mind, she 
 started back for her babe, and, with a hurried 
 voice, stifled with grief, introduced me to her 
 brother as a kind Samaritan, who had rendered 
 her those services she could now claim from no one. 
 He turned round to me, and, ere we could speak, 
 our hands never joined since youth, were firmly 
 clasped together, and all the fond recollections of 
 our boyhood came thick and strong, into our 
 hearts, as I beheld the friend of my youth, the 
 open-hearted Henry Audley, and he saw the 
 shadow of his old fellow-collegian and schoolfellow. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 23 
 
 W' F . We retired with his forlorn 
 
 sister to an inner room, amidst mutual congratu- 
 lations and inquiries, and ere five minutes had 
 elapsed come what would, I had determined, 
 also, to decline farther companionship with my 
 London worthies. 
 
 For when the young widow his sister retired, 
 Henry informed me, that as business would ne- 
 cessarily detain him in town till a late hour, he had 
 resolved upon staying the night with his sister at 
 the inn, and using his kind entreaties to prevail 
 upon me, also, to abide with them, I unhesitatingly 
 complied ; and, arranging matters with my jehu, 
 postponed farther progress till another day, and 
 left Alderman G. and the common-councilman's 
 wife to prosecute their journey together in undis- 
 turbed communion, — he to find purchasers for 
 soap, and she to astound her country-relatives with 
 cash and finery, flummery and affectation. Harry 
 was all hilarity ; he had again embraced a widowed 
 sister, whe was all but lost to him, and recognized, 
 in that sister's temporary supporter, an old and 
 
24 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 faithful companion of boyhood. I, also, was ex- 
 hilarated ; but my journey with that desolate sister 
 had cast a gloom over my mind and a weight on my 
 heart I could not effectually remove : I strove to 
 be gay, but dulness, as an incubus, brooded on 
 my spirit : I endeavoured to remember the nume- 
 rous tricks we had both been engaged in, first, as 
 
 fellow-pupils of the grammar-school of W , 
 
 and, next, as fellow-students at Cambridge, but 
 all was in vain ; I fell back upon myself, and, for 
 once, felt nearly miserable. However, to relieve, 
 in part, my depression of spirits, dinner came, 
 and with it the beautiful and pensive Ellen Neville, 
 during which little passed except some awkward 
 attempts at pleasantry by my friend, a few words in 
 reply Ughted up by a transient smile from his sister, 
 and an attempt, now and then by myself to recall 
 to my friend's memory the recollection of boyish 
 gests and deeds long gone by. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as dinner was concluded, I 
 thought proper to withdraw, for the purpose of 
 affording both brother and sister an opportunity of 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. ^ 
 
 opening their hearts unreservedly to each other, 
 and took a stroll in the pleasant shades which sur- 
 rounded the town. I wandered vaguely up and 
 down pleasant lanes, and through fields, where the 
 busy harvestmen were just finishing their tasks, 
 (for the season was unusually late that year,) till, 
 at length, evening began to spread around, and I 
 discovered the town I had left, far in the distance 
 behind me ; I, therefore, with more alacrity, and 
 still greater uncertainty, began to retrace my steps. 
 After a tedious walk, beguiled with no very agree- 
 able thoughts, I reached the inn, in time to find 
 the fair creature, which haunted my imagina-. 
 tion, retired to her room, with her baby-boy, 
 for the night, and my friend Henry somewhat im- 
 patiently employed in devising causes for my pro- 
 tracted absence. After a light supper, my friend 
 gave me, with a cordial invitation to the rectory of 
 Brookholme, a few brief details of his sister's 
 mournful story ; these I have treasured up, and 
 wound into a simple tale, which the following 
 chapter shall unfold. 
 
26 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 THE YOUNG WIDOW. 
 
 ** He that, like a strong wall, supported my tender branches, 
 " is fallen. The spring tides of my plenty are spent, and I 
 " am gravelled in the low ebbs of all wants. The sonnets of 
 " my mirth are turned into elegies of mourning. My glory is 
 " put out, and my honour grovels in the dust." — Fra. Quarles's 
 Judgement and Mercy y 1671. 
 
 The family from which Ellen Audley was 
 descended, had held, in days long gone by, a high 
 and distinguished place among the nobles of the 
 land. Its founder had been one who had proved 
 himself not less wise in the senate of his country 
 than brave in fighting her battles. The shield of 
 honour which he left to his children was not 
 staioed with the blood of the tyrannized, nor 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. fSt 
 
 sullied with the tears of the oppressed. From 
 the full fountain of his own glory and fame, his 
 name had reached his sixth generation of de- 
 scendants, flowing through various channels, but 
 in none with more pure and perfect lustre than 
 in that branch from which the gentle and 
 unsophisticated subject of my tale burst into 
 existence. 
 
 Her father was rector of the small parish of 
 Brookholme, yielding him barely sufficient to allow 
 him the prudent possibility of mingling with those 
 he might otherwise have honoured by associating 
 with. In early life he had married one who, if 
 she had not materially increased his wealth, had 
 very sensibly added to his comforts, and spread 
 that glow of delight and happiness around his 
 home which all the empty power of riches can 
 neither generate nor purchase. She had blessed 
 him with two children, Henry and Ellen: the 
 former a riotous, high-spirited, yet generous boy ; 
 and the other a timid, affectionate, and beautiful 
 girl. The happy pastor, as he leaned over his 
 
 c2 
 
28 THE EXCURSION OF A 
 
 devoted wife, engaged in the sweet offices of 
 either administering to the corporeal or spiritual 
 wants of her little ones, felt himself in the full 
 fruition of earthly blessedness. Often would he 
 clasp his dear Mary to his heart, and bless his 
 Almighty Father, that he had dispensed so precious 
 and lovely a gift to him. And many a night would 
 he steal away to the room, on tiptoe, where his 
 babes lay Hghtly in Their slumbers, to kiss their 
 rosy cheeks, and ask, on bended knee, by their 
 little couches, for blessings on their heads. In 
 such visions of bliss how many years glidfed, almost 
 insensibly away, divided between the duties he 
 owed to his parish, his people, and his children. 
 But the time came when this happy family group 
 was to be disturbed and parted. Henry left his 
 home to prepare himself for the university; and 
 was entered at the same school where I was a 
 pupil. We became good friends, for there was 
 something in Henry so frank, generous, and kind, 
 that stern indeed must have been the stuff that 
 that heart could be made of which refused him a 
 niche in its sanctuary. The vacation came, and 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 29 
 
 I received an invitation to spend it with my 
 friend under his father's roof, no unwelcome 
 circumstance for one who, indeed, had no parent 
 to bless and protect him, and no holiday, save 
 one in the year, of three days continuance, 
 when I visited a maternal uncle, one of those 
 close and crabbed creatures who hate every 
 thing but long prayers, somr faces, and deep 
 pockets. I went to my unspeakable joy, and 
 what a welcome we received: embraces, kisses, 
 and tears of joy almost smothered Henry, and 
 kind looks and welcome words nearly upset the 
 little of man I myself possessed. 
 
 I then, for the first time, saw Ellen Audley, 
 and if youthful charms and gentleness of heart, 
 combined with affections warm as mid-day sun, 
 could have won a young untried heart, mine, under 
 such circumstances, could not have done otherwise 
 than yield. To be brief, young as we were, I be- 
 lieve we loved each other with a pure and intense 
 feeling ; at least, if I can remember aright, many 
 tears were shed on both sides when we returned to 
 
30 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 school at the end of our vacation. Another term 
 of study passed away, and I saw her again, to 
 drink only deeper of that spring of delight which 
 was as welcome to me as water to a pilgrim in a 
 sandy desert. 
 
 That holiday passed away, also like the former, 
 and I saw her no more. Alma Mater called me 
 to her academic groves, and as I was a poor 
 sizer, my vacations (no vacations to me) were 
 all consumed in cramming those with the little I 
 knew who had no desire to work their own path 
 to the senate-house. After a time Henry also 
 came and my happiness was all but complete ; I 
 heard of those who had been so kind to me with 
 sentiments of pure delight, but when his sister's 
 name and good qualities breathed from his lips, I 
 shook and trembled with intensity of feeling — but 
 I told not my love, prudence, cold prudence 
 restrained my tongue and forbade me to ask for 
 one too far elevated in the world to be kenned by 
 a poor orphan. I stifled my feelings and went 
 doggedly to work at my studies, — a few terms 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. INL 
 
 over and I carried away my share of senate-house 
 honours on my brow, but poverty was in my 
 pocket. A friend had obtained a curacy for me 
 in a distant county — I therefore parted from my 
 kind collegian, and, ordination over, betook myself 
 to my home and income of £70 a year. 
 
 Whilst I had been passing through these varied 
 and busy scenes, Ellen vrith mellowing charms had 
 advanced from the fair child to the lovely womao. 
 She was not only the pride of the parsonage, 
 but the belle of the country around. Still her 
 piersonal charms were not her best recommenda- 
 tion ; her modesty, sweetness of temper, affection, 
 and benevolence of soul spake more eloquently 
 than her beauty. She had been taught the orna- 
 mental part of education by her accomplished 
 mother, and her father had not forgotten to im- 
 plant on her mind, the sound substantialities of 
 useful learning; she was therefore a model of 
 feminine excellence, and a shining example not 
 only of the benefits of a liberal but a religious 
 education. 
 
32 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 But a year came, in which the faint childlike re- 
 membrance she had of me was to fade away, and her 
 heart to beat for another. Her father was appoint- 
 ed chaplain to the high sheriff of the county of 
 
 N , and she accordingly made her deh^t on 
 
 the stage of the world at an assize-ball. Her re- 
 ception was such as she deserved ; but the praises 
 of one and the flattery of another breathed not 
 the incense congenial to her soul. She heard ful- 
 some compliments but to smile and forget them, and 
 Ellen Audley the next morning was the same as 
 before, humble and unsophisticated. But one 
 face betokening a like soul had she seen, and thnt 
 was a soldier's, the gentle and brave Reginald 
 Neville. She had not beheld the intelligence and 
 mind beaming from his eyes for nought, nor listen- 
 ed to the manly converse of his lips in vain. They 
 met the day following, and that flame was kindled 
 which ceased not to burn with increasing ardour 
 and fervency till his existence waned into the 
 socket of death. 
 
 To be brief, they loved and were sanctioned. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 88 
 
 but the course of true love did never run smooth 
 to the end, for the very sun which saw them mar- 
 ried by her exulting parent saw that parent in 
 death ere it set. He was happy — his dear child 
 had been given to a man who deserved her. 
 Henry had obtained high college distinctions, and 
 was a priest like unto himself. — The old man was 
 at the zenith of his fulness of joy — the angel of 
 death hung over and gently touched him and his 
 spirit fled to his Maker and his God. What a 
 night of sorrow was it to that afflicted family — one 
 pillar had been taken away from their strength, 
 but another had been supplied. They had scarce- 
 ly known sorrow before, and now it came with 
 aggravated force — they bent before it, but brake 
 not, for the hand of God cherished them in that 
 hour. The faith they had followed, believed, and 
 loved, now proved its strength and efficacy. — 
 Their hearts were wounded ; but heavenly mercy 
 was pouring its healing balm within. They sor- 
 rowed, but not without hope, for him who had 
 died in the Lord. 
 
 c3 
 
34 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 A week passed heavily away, and this good 
 pastor was followed to his narrow house by the 
 multitudes of sorrowing individuals his example 
 had taught not less than his precepts. Another 
 closed, and Henry was placed in the pulpit of 
 his venerated parent ; his widowed mother had 
 received him to herself as her second stay ; and 
 Ellen and her kind and valiant husband were on 
 their way to head-quarters. Here they abode but ^H 
 a few months. Ireland was at that time dreadfully 
 disturbed by internal commotions, and Captain 
 Neville received orders to embark for that island 
 immediately. Ellen was now a soldier's wife, and 
 disdained to enjoy comforts he was debarred from : 
 he was now her \\^e and her joy, and she 
 determined to accompany him wherever his duty 
 called him. They arrived on the coast of Ireland 
 in safety, and ere many days had elapsed he 
 was sent with a small detachment to the town of 
 
 B . Nothing could be more miserable than 
 
 their situati >i here : they lived in part of a small 
 cabin with mud walls ; they had one room below 
 with a brick floor (an article of luxury), and one 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 35 
 
 small glass window (a luxury also), opening into a 
 yard piled up with the filth and abominations of 
 ages, where a few forlorn pigs wallowed in mire to 
 their very hearts' content. Their sleeping-room, 
 to which they ascended by a ladder with occa- 
 sional steps supplied by pieces of dirty line, 
 contained his camp-bedstead, standing on a few 
 boards merely slid together on trembling rafters. 
 Such was the residence of the captain and his 
 lady ; and in that miserable hovel, apart from 
 home and necessary comforts, did she present her 
 delighted husband with a smiling cherub of a boy, 
 the sweet pledge of their mutual love. During 
 this season of trial how did he minister to his 
 lovely and uncomplaining partner, and endeavour 
 to procure her from distant places all the little 
 helps and necessaries, nay even luxuries, her 
 situation required. But God, who tempers the 
 wind to the shorn lamb, looked upon her with 
 his favour and blessed her and her babe. She 
 recovered, and Reginald felt himself once again 
 happy in her smiles and attentions. He deemed 
 himself blest as a husband ; but now how much 
 
36 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 more were his blessings increased when he felt 
 himself a father ! A few weeks more passed over 
 their heads, in uninterrupted peace and happiness, 
 when the cloud which had burst upon them in 
 their outset of united existence, again returned to 
 work them still deeper wo. A letter arrived 
 from Reginald's mother who lay on the bed of 
 death, requiring his immediate departure for 
 England, to smoothen her dying pillow and .^^p 
 receive the last commands she could give him. 
 With a countenance strongly indicative of the 
 warring feelings of his breast, he communicated 
 the distressing intelligence to his fond wife. He 
 expressed his fears, from the date of the letter, 
 that his honoured parent might have already 
 departed to another and a better world, coupling 
 therewith his determination to lose no time in 
 obtaining his furlough for his immediate departure. 
 Her presence was necessary to him as life itself; 
 but he feared to ask it — her late delicate situation 
 — the babe at her breast — silenced all hope on the 
 subject. She saw what was passing in his mind 
 and immediately calmed his agitated spirit into 
 
A VILLAGE CURATK. 37 
 
 something like rest, as, leaning upon his arm, she 
 
 looked into his pale but tearless countenance and 
 
 entreated him to be comforted, and as he valued 
 
 her happiness to suffer her to accompany him. 
 
 " The same God, my dear Reginald," said she, 
 
 *' who preserved me from the gates of the grave, 
 
 and supported me with his hand, when I seemed 
 
 to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
 
 will still look upon me and my babe with his 
 
 kindness and mercy : he has tried us before, and 
 
 it pleases him to try us still further ; he gave us 
 
 blessings to repay our former afflictions, can he 
 
 not do even much more to bless our present 
 
 affliction to us ? Let me and my babe then, my 
 
 dear Reginald, be your partners in the house of 
 
 mourning, even as we have been in the cabin of 
 
 pleasure." He strained her to his heart, and with 
 
 eyes glistening with an unwonted tear, looked 
 
 upon his beauteous bride and breathed the fond 
 
 wish he had before dreaded to utter. 
 
 The furlough required was immediately granted, 
 and ere two days had elapsed they were departing 
 
38 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 from a coast they were destined never to behold 
 united again. It was a beauteous evening in 
 August when the vessel weighed anchor and gave 
 her sails to the gently fanning gale. A slight 
 ripple ran along the surface of the ocean as it lay 
 in passive beauty, tinted with the varied and lovely 
 dyes of falling day. The sea-fowl were gracefully 
 wheeling about and dipping their wings into the 
 briny wave ; and pleasure-boats were skimming 
 over the surface of the deep like gossamer-clouds 
 over the face of heaven. The hum of creation 
 still came murmuring on the breeze as it breathed 
 from a gladsome shore its gentle influence over 
 the golden sea. The gentle Ellen leaning on the 
 manly form of her beloved soldier-husband partook 
 of the beauty of the scene and sighed with joy, as 
 she observed the gentle and care-subduing influ- 
 ence of the glorious eve steal over the stricken 
 soul of her Reginald. 
 
 They stood by that tall ship's prow the admira- 
 tion of all, he pondering on the inscrutable decrees 
 of fate, and the brittleness of all earthly delights — 
 
A VILLAGE CURATF. 39 
 
 she hopiog and imploring all good for her beloved 
 partner and her babe, and looking through the dim 
 cloudiness which overshadowed their present con- 
 dition, to the sunny picture which fancy had painted 
 in distant perspective. 
 
 At length the pale moon rose on the verge of 
 the sea-girt horizon, and shed its soothing spirit of 
 gentleness on the waves as they rose in the dis- 
 tance like so many gentle ridges of living fire, or 
 sparkled as they rippled by the onward prow of 
 their stately vessel as she sailed o'er that surgeless 
 sea. How did she stand entwined in her young 
 hero's arms, the picture of loveliness itself, whilst 
 the breeze gently sighed in the shrouds and the 
 moon beams danced along the waves. What 
 communion did heart hold with heart, under 
 that star-besprinkled canopy of heaven: how 
 many endearing words passed, and how many 
 fond hopes were expressed which time should 
 never see realized. 
 
 With the heaviness of comins: sorrow around 
 
40 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 them, they yet felt that bliss, which the imperish- 
 able unity of kindred spirit fails not to inspire : 
 and however the cup of bitterness seemed to be 
 filled, they felt that its draught was wholesome- 
 ness to the soul. Whilst they thus held delight- 
 ful converse with each other, the northern waves 
 became darkened as a small cloud arose above the 
 horizon, light clouds began to scud along the 
 brow of heaven, and a murmur came upon the 
 ear like the strife of warring waters. They ob- 
 served not the changing face of the sky till a boat- 
 swain's voice bade the active crew fly aloft and 
 prepare for a coming squall. " Tumble up, my 
 lads," said he, " there's a foul wind in the ofBng, 
 and we shall have a spice of Old Boreas before the 
 morning." — " Steady, my boys, steady," cried the 
 old pilot as he gave her larboard to the wind; 
 " there's a fresh hand at the bellows, and I never 
 knew a breeze spring up like this before that did 
 not try the timbers of a double-decker." Startled 
 at the sounds around them, and the sudden change 
 which the sky assumed, Reginald with his pallid 
 wife hurried to the cabin, where their beauteous 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 41 
 
 boy lay asleep in his cot, rocked by the heaving 
 vessel. Meanwhile the breeze freshened and their 
 bark rushed through the swelling waters with dash- 
 ing fury. A loud roll of thunder now broke over- 
 head, and the breeze changed into a gale. Sounds 
 of confusion were heard upon deck and the 
 tramp of feet hurrying to and fro. " Take in every 
 stitch of canvass," says the captain, " and give her 
 bare poles to the wind. Who cares for a pufF 
 like this in the Little Dolphin ?" Many were the 
 passengers on board that ship beside Reginald, 
 his wife, and babe, and many a shriek was heard 
 as she pitched her bows into the wave, and the 
 rough surge went roaring over her deck. The 
 gale increased, and onward they went as if she 
 were an infuriate and mad thing : the pilot had his 
 arm broken at the wheel, and she swang partly 
 round ere another hand could save her from in- 
 stant destruction. Can language paint the distress 
 and agony of this ill-fated pair, as they prayed in 
 silent anguish over their babe now cradled in the 
 lap of its almost distracted parent? ** Oh, my 
 wife, my sweet Ellen, my baby-boy, what mi- 
 
42 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 sery is around us, — what a fearful strife before we 
 must part !" exclaimed the agonized father, as he 
 embraced all that could endear him to life, 
 " Dearest Reginald," cried his beloved Ellen, 
 " Oh ! utter not the painful thought, we shall yet 
 live, pray with me — O, my husband ! pray with 
 me, that God may have mercy upon us and re- 
 lieve us from the bitterness of impending death." 
 They knelt and prayed in holy communion, and 
 their supplications rose up to Heaven's gate, and 
 were in part answered. — Scream now on scream 
 from the other distressed passengers sunk in the 
 pitiless gale, guns of distress were fired, and the 
 blue lights burnt — but in vain. On thus they 
 drove, till morning began to spread her saddest 
 light around, and the man on watch sang from 
 his post, " Land on the starboard bow, wear 
 away or we are gone for ever." But she refused 
 to obey her helm, and floated amid the chafing 
 billows the sport of the storm, till at length, one 
 tremendous crash told the mournful secret of her 
 utter ruin. Reginald now snatched up his babe from 
 its mother's lap — kissed it with a feeling of frenzy. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 48 
 
 and laid it down moaning forth its little sorrows 
 on his Ellen's panting breast. He flew forth to 
 the deck and perceived the utter hopelessness of 
 their condition ; they lay within a short distance 
 of the Welsh coast, but breakers were between 
 them and the land, and their vessel was ahready 
 betraying its trust, as it lay the passive plaything 
 of the troubled waters. To let down the long 
 boat was but the work of a minute, and ere the 
 half wild Reginald could summon his Ellen and 
 her babe from their cabin, it was nearly filled by a 
 mingled multitude of sailors and passengers, and 
 they were about to release it from the ship's side 
 ere his voice could reach their ears — requesting 
 them to receive his lovely freight on board. He 
 hurried her in with her unconscious babe, but ere 
 he could himself reach its side a mighty wave 
 bore it away, and left him striving with death in 
 the depths of the ocean. Ellen, as the boat 
 which conveyed her to land shot from the founder- 
 ing ship, saw the beloved of her heart torn from 
 her side and buried in the waves. She shrieked 
 and fell into the bottom of the frail bark, and her 
 
44 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 poor babe in the distraction of the moment was 
 forgotten. A kind fellow-passenger however pro- 
 tected the little sufferer in his boat-cloak, whilst 
 the poor mother seemed insensible to every thing 
 passing. 
 
 She awoke not from this alarming stupor till 
 she found herself lying in a stately bed alone, 
 without child, without husband, and a strange 
 female setting by the side of her. The past 
 seemed like a dream — a few moments however 
 told her the extent of her loss, and she lay like a 
 being lost and bewildered by misfortune. But a 
 faint cry from an adjoining room, awoke all the 
 mother in her, and she begged for her babe, her 
 dear little one. But 'tis needless to dilate on this 
 sorrowful part of her story ; enough that she had 
 been received into the house of one of those be- 
 nevolent beings who " do good by stealth and 
 blush to find it fame." Here she received every 
 attention and comfort her forlorn situation required 
 —nor did she leave her hospitable abode till all 
 possible inquiry had been made for her lost husband, 
 
 % 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 45 
 
 and his remains found and interred in a village 
 church-yard bordering on the shore. She then 
 departed, imploring the blessing of Heaven upon 
 the head of her kind and benevolent protector. A 
 small portmanteau belonging to her husband had 
 reached the shore, in it was found sufficient to de- 
 fray her expenses to her widowed mother, and when 
 I had the mournful satisfaction of meeting my once 
 loved though unrecognised Ellen Audley, she was 
 returning from the scene of her sorrows and mis- 
 fortunes with her shipwrecked baby-boy to the 
 only home, and only protecting arms she had then 
 left upon earth. 
 
 On the following morning after bidding my 
 friend Henry Audley a reluctant farewell (who 
 rose some hours earlier on my account) and re- 
 newing my promise of staying some few days with 
 him on my return, I pursued my journey without 
 incident, or even reflection worth recording, to 
 
46 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 the market-town of N , where the high road 
 
 diverged in an almost contrary direction to the 
 by-lane which led to the place of my birth, the 
 retired and rural village of B . 
 
 What my speculations were there and how far 
 they were realized by a visit to my paternal abiding 
 place, I shall leave my next chapter to show— if 
 that my readers are not already tired of journey- 
 ing with me " per tot varios casus*' as I have 
 already had occasion to describe. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 47 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 ANTICIPATIONS, ETC. 
 
 " The little rill steals merrily along 
 
 Through flow'ry thickets, meads, and quiet dells. 
 
 Till its bright waters find the boundless sea : — 
 
 Yet, shall it ne'er retrace its former haunts. 
 
 Nor find the current of its joys again. 
 
 So life flows on, and manhood seeks in vain 
 
 The feelings, thoughts, and gay delights of youth." 
 
 Old Play. 
 
 Arriving at mine inn, I entered a room to 
 which I had been a stranger full fifteen years. I 
 remembered with a pang as I looked around, that, 
 in that very apartment I had bidden an eternal 
 adieu to the last of my parents — my father. I 
 thought of the last wring of his warm hand, ere 
 I mounted the coach to leave him for ever — the 
 
48 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 tear I saw trembling in his eye — and the quivering 
 lip, betokening the struggle of the man with the 
 feelings of the father as the relentless machine 
 hurried me away. These with many other like 
 thoughts slowly passed over my mind already 
 attuned to sorrow by the melancholy story I had 
 recently heard, and I sate for some time immersed 
 in that silent grief which refuses alike the poor 
 consolation of promised pleasure, and the deceitful 
 blandishments of false joy. How long I should 
 have remained thus enjoying the paradoxical 
 luxury of grief mingled with something like a 
 pleasurable feeling — that joy of grief so para- 
 doxically yet beautifully expressed in the scrip- 
 tures — had not the voice of a bustling waiter with 
 his " Did you ring, sir?" roused me from my 
 reverie to the knowledge of things around, I am 
 quite at a loss to conceive. 
 
 Having however discussed the merits of a neat 
 dinner placed before me, and in some degree 
 shaken off the mournful recollections that brooded 
 over my spirit, I drew my chair nearer to the fire 
 
 \ , 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 49 
 
 (for the weather was so unusually cold at that time 
 as to need one) and bade the flying mercury of the 
 Queen's Head bring me with my half pint of wine 
 a few books for amusement, if the inn boasted any. 
 He came and, with a niggard measure of poor 
 port, placed on the table before me for mental 
 food and recreation an old volume of the Lady's 
 Magazine, well thumbed and encrusted with the 
 soil of many handc an odd volume of plays, and a 
 Gazetteer with half its leaves either dismembered 
 or abstracted. I just turned over a few pages of 
 one to see the antique dresses of fifty years back, 
 looked at the several titles of the other, and laid 
 them down to sleep with their old companion the 
 Gazetteer in utter hopelessness of gaining from 
 them either instruction or amusement. I took up 
 a local paper also, but as I found to my surprise 
 not a single name mentioned that I had any distant 
 recollection of, or a single paragraph worth the 
 trouble of perusal, I laid it down also and betook 
 myself to the agreeable business of conjecturing 
 the character of the probable pleasures of the 
 morrow. 
 
 D 
 
50 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 I thought to myself as I sat at my ease in mine 
 inn, what a feast of exhilarating joy is before me» 
 To-raorrow ! and I shall behold the spot where I 
 was bom, the house endeared to me by many 
 deligniful reminiscences, the garden and grass- 
 plot where I ranged at large, a thoughtless but 
 a happy child. I shall see the old brook with its 
 whimpling current, where for hours I would lie 
 upon its grassy bank to entice and charm the little 
 minnows sporting about in its glassy waters. I 
 shall stray through fields, and by hedge-rows where 
 I wandered with my boon companions to pluck 
 cowslips, or honeysuckles, gather blackberries, 
 or peep into little nests filled with beauteous eggs 
 or half-fledged young. Another day and I shall 
 roam, a sedate and sober man, through a street 
 where I years ago played and rioted as a boy. I 
 shall there see my old school, my name-engraven 
 desk, my well-remembered seat, and the venerable 
 countenance of my respected, though even now 
 half-dreaded master. I shall behold the old fa- 
 miliar faces of my school-companions, my friends, 
 and my relatives; but, mournful thought! I shall 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. Sk 
 
 be greeted by no parent's embrace nor brother's 
 leaping heart. I shall behold, indeed, where they 
 are sleeping in the dust, but no voice of mine 
 shall wake them from their long, cold slumbers. I 
 shall press the turf that rises over their crumbling 
 remains, but they shall not look from out their 
 narrow house to smile upon the being they have 
 left behind, to wander alone through this vale of 
 tears. Such were my anticipations of the realities 
 the morrow should bring forth, as I sat by my 
 
 &e at N , nor was I sorry when that tedious 
 
 day ended, and I retired to rest to awaken to the 
 dear consciousness of once more beholding the 
 rural seats of my ancestors, and the place where I 
 first drew breath. 
 
 When I awoke the " fire-darting Apollo" was 
 staring in through my yellow window-curtains with 
 almost unwonted brightness, and I lost but little 
 time in descending from my bed-room, to destroy 
 the economy of an abundantly-spread breakfast- 
 table. This important meal being over I prepared 
 myself for my pedestrian excursion of some six or 
 
 n 2 
 
52 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 seven miles, by putting such articles of linen in 
 my pockets as my exigencies might require, and 
 leaving my portmanteau in the care of mine host 
 of the Queen's Head. — I started, and leaving the 
 purlieus of the town behind me soon found myself 
 sauntering along a lane nearly carpeted with 
 grass and over-arched with fine trees, who had 
 doffed their green summer vestments for the more 
 gorgeous and vari-coloured apparel of autumn. It 
 was one of those fine mornings in the decline of the 
 year when Nature appears to make her last efforts 
 to connect all the freshness and melody of spring 
 with the genial sunny warmth and vivid scenery of 
 her own latter days. All was beauty and bright- 
 ness around me, the fields were filled with busy 
 labourers, the groves with merry songsters, and 
 the lark in the blue heaven above was pealing 
 forth his warbling lay of thanksgiving to the young 
 smiling day. 
 
 As I brushed along the dewy glade the timid hare 
 flung across my path, squirrels leaped from branch to 
 branch, and the robin poured out his wood-notes 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 63 
 
 wild from his favourite spray. Surely thought 
 I, as I exultingly bounded along, a mom like this 
 is enough to banish sorrow from the heart of the 
 mourner, and open a vista of heaven and mercy 
 even to the bosom of crime itself. For myself, I felt 
 Kke a new man — a being released from the infirmi- 
 ties of the flesh, and half raised above the earth I 
 traversed, to hold communion with the pure and 
 blissful spirits above. 
 
 Having reached in the course of my journey a se- 
 cluded dell, called Ive-Gill, where a little rill, dan- 
 cing its sparkling waves in the sunny beam, crossed 
 my path, affording no other means for the pedestrian 
 to cross its brawling course than the body of an old 
 gnarled oak pollard, flung by accident, I judge, 
 over its shallow stream, I sat down on a green 
 daisy-spread bank near it to taste in silence the 
 gathered beauties around me. Here I rested some 
 time, listening to the constant gurgling and splash- 
 ing of the little brook near me, the rustling of the 
 faintly-stirred leaves, and the music of nature 
 breathing around, and conning over odd thoughts 
 
64 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 and fancies, till I became wrapt, as it were, into so 
 pleasing a state of mind, that worldly cares, feelings, 
 and objects became but matters of very secondary 
 consideration. I was aroused from this state of 
 pleasurable indolence by the jocund voice of a 
 way-farer, trolling a " right merrie lay" as he ap- 
 proached, with light foot and lighter heart, the 
 place where I sat. I caught part of the words as 
 they came floating along the breeze, and as far as 
 I can now charge my memory, they were to the 
 following effect :— 
 
 THE GIPSY'S SONG. 
 
 How blithe we live who gipsies be, 
 
 Nor care nor fear molests us, O ! 
 Content beneath the greenwood tree 
 
 To spread our cloaks and rest us, O ! 
 
 The winds may rage, the tempests howl. 
 
 We care not for their beating, O ! 
 And for our foes, our night-dog's growl 
 
 Shall keep us from their greeting, O I 
 
 If food be scant, or fold or brook 
 Shall yield its savoury treasures, O ! 
 
 We fill our bags by hook or crook. 
 Then hey for gipsies' pleasures, O ? 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. fift 
 
 When summer's heat or winter's cold 
 
 Our little tents is over, O ! 
 We shift them to some snug retreat. 
 
 And cozy lie in clover, O ! 
 
 We care not for the world's alarms, 
 
 Its cank'ring cares or troubles, O ! 
 Ambition, wealth, or golden charms 
 
 Are all to us as bubbles O ! 
 
 Then who would lead a worldling's life 
 
 Since gipsies live so jolly, O ? 
 With smiling babes and merry wife, 
 
 To laugh at human folly, O 7 
 
 There was somethio^ so frank and fearless in 
 the lay that I could not forbear looking around ta 
 see what merry-hearted companion fate had thrown 
 in my way, and discovered, at no great distance, 
 my jocund songster of the dell to be of that gentle 
 vagrant craft and occupation called gipsies. He 
 was apparently a young man, well built, sinewy, 
 and athletic ; with limbs not less calculated to op- 
 pose danger than swift to escape it, should the 
 odds be against him. His dress was that of a 
 common vagabondizing tinker, evidently made up 
 of garments vastly at variance with each other, if 
 
56 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 one might judge by their conflicting colours, and 
 the number of shreds and patches, neatly botched 
 on in various parts, betokening dreadful schisms 
 beneath. In his wide slouching hat, which had 
 something like a smart beauish cock in front, he 
 wore a peacock's feather, gracefully bowing over 
 a short ebon pipe stuck in the riband of his head- 
 gear. Slung at his side was a small greasy budget, 
 containing, I conjectured, his apparatus for tinning 
 pots and kettles, and botching up their respective 
 frailties. There was something in his regular gipsy 
 countenance betokening a good-natured, fearless, 
 and open disposition, and as he appeared to be 
 wending the same path as myself, I determined, 
 if possible, to make him my companion. 
 
 • After the morning's greeting was over, there- 
 fore, I resumed my walk, and endeavoured to 
 keep pace with the Ught-hearted stroller ; he evi- 
 dently saw my intention, as he slackened his pace 
 and trudged along the grass to enable me to keep 
 the foot-path without losing fellowship. After a 
 little common chat and a few inquiries after the 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 3t^ 
 
 gipsy's mode of life, habits, and character, which 
 he answered without reserve, he began, at my 
 instance, to narrate a few of the leading events of 
 his own life, which perhaps may not be entirely 
 uninteresting to my readers. 
 
 I shall, therefore, give them as I heard them, 
 only taking such liberties with his narrative as oc- 
 casion may require to render it a plain and com- 
 prehensive story. For be it observed, that he at 
 times used the cant expressions of his tribe, which, 
 as they pass current no where but in the very camp 
 of these foragers, might have needed the philolo- 
 gical acumen of a Porson or a Bentley, and puzzled 
 even the sagacity of Home Tooke himself to de- 
 termine their force and meaning, had I not troubled 
 him, whenever one of these stumbling-blocks fell 
 into the pathway of his discourse, to point out its 
 signification. 
 
 d3 
 
58 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 THE GYPSY. 
 
 " He was a roan 
 
 " Whom no one could have passed without remark ; 
 «* Active and nervous was his gait ; his limbs 
 " And his whole figure breathed intelligence." 
 
 Wordsworth's Excursion, p. 24. 
 
 ** Since you appear, my good gir, desirous to 
 become acquainted with a few of the odd circum- 
 stances of my life, and since I am nothing loth 
 that any one should know as much of Dennis Och- 
 terlony as Dennis Ochterlony knows of himself, 
 why I will at once fall in with your humour, and 
 just tell you neither more nor less than what is 
 true, be it bad or good. But as walking in this 
 burning sun is no sport either for wind or limb, 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 59 
 
 and talking no joke when you are ready to die 
 for want of breath, why, if it pleases your honour, 
 we will just rest a bit in a nice little hollow a few 
 fields before us, where I can say my say without 
 interruption, and you listen to it at your ease." 
 (I assented, and having reached the bottom of a 
 hill, through what might have been in former days 
 the angle of a wood, we sate ourselves down 
 beneath the umbrageous shade of an ancient glory 
 of the dale, and he pursued his narrative, as 
 follows.) " I was born, if report says true, in h 
 retired part of Sherwood-Forest, but in what 
 year I am not as well able to say. My parents 
 were of ^he same happy race as I now belong to, 
 my father being the head of one of our families, and 
 my mother the daughter of one of the bettermost 
 men of another. I have but a very moderate 
 recollection of the earlier part of my life, but I 
 dare say it was pretty much of the character 
 which usually distinguishes the young people of 
 our race. 
 
 " I can very well remember, however, being 
 
60 THK EXCURSION OF 
 
 appointed the guide of a part of our wandering 
 family as driver of one of our asses, which bore 
 in a crate, on one side two of my sisters, and on 
 the other side our cooking-materials and tinker's 
 budgets. I can also remember being a kind of 
 collector of blunt scissors, knives, and razors, for 
 my eldest brother, who was a main good hand at 
 grinding and setting. To tell all our wanderings 
 and accidents would take up more time than either 
 you or I can spare, but there is one circumstance 
 which took place during this period of my life 
 that I can never forget — the death of my mother, 
 poor soul — the most toward and kind creature on 
 earth. She had been ailing for a long time, and 
 a world of stuff had been given her by charitable 
 and feeling people, and the knowing old women 
 of our tribe ; but all in vain ; she daily grew worse 
 and worse, and I verily believe, if gipsies ever 
 pray at all, she prayed to be forgiven, and to be 
 at rest. Folks say we never do, but as for the 
 matter of that, I say nothing, only this I know 
 that my poor old mother could read very well for 
 a woman of her way of life, and she often would 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. ffl 
 
 sit and sigh over a book called the Bible — I dare 
 say you know all about what I mean — and I've 
 often heard her mumbling words over to herself 
 at night, when none but we were with her, as if 
 she prayed, and then she would kiss us, and tell 
 us to be good children, that we might live with 
 her in a place she called Heaven, where God, 
 lived, who made every thing, and sent his Son to 
 die for us, (words we could not then at all under- 
 stand). I don't know that we learned much by 
 this, but when she told us that she should soon die, 
 and that we should have no mother to love us, 
 but that God would be a friend to her motherless 
 babes, when she was crumbling into dust, I 
 only know that we used to cry with her, and beg 
 her not to leave us, till our very hearts ached^ 
 and we were fain to die with her also. 
 
 " She had been talking to us in this way one 
 night when my father, a cruel and austere man, 
 came into our tent, and snatched her book out of 
 her hand, (for I suppose he had overheard us, and 
 thought mother was so sad because she read that 
 
G2 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 book so often) and threw it into the fire, decla- 
 ring, with an oath at the same time, that he 
 would soon do away with the cause of her groans 
 and moans, which indeed wrung our hearts, but 
 moved not his. Well, sir, one evening, just at 
 night-fall, a spy brought us intelligence that con- 
 stables were out in search for us; that some 
 one had lost some sheep, and that we were sus- 
 pected of being the stealers. God knows a piece 
 of mutton had not entered our mouths for many 
 months. Whether my father had done wrong I 
 know not, but he turned deadly pale, and desired 
 that we should all set to work to remove our 
 quarters, and endeavour, by travelling all night, 
 to reach some place of safety. 
 
 " My mother, was then at the worst, she 
 had been pining and moaning all day, and at 
 times maundering in her short sleeps about her 
 children, her baby, and her unfeeling husband. 
 We had to take this poor creature from the 
 ground where she was dying, and place her in a 
 small cart which usually carried our beds. She 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. G3 
 
 spoke not, but a sigh at times escaped her, showing 
 that she was still alive. What a night that was — 
 the rain fell in torrents, and it thundered and 
 lightened I might almost say continually. Well, 
 on we journeyed ; myself, brothers, and sisters, 
 as sorrowful, cold, wet, and sleepy as we could 
 well be. Through by-ways, over heaths and 
 splashing moors, on we went is rapidly as our 
 tired animals could go, and long before the 
 morning broke we found ourselves at the entrance 
 of a thick forest. Through briars, thorns, and 
 brakes we passed our silent way, till at last we 
 reached an open spot, where there was sufficient 
 grass for our cattle to feed on — here we again 
 began to pitch our tents, when, on removing some 
 of the articles from our little cart, we found 
 our poor parent stiff and cold in death. She 
 had died during our journey amid that fearful 
 storm, with her hands clasped upon her breast, 
 and her eyes turned upward to heaven. 
 
 *' She was taken from her last bed and laid upon 
 a blanket, our eyes discerning nothing but a mo- 
 
64 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 tionless form, till at length a misty beam of the 
 moon burst from a parting cloud and showed us 
 our departed mother. How we stooped and kissed 
 her as she lay sleeping her quiet sleep. If she was 
 beautiful and dear to us in life, how much more 
 so was she all this in death ! Her poor cold and 
 wet face looked happy as a child's ; we pressed 
 her chill hands, but no pressure was returned. 
 Her babe (for she had one then scarcely seven 
 months old) being laid by her side began to nestle 
 in her cloak for warmth and sustenance — poor 
 baby-brother (that died shortly after), how it 
 searched in vain. Well, sir, said he, (as a few 
 warm tears trickled down his agitated face,) excuse 
 these poor acknowledgements to the worth and 
 affection of one who was so kind, so good, and so 
 dear to us, — they laid her that night in her grave, 
 and when the sun rose we had no mother. 
 
 " But enough of this melancholy tale that almost 
 makes a child of me. After a few days' residence 
 in that place our sorrows began in reaUty, the nu- 
 feeling creature that called himself a father to us. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 65 
 
 though we had little reason to thank him for his 
 acknowledgement, took a woman, a common 
 camp-stroller and trull into his favour, and we 
 were left to shift for ourselves. I, who resented 
 his conduct as far as a boy could do, first felt his 
 hatred, when after a day of toil and stripes I had 
 scarcely a morsel left me to satisfy my hunger. I 
 could not endure this treatment for long, so at 
 length I determined to throw myself upon the 
 mercy of the world at large. One warm summer 
 morning therefore, I bade my brothers and sisters 
 farewell in private, and with nothing but a few 
 rags on my back, ran away from my cruel task- 
 master, and sought refuge in a neighbouring town, 
 into which my father durst not enter, bearing in 
 mind certain recollections of deeds done there, 
 very little to his credit or safety. Here a kind 
 gentleman noticed me, heard my pitiful story, and 
 took me into his house as a shoe-boy. He also 
 taught me to read and write, — advantages which 
 place me even now at the head of the gipsy tribe 
 in this quarter of England. I remained here for 
 years the favourite of my master, but the despised 
 
66 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 of my tnistress, who was indeed a merciless and 
 haughty woman, till a circumstance occurred which 
 once more compelled me to hide my head amongst 
 my people. 
 
 ** I had, at the latter part of my time, for 
 I was made footman ere I left, a fellow-servant 
 by the name of Margaret Deane, — the very pat- 
 tern of my mother, — handsome, generous, and 
 good-natured. Was it at all to be wondered at 
 then that I should love her and wish to make her 
 my wife l I told her of my origin, and she loved 
 me not a whit the less for my race. Thus I lived 
 in comfort and enjoyment, though at times I felt 
 certain desires come over me to again wander at 
 large among the people whom I had left with dis- 
 gust. But our love was doomed to a severe trial ; 
 some valuables belonging to my mistress had been 
 stolen, (so she said at least, though to this day I 
 have no doubt her own hands placed them in Mar- 
 garet's box,) — ofiicers were sent for, and upon 
 search being made, the innocent and dear object 
 of my affections was committed to the walls of the 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 67 
 
 prison for theft. I was distracted with grief, and 
 I believe my harsh mistress feasted on my sor- 
 rows. I devised every means to set my Margery 
 at large, but failed in all ; the assizes came, and 
 she was left for transportation. 
 
 ** I now grew careless of my work, for sorrow 
 consumed all my thoughts and all my hopes: and 
 my master became unusually severe and distant 
 towards me. At length a scheme occurred to me 
 which if carried into effect would give my sweet 
 Margery once more to my arms, and enable me 
 again to join my people. I found the wall of her 
 cell joined with a house that was uninhabited, — to 
 this house I repaired for several nights together, 
 with implements to remove the bricks between me 
 and the innocent victim of my cruel mistress. I 
 carried on my operations so secretly, that my 
 labours were undiscovered till my Margery was at 
 liberty and journeying with me by stealth to the 
 north, where we intended to change our habits 
 and become gipsies, to wander with my race a free 
 and fearless pair. We stained our faces, as is the 
 
68 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 custom of our people, put on ragged attire, and with 
 my savings, for I had laid up something consi- 
 derable during my servitude, bought a small con- 
 cern for carrying a few utensils and our bedding, 
 a small pony and implements for mending pots and 
 kettles rather superior to the rest of my tribe. 
 We were married by the usage of gipsies, and 
 became a desirable addition to a small tribe then 
 travelling the north of England. My knowledge 
 of tinkering was soon acquired, and now I am 
 esteemed so faithful in doing the best I can for the 
 good wives that employ me, that I never need 
 either work for myself, or honest food for the wants 
 of my dear Margery and my little children. If 
 there be a man on earth who is really happy, I 
 believe I am that man. I have a wife the most 
 affectionate and kind-hearted creature on earth, 
 and children deserving all the attentions she shows 
 them. If I want food or clothing, I can obtaia 
 them and honestly too, though I own, with sorrow, 
 that some of our people are no better than they 
 ought to be. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 69 
 
 " I have thus finished my story, and if you will 
 
 venture to Sunny-hollow, on L heath, any 
 
 spare day you may have, you shall find cleanli- 
 ness and affection, ay and religion too, in a gipsy- 
 tent, and honesty and industry in the gipsy-man. 
 " Your humhle Dennis Ochterlony." 
 
 He concluded, and taking up his budget wished 
 me a good day, but not before I had put some- 
 thing in his hands to present to his Margery and 
 his gipsy-children, as an acknowledgement for 
 the favour he had done me. 
 
70 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 SCENES OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 " In my poor mind it is most sweet to mnse 
 Upon the days gone by ; to act in thought 
 Past seasons o'er and be again a child." 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 My gipsy companion having diverged from the 
 pathway leading to my destination, by turning off 
 to some houses in the fields, where I presume he 
 was professionally engaged, I again pursued my 
 journey as lonely as before. But hopes of antici- 
 pated enjoyment now became partners of my way, 
 and I began to faintly recognise in every field I 
 trod or stile I crossed, something like an old gone- 
 by companion. They were to me as so many re- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 71 
 
 raembrances of days long departed. With many 
 of them, such strange and childish ideas were as- 
 sociated as evidently convinced me that sedate- 
 ness and gravity had grown upon me not less than 
 years. 
 
 Here I remembered an old grotesque tree, and 
 coupled with it something relative to the nest- 
 hunting propensities of boyhood. There I crossed 
 a little rill, where for hours I had endeavoured to 
 entrap some wily stickle-back or stupid gudgeon. 
 As these conceits passed over my mind, I really 
 began to experience in myself something of 
 an evident approximation to juvenility in my 
 very gait, conduct, and feelings. I frisked along 
 the meads, bounded over the fallows, and all the 
 elasticity of youth and the full flush of young anir 
 mal spirits came exhilirating and romping over my 
 frame and thrilling with almost ecstasy in every 
 vein. And now the taper spire, silently pointing 
 to heaven, of my native village, began to steal 
 through a mass of umbrageous and vari-coloured 
 shade in the distance, and I seemed to be at once 
 
72 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 in the very seat of my boyhood. A few fields 
 more and I began to discern houses I thought I 
 remembered — there was the gable end of one, the 
 antique chimneys of another, and the heavy brick 
 masonry of another, — I stepped over the last stile 
 and leaped into the road, determined to make the 
 very first person I saw, a participator of my 
 
 joys. 
 
 The first I met was an old decrepid woman, 
 with scarcely fewer grey hairs scattered over her 
 countenance than wrinkles in her forehead. I 
 addressed her, as forming in my mind some con- 
 jecture who she was ; she answered but to tell me 
 I was wrong, and that my impertinence to the 
 aged was a sign of no great grace resident in me. 
 I was disconcerted, but as the poor old creature 
 was rather deaf, and apparently very cross-grained, 
 I thought it best to drop further converse, and 
 proceed. A seasonable check this, thought I, upon 
 my ill-timed loquacity and exuberance of spirits. 
 The silver-toned bells of my old and venerated 
 steeple now rung forth a delicious peal of melody ; 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 73 
 
 snrely, thought I, this cannot be a sound of gra- 
 tulation to a poor homeward wanderer Hke myself; 
 and an inquiry from a respectable old farmer tra- 
 velling my way, soon satisfied me on that score, 
 when I heard that a marriage had just taken 
 place between individuals I had no more idea of 
 than the man in the moon, though sufficiently res- 
 pectable to call forth the joyous tones of six 
 sweetly harmonious bells. As I determined after 
 my first rub to leave self out of the question, I 
 kept myself incog; and familiarly chatted with 
 my farmer-like companion about things as little 
 connected with my family as possible, merely 
 stating that I had journied that way several years 
 before, and knew a few families in the place. 
 However as I had but one near relation in the 
 village, I deemed it necessary to make a few in- 
 quiries about him. I began therefore by merely 
 asking him if he knew such a man. " Know 
 such a man !-^ay, sir, as well as I know myself." 
 After putting a few more questions to him, all 
 which he answered with the utmost readiness, 
 I ventured to ask whether this said gentleman 
 
74 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 was as eccentric and penurious as formerly. He 
 replied, ** Why as to his eccentricity, I believe 
 he is generally as odd as most people are, who steer 
 the course their own sense directs, without being 
 governed by the varying opinions of others : and 
 as to his meanness, why that's a thing he must an- 
 swer for himself when you see him." I touched 
 him again ; " But pray, my good sir, what charac- 
 ter does he bear among his neighbours around 
 him, for I knew him formerly only as a mean and 
 crabbed creature, unwilling to assist a poor orphan 
 nephew by the gift — nay even the loan of a shil- 
 ling." " That scapegrace of a nephew," said he, 
 *' perhaps has told a false story, for I remember 
 him well, as an idle, fanciful, ne'er- do-good kind 
 of fellow, fit for nothing but a lazy and poverty- 
 struck poet." " They used to say he had a little 
 genius, but for my part I never thought it." — 
 ** Why, sir, he knew no more of the concerns of 
 life than a child, and would give away his last six- 
 pence for some hasty vain conceit scarce worth a 
 farthing. Ay, sir, he was a poor silly fellow and 
 I expect before long we shall have him sent to us 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 75 
 
 with a pass to his parish without a rag to his back, 
 poor wretch." ** But good day to you, sir, I must 
 go over a few fields to see what my men have 
 been about, for there's nothing like a man's mind- 
 ing his own business, and attending only to his own 
 affairs." 
 
 Home hits, and especially kind welcomes these, 
 thought I, as I drew near to a fine house with 
 bow windows — I conjecture my silly loquacity has 
 led me into a second error. I approached the 
 fine house, what was my horror to behold it rising 
 in the shape of a fashionable inn, on what were the 
 ruins of the village ale-house. " Has luxury, 
 then," exclaimed I, " travelled here also ! — could 
 not these poor burghers of the wild be content to 
 whiff their pipes and drain their cups under a 
 thatched roof, or beneath a rustic porch thickly 
 overspread with honeysuckle sweet and ' ivy never 
 sere,' as they were wont to do in days of * auld 
 lang syne?'" 
 
 Greeted at the entrance by a thin gaunt crea- 
 
 e2 
 
76 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 ture, with sallow complexion, shrew-like nose 
 and marvellously veijuice-besprinkled counte- 
 nance, I entered this abode for way-farers, idlers 
 and merry-makers, and took possession of a 
 back room looking over the dear pastoral scenes 
 of my childhood. After partaking of such refresh- 
 ments as my hostess of the Plough daintily laid 
 before me, I reclined myself in a snug elbow-chair 
 near the window, which revealed through a clus- 
 tering vine and spicy woodbine, sunny glimpses of 
 wood and field, the merry haunts of infancy — and 
 lulled by the melody of the evening bells, and 
 somewhat fatigued by my walk, I fell insensibly 
 into a gentle and composing sleep : — 
 
 A DREAM OF YOUTH. 
 
 It was a sunny and gladsome May morning, 
 gentle gales breathed over the meads, carrying with 
 them the delicate odour of the violet, the faint lus- 
 ciousness of the cowslip and primrose, and the 
 sweet freshness of the modest dog-rose and the 
 fragrant briar. I was a merry boy among many ; 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. W 
 
 a holiday had been given us and we were free to 
 stray wheresoever our feet listed. We left the 
 boundary of our play-ground, and in small parties 
 wandered into the fields. Some carried traps and 
 balls, others angling-rods, lines and hooks, whilst 
 some of a more melancholic mood had taken some 
 favourite volume to muse over, and enjoy in the 
 quietude and luxury of nature. There was my 
 merry and light-hearted friend Harry Audley, my 
 sweet every-day companion and associate Walter 
 White, my bookish, modest and gentle co-mate 
 Bernard Burton, with several other joyous and 
 " right merrie" fellows with us in our ramble. At 
 first over hedge and ditch we flew, as if endea- 
 vouring to be first in our search after enjoyment, 
 lest pleasure — the pleasure we panted for, might 
 be frighted from her still and coy retreats, by the 
 din and riot of our more noisy and obstreperous 
 school companions. « 
 
 At length we reached a delightful meadow, slop- 
 ing down from a wood-crowned eminence with its 
 warm sunny banks to a silver stream, gently me- 
 
78 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 andering through the glad pastures below. Here, 
 whilst the lark poured his aerial song over head, 
 and unnumbered warblers tuned their merry lays 
 in the groves around us, we rolled ourselves on 
 the verdant carpet of Nature, speckled and be- 
 spangled all over with daisies, buttercups, cowslips, 
 and violets, till our senses seemed lapped into 
 ecstasy. Sated with this, we retired to the shelving 
 bank above, and there, amongst brake and broom, 
 furze and flowers, we fashioned to ourselves little 
 lairs and daisy beds, and read and sang, or shouted, 
 to the woods, in the height of our enjoyment, and 
 fancied we heard old dryads and the peeping satyrs, 
 with the piper Pan seconding our joy, as airy Echo 
 from her sylvan caves sent back the jocund sounds. 
 Here might be seen the blue-eyed Harry Audley 
 watching with eye intent the flowing stream, and 
 drawing, one by one, the scaly dwellers from its 
 waters. There sat Walter, with his favourite 
 Cowper, in placid meditation ; here the poesy- 
 inspired Bernard strolled with the quaint and 
 gentle visitant of the brook and river ; the kindly- 
 hearted Walton, or, couching in the fragrant grass. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 79 
 
 conned over his heavenly-minded poet George 
 Withers ; whilst I, neither idle nor well employed, 
 lay at full length on the green turf, looking at the 
 lark ascending the lofty dome of heaven, or watch- 
 ing bright clouds sail over its broad expanse. 
 
 The vision changed, and I was wandering alone 
 and sorrowful, through a grove of embowering 
 holly, mixed with the mournful cypress and the 
 funereal yew ; whilst nothing struck my ear but 
 the heavy tones of a bell tolling the awful note of 
 death. Whilst I wandered thus from shade to 
 shade, my mind seemed to occasionally stray to 
 brighter scenes, and young hopes appeared nestling 
 in my breast ; but these visitings of gladsomeness 
 were indeed transient, the dull, solemn tone of that 
 bell fell heavy on my heart, and ever and anon as I 
 looked at my mournful garb and little black gloves, 
 tears came full and plenteously from my eyes. I 
 had lost my mother, and the simple preparations 
 for her funeral were making, whilst I was now 
 
80 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 rnnning to and fro in the pleasure-grounds of our 
 house — no grounds of pleasure to me then — and 
 now visiting with bursting heart the haunts she 
 loved, and the seats she most honoured when 
 living. I seemed to catch the sweet tones of her 
 voice in the wind, sighing through the branches of 
 trees she had planted with her own hand, and to 
 hear the rustle of her own white robes as the 
 breeze shook the leaves of her once-loved acacias, 
 I saw a dark mass skirting the end of our lawn, 
 the bell ceased, and I knew my poor parent was 
 in her grave, — I sunk upon a seat in her own 
 simply-adorned grotto, and wept with all the bit- 
 terness of a first deep sorrow. 
 
 Again the scene changed, and I was wandering 
 by the side of my young friend and his fairy sister, 
 through fields rife with the delicious scents of the 
 new-made hay. I gathered for her sweet flowers 
 and tender blossoms, showed her the callow young 
 in mossy nests, and beauteous eggs, like shining 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 81 
 
 pearls, in their little abodes. We sat us down and 
 read of fairy-lands and oriental scenery, and ever, 
 as some young devoted lovers were the subject of 
 our story, I fixed my gaze upon her heavenly face, 
 and fed upon her beauty, till she became the idol 
 of my young affections. 
 
 A change came over this also, and I beheld a 
 sorrowing mother weeping over her fatherless 
 child. She was closely attired in the sombre gar- 
 ments of wo ; a low mound of earth was at her 
 feet ; upon it lay a sword and scarf half covered 
 with sweet flowers. The sky was gloomy around, 
 and heavy clouds kept sweeping over it. The 
 ground seemed wet with recent showers, and no 
 sound of joy was stealing around. I flew to her 
 relief as she appeared to faint over the grassy 
 hillock where her young love lay in rest. She fell 
 upon my breast dissolved in tears ; her veil was 
 thrown aside, and I saw my first love Ellen Audley. 
 An indistinctness now dwelt upon my vision, nor 
 
 e3 
 
82 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 could I clearly connect the change of subjects 
 around me till I felt the same fair being, clad in 
 the robes of celestial purity and brightness, hang- 
 ing on my arm, her baby-boy smiUng at us from 
 his little couch, whilst the peal of merry bells 
 broke upon my ear, and told me my bliss was 
 complete. 
 
 In the full fruition and enjoyment of such feel- 
 ings I awoke, and found myself alone at my little 
 window, faintly gilded by the setting sun. The 
 public-house, servant and hostess, were all bustle, 
 providing a handsome supper for those who were 
 just then closing the wedding- peal. I therefore 
 rang my bell — called for my tea — expostulated 
 with my dilatory hostess — received sundry pettish 
 and sour replies — ate what she placed before me, 
 asking no farther question — and took possession 
 of my bed-room, well content to rest, if the 
 riotous musical gentry below were incUned to per- 
 mit me. 
 
 After a tolerable night's repose and a good 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 81 
 
 breakfast, I now sallied out to look at my native 
 village, and to my surprise met no face I could 
 fairly recognise, except my farmer companion of 
 the day before. 
 
 Can the reader guess what my feelings were 
 when I heard this aforesaid gentleman addressed 
 by a morning friend as he passed me as Mr. 
 
 W , my redoubtable and unrecognised uncle. 
 
 I hurried on, desiring to have no more converse 
 with one I had unintentionally wounded, and who 
 in return had grievously slandered me, forming 
 pretty substantial reasons now for the singular 
 tartness of his replies the evening before. Had a 
 musket been fired oflF against my ear or an earth- 
 quake shook the ground I trod on, I could scarcely 
 have been more stunned for a moment than I was 
 by this salutation. I reeled as it were in my walk 
 for an instant, but recovering my self-possession, 
 hastened forwards and soon found myself standing 
 before a spot where I had fondly expected to find 
 the birth-place of myself, and the family abode of 
 my forefathers. 
 
84 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 THE HOME OF MY YOUTH. 
 
 " I have had playmates, I have had companions, 
 
 In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days, — 
 All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 
 Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood ; 
 Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse. 
 Seeking to find the old familiar faces." 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Can this be the spot, thought I, as I stood 
 intently gazing at the spectacle before me, (at 
 times measuring distances in my mind's eye, as I 
 looked up and down the half-remembered street 
 where I once lived,) where our little snug cottage, 
 with its honeysuckled porch, ivy-spread gable, and 
 lowly roof covered so much love — so much happi- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 89 
 
 ness, with so little of the world's goods. The 
 house before me was a recent erection : our old 
 mansion had been ruined to make room for it ; our 
 little lawn was now a bleaching- ground ; and our 
 small garden by its side converted into a farm- 
 yard in miniature. I inquired of a passer by, who 
 the Goth or barbarous Vandal could be who inha- 
 bited it. I was answered, " that no person of 
 either name lived there, but 'Squire Grimes, a 
 retired tradesman from London, — main fond of 
 farming and spending his cash on other people's 
 premises." 
 
 I left the spot with a sigh, and proceeded on- 
 wards to my old school, expecting, as in days gone 
 by, to find my old master at his place, with his 
 morning gown, long-tailed wig, (our old food for 
 fun and nonsense,) and his green spectacles. I 
 reached the stile leading to the play-ground, and 
 the habits of youth had not so far deserted me, 
 but that I must, as was my former custom, endea- 
 vour to leap over it ; I did so, but failed, and fell 
 on the other side, in rather a risible position ; at 
 
86 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 least if I may guess by the grin on the faces of 
 several little urchins who, with satchel on back, 
 swiftly bounded over it after me without discomfi- 
 ture, and I may say almost without exertion. I 
 stole a peep in through the windows ; I saw the 
 old desks but a young face looked sternly from the 
 throne of my old philologist, and told me that 
 another old familiar face had departed. I inquired 
 of a scholar, and found to my grief that he had 
 been dead nearly six years. 
 
 I left it, and sauntered leisurely and thought- 
 fully along, at times half recognising faces matu- 
 red by age and sobered o'er with care, whose pos- 
 sessors a few years back had been merry boon 
 companions of mine at school; — so doth the world 
 fashion the young heart to its own purposes, and 
 prune its youthful joys even to the stem. Free 
 and riotous boys had dwindled down into reserved, 
 crafty, and sedate men ; and the purse and pocket 
 that were once open to every claim as long as 
 a halfpenny burnt within them, were now only 
 opened when the calls of business needed their 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 8f 
 
 paltry ore, and the demands of the world made 
 honesty a necessary virtue. Thus disappointed 
 and disgusted, I turned my feet to the village 
 sanctuary of rest, the church-yard, desirous of 
 once more seeing the last homes of my parents 
 and two little brothers. After some time I found 
 the graves of my departed blessings, but time had 
 nearly worn them even ; a simple stone had been 
 placed at their heads, but the characters upon it 
 were well nigh obliterated ; I however found out 
 sufficient to tell me that all the world had given 
 me, laid there. 
 
 I sat by their narrow house, and thought — I rea- 
 soned on life, its pleasures, and its deceits, till I 
 became lost to the world. I lifted up my voice to 
 my Maker and my God through my Redeemer in 
 that hour, and I felt how necessary and salutary it 
 was to acquaint myself with Him to be at peace. 
 I left their low dwelling-place with grief, but it 
 was a grief that carried its own balm with it. 
 Thus I departed from their mouldering remains. 
 
88 TH]p EXCURSION OF 
 
 and betook myself to the inn, where after bewail- 
 ing the unrealized anticipations and the brittleness 
 of promised joy, I wrote an exculpatory and in- 
 genuous letter to my uncle, paid my poor reckon- 
 ing, and departed, an altered, but I think a better 
 man. 
 
 As I bade my native place its last adieu, and 
 saw the last of its tall spire sink behind its trees, 
 feelings came over me I could not well control.- 
 I sat upon a stile almost unable to tear myself 
 away from the last sight of much that was dear to 
 me, and scribbled a few parting lines to the home 
 of my youth which I fear will scarcely repay the 
 trouble of perusal. 
 
 A PARTING ADDRESS TO THE SCENES OF MY 
 YOUTH. 
 
 Home beloved — a long farewell, 
 Haunts of youth a last adieu — 
 
 Who my bitter pangs can tell. 
 As ye vanish from my view ? 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. $9 
 
 Grander scenes my feet may tread, 
 
 Sweeter fields my gaze may see ; 
 But the grave shall rest my head 
 
 Ere I love them, home, like thee. 
 
 Where on this wide peopled earth 
 Shall the plains more beauty wear ? 
 
 Or the smiling meads give birth 
 To flower and blossom half so fair? 
 
 Can the mountain's lofty brow 
 
 Match thy gently swelling hills ? 
 Or wide rivers' mighty flow 
 
 Charm me like thy tinkling rills? 
 
 Shall the forest dark and deep, 
 
 With its tempest-roaring trees ; 
 Lull and soothe my cares to sleep 
 
 Like thy woodland's gentle breeze ? 
 
 May the sweetest, saddest sound 
 
 Ever heard in distant dells. 
 Breathe a strain like thine around. 
 
 When thou tunest tli} silver bells. 
 
 Can they whisper, as they show 
 
 Mount, or stream, or forest glade. 
 Dipped in morning's ruddy glow 
 
 Or the even's modest shade, — 
 
90 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 % 
 " We are scenes endeared to thee 
 
 By the sense of by-gone joy, 
 
 Where thou wanderedst glad and free, 
 
 When a gay and happy boy !" 
 
 Then, if silent they remain, 
 
 Shall my spirit dare rebel ; 
 Mingling pleasure with its pain 
 
 Thus to bid thee, home, farewell ! 
 
 From this time, the descriptive parts of my 
 excursions were but the disjecta membra, the 
 casual memoranda of an itinerant stroller, little 
 adapted either to amuse myself or benefit my 
 readers, I shall therefore only take such extracts 
 from them, as may appropriately introduce several 
 little tales and legends, collected from such, as 
 were able and willing to beguile a weary traveller 
 at his hostel or place of rest with the simple stories 
 of days long Ridden in the mistiness of the past. 
 
 The morning wore a sad and dreary aspect when 
 I left the little village of B , to wind my weary 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 01 
 
 way over the blue hills before me to a village, 
 which I intended to see ere the sun set, as my 
 abiding place for a day or two. There was a 
 humid mistiness in the air, and the sun in vain en- 
 deavoured to pierce the thick yet pale vestments 
 of the heavens. He travelled on his path-way 
 unseen and unfelt to mortal eye on that day. The 
 birds sat silent in the hedges, or lonely on the 
 loftier sprays all dripping with the clammy wetness 
 of the overcharged atmosphere, whilst heavy drops 
 fell upon the withered leaves below with sad and 
 melancholy sound. 
 
 My way led through a retired dell half over- 
 hung with these silent mourners of the grave, 
 and I was not a little disquieted, as disturbed 
 by the passing gust, they showered their sor- 
 rows upon me, as I slowly wandered along. In 
 the midst of this secluded spot I was struck by 
 the beauty of a little pool of water, situate at the 
 very lowest part of the declivity, and in part over- 
 shadowed by a mass of trees, forming a sober re- 
 
92 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 lief to the otherwise placid and shining face of its 
 waters. Beneath one of its paternal and protect- 
 ing shades (a tree, whose branches seemed to lean 
 over in silent worship), I observed a rude stone 
 inscribed with the word " Mary." The singula- 
 rity of its situation, and the gloom pervading 
 around, immediately gave rise to a variety of con- 
 jectures in my mind, and I determined to make 
 myself more fully acquainted with the matter, the 
 first convenient opportunity that should offer. 
 Leaving the place therefore, I toiled up the hill 
 before me, only to survey a wide extent of heath, 
 in some parts covered over with its usual atten- 
 dants, furze, gorse, and broom, in others by a 
 short, fine grass, mingled with heath, evidently de- 
 noting the poverty of the soil below. 
 
 A few ragged flocks of sheep were here and 
 there intersecting its bosom with their narrow 
 walks, and nibbling from its niggard face, by 
 extreme industry, the scanty provender of the day. 
 The mist now rolled slowly away, and the clouds be- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 93 
 
 gan to threaten me with the prospect of a seven 
 miles rainy walk. I thereupon began to look about 
 for shelter, when to my infinite satisfaction, I 
 discovered at no great distan<;e a rude hovel, 
 erected of turf and other frail materials, by 
 shepherd hands, as a refuge in necessity. To it 
 I sped with some celerity, for the rain began to 
 descend in good earnest. Upon gaining a view of 
 its interior, from its humble and lowly door, I dis- 
 covered the monarch of the heath, the pastor of 
 a scattered flock, reclining on his bed of heath, bu- 
 sily employed in knitting a pair of gloves, from the 
 wool stolen from the backs of his sheep, by those 
 common depredators of fleeces, furze and bramble ; 
 whilst his faithful dog was marshalling and watching 
 his gentle subjects in the distance. He invited me 
 within, and instantly made room for me in his hum- 
 ble, yet comfortable couch, sufficiently protected 
 bv the thickness of its walls, and the depth of its 
 lieathy roof, to off*er its inhabitants a safe refuge 
 from the stormy wind and tempest. I had not 
 sat long with this gentle, yet sage disciple of 
 
94 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 nature, before I mentioned the subject of the 
 inscribed stone I had met with in the dell below, 
 whereupon he gave me a few details, sufficiently 
 clear to enable me to make up something like a 
 story of the shady spring and its rustic monu- 
 ment. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 9& 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 THE MAIDEN'S GRAVE. 
 
 " Fcirevvell ! thou loved and geatle one, farewell ! 
 Thou hast not liv'd in vain, or died for nought : 
 Oft of thy worth survivors' tongues shall tell, 
 
 And thy long-cherish'd memory shall be fraught 
 With many a theme of fond and tender thought, 
 That shall preserve it sacred." 
 
 B. Barton. 
 
 " AVhat, thou;;;h no sacred earth allow thee room. 
 Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb ; 
 Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd, 
 And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast" 
 
 Pope. 
 
 The ill-fated heroine of my tale, was one of 
 those heings so little adapted for passing through 
 
96 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 the world, with the trials, afflictions, and disap- 
 pointmepts incident to humanity ; whose spirits 
 are all passion, feeling and intensity of hopes and 
 desires — compounds, in which the frailer elements 
 of our nature are but sparingly mingled— creatures 
 that despise the grosser pleasures of sensual and 
 animal enjoyment, and only grasp at such, as a 
 sportive fancy, warm imagination, and still warmer 
 heart, with colours of ethereal kind can paint in 
 ideal perspective- 
 Mary Scott was the only daughter of indus- 
 trious and virtuous parents ; her father was what 
 is termed a working bailiff, or steward, to a large 
 land proprietor, in the village of Thorndale ; and 
 her mother had the care of the poultry and barn- 
 yard concerns of this village great man. They 
 were both good easy kind of people, exactly 
 adapted to the situation they so faithfully filled : 
 with minds some little above the common vulgar, 
 and feelings and manners somewhat polished, by 
 occasional collision or intercourse with the good 
 
A VILLAQE CURATE. 97 
 
 old 'squire and his amiable partner, the Lady 
 Bountiful of the country. 
 
 Mary had been given to them as a blessing to their 
 old age ; other children had been theirs, but this little 
 pet lamb of their fold was the only one that remained 
 of their little progeny. She had been brought up 
 with tender care ; and uncommon advantages had 
 been afforded her in the way of education, as the 
 governess of the Grange had been permitted by 
 their excellent mistress, to give little Mary occa- 
 sional lessons in whatever might be useful to her 
 in her station. In reading, arithmetic, writing, 
 and other necessary accomplishments of females 
 in the humbler walks of life, she shone even supe- 
 rior to the young ladies, who partook more largely 
 of the benefits resulting from an unrestricted in- 
 tercourse with a well-educated and sensible wo- 
 man. She read much, as she had not only oppor- 
 tunities of borrowing from the 'squire's library, 
 such books as her kind and judicious instructress 
 selected for her ; but every one in the village, of 
 which Mary was the belle and favourite, would 
 
 F 
 
98 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 lend her of their small stock whatever she pleased to 
 read, either for iostraction or amusement. In per- 
 son and figure, she was some little below the average 
 height of her sex, but fashioned with such sym- 
 metry and grace, as largely to repay in feminine 
 beauty what she wanted in stature. Her face was 
 of a piece with her person, but strongly indicative 
 of beauty within ; and purer feelings, or warmer 
 aflFections, never yet beamed through more mild 
 blue laughter-loving eyes, than Mary Scott's. Her 
 parents were not blind to her ripening beauties, 
 and many an anxious fear crossed their minds, as 
 they thought of the path she had to travel in 
 life. 
 
 Year after year rolled away, and no persons 
 lived more happily in humble life than the Scott's. 
 She was the grace and ornament of their cottage, 
 the centre of all their worldly hopes and worldly 
 fears. Nor did they thus idolize her for nought — 
 she returned their love and tender kindnesses, with 
 all the alBection that a young heart could feel. In 
 pain, sorrow, or anxiety, she was the same fond 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. gg 
 
 and dutiful child ; ever attending to all their wants, 
 and administering to all their necessities : nor did 
 she feel alone for them, but for all who needed : — 
 no one could cheer the heart of indigence, relieve 
 the tedium of sickness, or even oflFer the consola- 
 tions of religion with a better grace than she did, 
 when duty called her to the pleasing task. But a 
 time came when the hearts of these good parents 
 were to be tried with calamity, and her own to be 
 too effectually wasted by misery to be renovated 
 in a mortal state. 
 
 She had been for years engaged to the son of a 
 little farmer in the neighbourhood, a quiet, plain 
 and warm-hearted youth, who kept a small school 
 in the village, although deserving, from his abiUty 
 and good conduct, of a much better situation. Even 
 from childhood they had been mutual associates, 
 there was not a haunt in the neighbourhood where 
 they had not wandered together, she to enjoy the 
 companionship of her little sweetheart Edward, 
 and he to gather violets, buttercups, and the first 
 roses of the spring, to make her coronals for 
 
 F 2 
 
100 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 her auburn hair and nosegays for her bosom. The 
 same feelings dwelt in both hearts, and the same 
 passions and pursuits possessed the minds of each. 
 Thus did they advance from strength to strength 
 in friendship and love not less than in age ; and 
 even serious thoughts were entertained of giving 
 her to his arms in the full flush of youth, as one 
 richly deserving and deserved. 
 
 But an evil eye had been observing her growing 
 charms, and gloating, with fiend-like passion on 
 her peerless beauty, till its owner could no longer 
 forbear from disturbing the tranquil stream of her 
 joys and existence. The eldest son of the 'squire, 
 
 (her father's employer,) Norman L had long 
 
 studied means for tampering with her feelings to 
 destruction. At various times he had sought for 
 an opportunity of pouring his ribbald love in her 
 ears, but she had always endeavoured to shun 
 both him and his sinister attentions. A day came 
 when, as she passed through a retired grove on 
 her way from the Grange to her home, he burst 
 from a bush near the path which concealed him 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. IQl 
 
 from her view, threw himself before her on his 
 knees and besought her, as she valued his life and 
 her own and parents' safety, to listen to his pro- 
 posals. She begged him to rise from his degrading 
 posture and not trifle with the feelings of one so 
 very far below him in life ; and as he rose with 
 something Uke shame in his face, she besought 
 faim not to communicate that, which would be as 
 disgraceful for him to utter, as for her to hear. 
 She then told him, ere his stammering tongue 
 could mutter a reply, that her heart was given to 
 another, and that it would be both unjust to her 
 Edward, and ungenerous towards him, to hear any 
 thing like the confession of a passion from him, 
 which must be in vain. Saying this, she instantly 
 darted along the path, and ere her stupified and 
 brutal admirer, could summon impudence enough 
 to pursue her, she had gained the precincts of her 
 father's cottage, and was in safety. Thus had she 
 rejected and reproved, one, who however ardent 
 he might have been as a lover, was not less so as a 
 hater and projector of her ruin. 
 
102 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 The young debauchee's heart was inflamed with 
 anger, and stung with shame, at the idea of one in 
 so humble a station of life (as Edward moved in) 
 being preferred before him. He saw it was in 
 vain to think of gaining her affections, whilst this 
 despised stumbling-block to his progress, lay be- 
 tween him and Mary. A plan was therefore laid 
 to entrap him into crime, or its appearance, and 
 with such ingenuity, that he fell never to rise again 
 with a spotless character. A depraved village- 
 girl, a former victim of the young 'squire's lust 
 and false promises, having again transgressed the 
 bounds of modesty and decorum ; and tempted no 
 doubt by the allurements of pecuniary reward, so 
 threw herself into Edward's way at various times, 
 as to give rise to several reports in the village very 
 little to his advantage. These, being fanned by his 
 rival Norman and his associates into circulation, 
 soon grew into more extensive notoriety ; till at 
 length few in the parish, beside Mary and her 
 unsuspecting parents, felt much surprize when 
 Edward was cited to appear before a bench of 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 103 
 
 maf^istrates, to answer for a serious offence to the 
 morals of his fellowrcreatures and the laws of his 
 country. To be brief, this abandoned wretch swore 
 that babe to him which was doubtless another's 
 offspring, and he became the victim of a plot which 
 aimed at his life, his bread, and his character. 
 The sad intelligence reached Mary's ears with 
 every aggravation, but so strong was her confidence 
 in him, and so pure and fervent her love, that she 
 repelled the dark insinuation and looked upon her , 
 Edward with* the same fond and admiring eyes as 
 before. But he had fallen : — the stain which hung 
 upon his character, fed upon his spirits, and he 
 could not brook the scorn and cool notice of many^ 
 who had before loved and respected him. He had 
 denied though not disproved the allegation — al- 
 though strong in the consciousness of his own in- 
 nocence, no alibi could be shown, and the sentence 
 fell upon him with an overwhelming blow. He 
 felt that he was one unrighteously doomed, but 
 he also knew that the contempt of many had fallen 
 upon him. He could not sufficiently admire the 
 love and generosity of his Mary ; she was now 
 
104 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 dearer [to him in his afflictions than ever. They 
 wandered together in silent places with hearts full 
 of love and affection : but Misery had marked 
 them for its own. To all but her he was a dif- 
 ferent and an altered man ; he had discovered the 
 fickleness of fortune and the frailty of common 
 friendship, and half resolved to take his Mary with 
 him, and find shelter where the cruel and blasting 
 voice of scandal could not easily reach him. 
 
 But he was spared this — a day came and he 
 had not been seen at the cottage. Mary had 
 been straining her eyes through the misty distance 
 for him, but he came not — she wandered forth in 
 the garden, with anxious heart and listening ear, 
 but the customary footfall (as he tripped by 
 the hedge which divided her father's small estate 
 from the narrow lane) was not heard — and she 
 gathered flowers at random, neither smelling nor 
 admiring them, but plucking them in pieces and 
 scattering their leaves to the wind as she impa- 
 tiently looked around and started at every passing 
 voice or step. A long night of anxious hope sue- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. lOjSr 
 
 ceeded — the morning broke — a bustle was heard 
 in the village — she looked out of her window and 
 the lifeless body of her Edward was carried by. 
 She saw no more — a fit summoned her mother to 
 her side, and she lay for days between life and 
 death, faintly mingling at times, with prayws un- 
 consciously muttered, the name of her dear 
 Edward. He had been found that morning in that 
 little pool, beneath whose shades he had wandered 
 and rested so often, with his lovely Mary Scott. 
 How, or in what manner his death happened is still 
 a mystery to the villagers of Thorndale — but a 
 silent finger points to one, whose face turns pallid 
 when the names of Mary Scott and Edward Mel- 
 lor are mentioned. For many long days and 
 nights did her afflicted parents hang over her, as 
 she lay on her couch a forlorn, heart-broken, and 
 distracted creature. She never knew where her 
 lover had been laid, since, an inhuman law had 
 made his last bed in otherwise than holy ground. 
 She roamed about the fields singing wild and love- 
 lorn ditties with flowerets woven in her streaming 
 hair; at times weeping with deep distress, at 
 
 f3 
 
106 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 others laughing with the wildness and frenzy of a 
 maniac. Her poor mother usually followed her 
 with distracted yet anxious heart; and all the 
 country people round, save her remorseless injurer, 
 felt for the poor wild maiden of Thorndale. 
 
 One fine afternoon, she left her home unobser- 
 ved by her parents, and wandered about her old 
 haunts in the fields, lanes, copses, and the lover's 
 spring, as it was then called ; they followed but 
 found her not ; night came on, a more bitter one 
 never perhaps fell on an unprotected female's form. 
 Still they searched, called and cried in vain, for 
 she heard them not ; and when the morning dawned 
 the poor heart-stricken wanderer was found in the 
 arms of death, at the foot of that tree, where a 
 rude stone now stands with her name, " Mary," 
 rudely cut in its surface. 
 
 To describe the grief of her surviving parents 
 is impossible ; they clung to her, wept over and 
 mourned around her, but in vain; her heavenly 
 Father had called her to himself to place her in 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 107 
 
 that abode where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 and the weary are at rest. 
 
 In her bosom a few lines were found, expressive 
 of her wild feelings and deep sorrows. They 
 have been preserved with her memory by many, 
 and are now for the first time made public. May 
 their readers excuse their faults for the sake of her 
 who penned them in her sorrows. A few years 
 passed by and her parents also were borne to rest 
 beside her ; but not before the fame of her lover 
 had been cleared from its stains. The unhappy 
 instrument of another's malice, being seized with a 
 sickness which ended fatally, disburtheued her 
 conscience of the load which oppressed it, by dis- 
 closing the wretched Norman L. as her seducer 
 and adviser, and Edward the innocent victim 
 of her duplicity, and perjured testimony. He 
 became a discarded and abandoned man, his 
 country rejected him, and on a foreign shore, in 
 disgrace and shackles, died the bitter enemy and 
 murderer of Edward Mellor and Mary Scott. 
 
108 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 THE LAST LAY OF A WOUNDED SPIRIT. 
 
 Oh ! where is my gentle lover laid 7 
 
 In what holy spot is he sleeping ? 
 And why hath he left his village maid 
 
 To such wearisome months of weeping ? 
 
 Resteth his head in the dark cold ground, 
 With the daisy above him growing ? 
 
 Or say, may his corse so loved be found, 
 Where the streamlet is gently flowing ? 
 
 When the night winds moan along the sky, 
 
 Or the tempest around is raving, 
 I sit in darkness alone, and cry, 
 
 All the fears of the gloom out-braving. 
 
 For he doth round me his presence cast, 
 
 As a glory my soul attending ; 
 And his breath I feel in every blast. 
 
 Whilst his sighs with my own are blending. 
 
 When morn arises 1 seek him far, 
 By the meadow, heath, hill, or mountain ; 
 
 Yet never, till shineth the evening star, 
 Do I visit that deathful fountain, 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 109 
 
 Whose silver waves o'er his body closed, 
 
 All pale as the foam of the billow ; 
 Where his gentle head in peace reposed, 
 
 Like a babe's on its cradle's pillow. 
 
 But, he is gone to his place above, 
 Where the spirit doth cease from aching ; 
 
 And I shall follow ray own true love, 
 For I feel that my heart is breaking. 
 
 . After my shepherd- host had finished the short 
 but simple history of Mary Scott, to wile away 
 the tedium of our confinement, he began crooning 
 to himself several of the old lays peculiar to his 
 occupation, one of these which I endeavoured to 
 fix on my memory ran I believe nearly as follows : 
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S DITTY. 
 
 " Jocund is that shepherd's life* 
 Who, apart from noise and strife. 
 Blest with babes and thrifty wife, 
 
 Tends his fleecy treasure, O. 
 
110 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 Pride may treat him with disdain ; 
 Wealth repulse him from her train ; 
 But they ne'er may hope to gain, 
 
 What he feela of pleasure, O. 
 
 Kings may boast of regal state, 
 But the shepherd's kindlier fate 
 Makes him more than emp'ror's mate 
 
 In his own dominion, O. 
 
 He can rule his flock with ease, 
 
 Guide them, lead them where he please, 
 
 Make them bend their supple knees 
 
 To his mind's opinion, O. 
 
 If an emp'ror dare to show. 
 Will, to bend his subjects low, 
 Every man becomes his foe, 
 
 Spuming domination, O. 
 
 But the shepherd will not brook 
 
 From his flocks a rebel look, 
 
 But with dog and sceptered crook. 
 
 Keep them in their station, O. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. lU 
 
 Rains may fall, or tempests roar, 
 Storms along the mountains pour, 
 Till the vales are covered o'er 
 
 With their torrents swelling, O. 
 
 He nor heeds, nor fears their brawl, 
 But with flock in fold or stall, 
 Seeks the sheltering turfy wall 
 
 Of his humble dwelling, O. 
 
 Thus he spends his simple days 
 Trolling o'er righte merrie lays. 
 As with quiet mind he strays 
 
 Here and there at leisure, O. 
 
 Or when glories gild the west, 
 Down he sinks in heather nest, 
 With no brooding cares opprest, 
 But with all the world at rest. 
 
 Lives and sleeps in pleasure, O. 
 
112 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 GHOSTLY DOINGS IN THE PARISH OF 
 NAETHORPE. 
 
 Where Nature breeds 
 
 Perverse, all monsters, all prodigious things, 
 Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 In the preceding chapter my reader left me in 
 the humble abode of a shepherd-swain, — in the 
 present he will find me snugly situate in the domi- 
 cile of the hoary parish-clerk of Naethorpe, a small 
 village on the borders of one of the most romantic 
 rivers in England. To this refuge I had been 
 driven by one of those equinoctial storms which 
 render a thatched roof not only a safe but a de- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. Il3 
 
 sirable good ; for it so happened that I had fortu- 
 nately reached the hamlet in time to save myself 
 a well-drenched coat, and to obtain a " cozie 
 bield," as it might be called, in the single nook of 
 the One Belly a small inn kept by the aforesaid 
 worthy. 
 
 Evening was fast coming on, and the night 
 threatened to be of such a formidable cast as to 
 forbid further progress, I contented myself there- 
 fore to tarry with my reverend host, and bask 
 before the fire till such time as the neat sleeping- 
 room my hostess proffered should invite me to 
 repose. 
 
 Having taken such refreshments as the house 
 afforded, I drew a fine old rudely- carved cane- 
 back chair nearer the hearth-stone, where some 
 well-seasoned logs of wood were throwing their 
 heat and expiring glory around, burnishing the 
 bright pewter dishes on an opposite shelf, or shed- 
 ding a flickering ray on a whole host of glittering 
 utensils, with which the chimney-corner was most 
 
114 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 meretriciously adorned, and lastly resting their 
 glowing influence on the tawny hides of two im- 
 mense flitches of bacon. Here, whilst the din 
 and fury of the night-storm raved above our humble 
 roof, rendering the comfort, warmth, and safety 
 of my refuge doubly dear, sat my aged host and 
 hostess, a venerable pair, also a well-wigged sa- 
 gacious friend of theirs, the terror of " apple- 
 munching urchins,'' even the village-schoolmaster, 
 and myself, engaged in a regular course of chit- 
 chat. We wandered on from subject to subject, 
 the weather, — the news of the day, — the various 
 ** moving accidents by flood and field,'* till at 
 l6ngth tired with veering about from " grave to 
 gay, from lively to severe," we fell into the deep 
 profound of ghostly wanderings and visitations, 
 even, gentle reader, into the horrid mysteries of 
 demonology. 
 
 I have frequently observed in ci^pany, as the 
 evening gradually advanced, especially if there 
 were more than the usual indications of its solemn 
 reign spreading around, such as gusty moanings of 
 
A Vlt,L\GE CURATE. 116 
 
 the wind through crevices and treacherous doors, 
 a constant hurly-burly of the storm around the 
 chimney's top, rains pelting against the casements, 
 mingled with the hollow roar of distant floods, 
 lashed to fury by the gale, the bellowing uproar 
 swept from groaning woods, and the startling 
 shriek of some poor tempest-driven bird of night, — 
 how the conversation has gradually lost its joyous 
 tone, and assumed a more solemn and mysterious 
 character, — now dropping from subject to subject, 
 this person's death and that person's murder, till 
 at length it has ended in the full and delightful 
 horrors of a ghost-story. Every solemn pause of 
 the storm abroad, or the horrifying narration within, 
 has been but as a breathing-time for gasping at- 
 tention, — the prelude to a deeper horror still, — a 
 brief interval for drawing closer fellowship around 
 the winter hearth, by such as are well content to be 
 frightened into enjoyment, ** they know not why 
 and care not wherefore." 
 
 Such was the case on that eventful evening, as 
 
116 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 drawing our chairs in closer order round the fire, 
 we handled this matter, so rife with horrible amuse- 
 ment ; the schoolmaster and hostess being the 
 antagonists of my worthy servitor of the church, 
 myself being only a kind of neutral personage or 
 arbitrator on occasional knotty points. The in- 
 flexible tapster of the Bell stoutly denied the 
 existence of such bugbears, as he called them, 
 and from his memory, fertile with proof, launched 
 forth tale against tale, well-founded assertion against 
 positive contradiction, till the schoolman, wearied 
 with his quotations from sacred and profane authors, 
 of instances, such as Job in his vision of the night, 
 Brutus in his tent before the battle of Philippi, 
 and the report of the roundhead commissioners at 
 Woodstock amply supply, in support of his favourite 
 and solemnly-expressed opinion of their real ex- 
 istence, took up his hat with no little petulance and 
 ill-humour, and departed, declaring as he left the 
 room he would rather face fifty-thousand ghosts 
 than argue with one who would not yield to the 
 opinion and learning of a scholar, who had Jacob 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 117 
 
 Behmen, the marrow of astrology, Sibley's occult 
 sciences, and dived into the very depth of demon- 
 ology. 
 
 The schoolman having broken up the conclave, 
 we retired for the night, and the following morning 
 I committed the most strikingly-wondrous of the 
 strange tales I had recently heard to paper, under 
 the hope, that sometime or other they might amuse 
 others as they had done me. 
 
 THE STEEPLE-FIEND, 
 
 OR THE NOCTURNAL ADVENTURES OF A PARISH-CLP.RK.* 
 
 Given as related by himself. 
 
 However Mr. Plyquill, (the schoomaster's cogr 
 nomen,) you may be inclined to contradict what 
 you have heard me say so often on this matter, I 
 shall naetheless give you another noncontrovartihle 
 
 * Founded on an actual occurrence. 
 
118 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 proof that all your stuff and out-o'-the-way doc- 
 torings about ghosts and gobUns, apparitions and 
 transmogrifications, is as false as our church-clock 
 that never keeps the time for two days together ; 
 by just telling you, under the rose, a little affair 
 that I was concerned in some eighteen or twenty 
 years agone, and I'll be bound you'll not gainsay 
 what I saw with my own eyes ; if so be you do, 
 why there's an end to the matter at once, and I'll 
 wash my hands of the whole concern. 
 
 About the time I mentioned, our old vicar was 
 monstrous particular about our village horologium, 
 as he called it, that is to say, our church-clock ; 
 being then almost the only rule we had to go by 
 in that way. It was my oiBice to set the old crazy 
 creature right every Saturday, in order that there 
 might be no irregularity on the Sunday, the vicar 
 always leaving word at my house on the aforesaid 
 day, how much 'twas either too fast or too slow. Well 
 it so happened one Saturday that I had occasion 
 to go to Wherestow-market, with a neighbour, 
 poor old Giles Gosling, to lay in my yearly stock 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 119 
 
 of hops. Giles was a terrible fellow for the beel •» 
 of an evening, and I verily believe would have 
 given up the best friend he had, rather than lose 
 the chance of a night's merry-making. It so fell 
 out on that day that Giles had made a pretty good 
 market, " So," says he, as he came chirping into the 
 parlour of the Falcon, " Neighbour Gregory," or 
 Greg as he generally called me, " I hae made a 
 good day o' this, and, please Roger, we'll have 
 as good a night on't." Well sirs, he had me 
 wholly entirely in his clutches, seeing as how I had 
 no means of reaching home unless in his cart, so 
 there he sat, and sat till night came on as dark 
 and lonesome as ever a night I remember, for it 
 was no kind of use for me to contradict him, being 
 (some little like you, Mr. Plyquill) one of the best- 
 hearted creatures in the world if you gave him his 
 own way, but the most untoward and ohstropolous , 
 old chap you ever met with, if you said a word 
 against his own opinions. At last however, with 
 a good deal of begging and entreating, I got him 
 into" his cart, and on we went, and 1 believe 
 reached home between eleven and twelve. 
 
120 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 My old dame there, was sitting up for me, and 
 the first words I heard were, that the vicar had 
 called in the morning, to say, that the clock was 
 full half an hour too slow, (a ricketty old creature,) 
 and that he had called again in the evening, to 
 reprove me for my negligence, and to insist upon 
 its being altered before the next morning, or he 
 should look out for some one more attentive to his 
 duty. Thinks I to myself, this is no joke, go I 
 must, and set all matters right, whatever the con- 
 sequences may be, or else, as sure as I'm alive, 
 the vicar (a wayward man in little things) will play 
 the dickens with me. Now, at that time, I cannot 
 say, but I had a mort of fears, as you have, Mais- 
 ter Ply quill, " pshaw ! stuff' Greg," (said the School- 
 man,) about ghosts and the like o' them ; — however, 
 plucking up my spirits, and taking a lantern with 
 me, I walked away to the church, near a quarter 
 of a mile from my house, late as it was, with a 
 strange number of odd fancies and fears about me. 
 
 I reached the churchyard by the shortest cut I 
 could make, but had scarcely got five yards in it. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 121 
 
 before I unluckily blundered over a stone, and 
 fell, with ray lantern under me between two 
 graves, squeezing it as flat as a flounder. How 
 somever it was too far to go back for a light, and 
 I felt all but certain that I could, by groping 
 along, find my way in the dark ; so to the 
 church I goes, manfully, and puts the key into the 
 chancel door, and turning it round in the old rusty 
 lock, till the bolt shrieked again, I entered the 
 church : — all was dark as the grave, and nearly 
 as silent, save and except the hooting of an owl 
 in the belfry, when, on feeling my way to the 
 middle aisle, I heard such a whirring, as for a mo- 
 ment wholly upset me ; — before I could well 
 imagine what it could be, a heavy knoll fell on my 
 ear, (how it made my heart quake,) 'twas the clock 
 striking twelve ; — the very time (it struck me) 
 of all others, when ghosts rise out of their graves. — 
 Mercy on me, (thinks I,) what a life of it I should 
 have, if all the poor bodies were to come about 
 me, that I have made clay beds for. These 
 thoughts had scarcely got into my brain, when, to 
 my horrible aflright, I felt a sort of something soft. 
 
122 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 brush against my legs as I stood feeling about 
 against the wall for the steeple door. — On my 
 conscience, I felt at that moment, as if I was 
 about to be surrounded by all the ghosts in Chris- 
 tendom ; — my knees shook, and my hair, verily, 
 raised the hat on my head, and a cold sweat stood 
 on my face. — Heaven help me, what a stew I was 
 in ! — however,- thinks I, with the little sense I had 
 left, if I can but find this confounded door, I shall, 
 at any rate, be able to get out of their way, (for I 
 had never heard of ghosts climbing stairs), by get- 
 ting into the steeple, where I'll rather stay till 
 morning, than run the risk of being set upon in 
 such a way again, by going through the church, 
 where ghosts are as thick, and as quick in coming 
 up as mushrooms. Again I felt the horrible monster 
 groping about my poor trembling legs, but finding 
 by good luck, the door at the same instant, I rushed 
 up the winding staircase, with most amazing speed, 
 and reaching the clock-house, felt for a moment, 
 happy at the idea, that I had certainly distanced the 
 creature. I began to think- my torments were 
 over ; however, to make myself more sure on that 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 123 
 
 point, I listened at the top of the stairs to hear, if 
 there were any sounds below, or any signs of an 
 unnatural rumpus going forward : — Mercy on me ! 
 how I felt or what I did, when I heard footsteps 
 softly pit-patting up the stairs, I cannot say, I 
 only know I could neither speak, nor call out, for 
 the life o' me. But, in my fright, I put the clock 
 back, instead of forward, a full half hour, and 
 made all the noise I could, to drown the ghostly 
 noise and my fears, but in vain, the invisible appa- 
 rition came into the very turret after me, and 
 brushed against me a third time. I felt distracted, 
 and in my desperation, the sweat running cold down 
 my back, thinking the best plan was at once to run 
 through the whole host of tormentors about me ; I 
 ran down the stairs belter skelter, come ghost, 
 come old Harry, and reached the body of the 
 church once more ; — there I heard nothing, — saw 
 nothing, — felt nothing, — till, falling over a stool, 
 in the fury of my madness and fright, the same 
 monster swept snuffing and snorting by me, as I 
 was rising up, and I felt as plain as I ever felt in 
 
 g2 
 
124 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 my life, bristling hairs brushing by my face. Now 
 thinks I, as sure as T am a living sinner, this is no 
 less than the Deuce himself, for I had heard him 
 described as a black, hairy monster, with cloven 
 feet. I only wanted to see him to make all sure, 
 a pair of saucer eyes would have entirely done the 
 business for me. 
 
 Frightened to death at the discovery I had 
 more than half made, I breathed out a prayer that he 
 would leave me at peace, as I knelt on the cold 
 pavement; — I had scarcely got five words out, 
 before I felt a pair of paws on my shoulders, and 
 a cold something touching my face. — Body 'o me ! 
 there was no time to be lost, so I sprung up, and 
 leaped forward to escape the claws of the foul 
 fiend, tumbling first over hassocks, then stools, 
 breaking my shins at one time, and battering my 
 body at another, to say nothing of my nose, which 
 ran full butt against the font, knocking it awry as 
 it stands to this day. At last I reached the 
 chancel door, once again ; — I opened it, and ran 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 125 
 
 for my life (the monster still keeping pace with 
 me) and entering my own door, God be praised, 
 bolted in, and swooned away directly. 
 
 In a short time I recovered, when, what was 
 my surprise and joy, to find that my ghost was, 
 neither more nor less, than a huge mastiff dog, 
 which some stranger visitors to the church, the day 
 before, had left by accident behind them. The 
 brute beast had followed me home, delighted 
 enough, to once more find human society, and so 
 much was I pleased with my steeple-hunting 
 ghost, that he continued with me to the day of 
 his death, a living proof of the folly of believing 
 such wild stories as yours. Master Ply quill. 
 
 The folks of our village were an hour behind 
 the rest of the world, the following day, but our 
 worthy and lamented vicar redeemed it, I warrant 
 ye, by giving us, and me in particular, a two 
 hours' discourse on superstitious fear; the text 
 being, as I well remember, (for the wrath of ihe 
 
126 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 minister was wofuUy against me) : * Terrors are 
 turned upon me, they pursue my soul as the wind, 
 for I am a brother to dragons, and a companion 
 to owls.' However, he forgave me, and to save a 
 constant laugh against me, I believe, (at my re- 
 quest,) he never told the history of my steeple 
 adventure to a single being ; at any rate I was 
 blamed by the parish for nothing but getting tipsy, 
 and setting the clock wrong ; half of which, to my 
 certain knowledge, was false, and the other half 
 the natural consequence of taking a dog for a 
 ghost, and making myself a fool to believe it. — So 
 here is an end to my tale, and now what do you 
 say to it. Master Ply quill ? 'tis a poser, I'll war- 
 rant you. — Dame ! fill the pitcher. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 127 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 A STUDY- VISITATION, 
 
 As related by Master PlyquUl, the Schoolman of Naethorpe. 
 
 " Obstupui steteruntqae comae et vox faucibus haesit" 
 
 Notwithstanding your very rigmarole, in- 
 condite ptory, my old friend Greg, I have had 
 such incontrovertible and irrefragable proofs of the 
 strength of my position as to the reality of super- 
 natural appearances as incline me to be somewhat 
 dubitative even as to the accuracy of your con- 
 clusion as respecteth the canine appearance you 
 were troubled with ; for it was indeed a human pos- 
 
128 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 sibility for this said mastiff of yours to have been 
 neither more nor less than the veritable fiend him- 
 self, indeed, my friend Walter Scott averreth, that 
 in a certain castle in the Isle of Man, alias Monceda, 
 vel Mona, a demon is occasionally seen of the very 
 form and figure of your pseudo mastiff; indeed 
 Greg I am led to opine that this dog of yours was 
 of the evil kind, tarrying with you for certain 
 reasons best cognoscent to itself, insomuch as I 
 very well remember the being had a mortal aversion 
 to me and our reverend vicar, (fiends hate^arsow* 
 and schoolmen, Greg,) and a sad trick of growHng, 
 (and that too I now bethink myself in a very un- 
 earthly tone,) whenever I attempted to rub its 
 back down with my walking-cane. Doubtless 
 Greg, this said dog must have been a fiend, how- 
 ever you may asseverate to the contrary. Oh had 
 I but known this before Greg ! what an exercise 
 had it been for my amphibological, magical, exor- 
 cistical, necromantical and demonological charms, 
 spells and conjurations. Oh Greg, had I but 
 shown him the pentagle of Solomon, or the Chaldee 
 Tetragrammaton,— fumed him with Hypericorit 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 1!^ 
 
 alias ^M^a dcemonis, or the liver of a fish with which 
 Tobias put to flight Asmodeus, or sprinkled him 
 with the expressed juice of the root baaras, or 
 the Cynospastus of Elianus, how the fiend would 
 have howled at me in vain, and taken himself 
 away in a whirlwind. How I should have followed 
 him up, Greg-. There would have been no Par- 
 thian flights, ambnscado retreats, or elusory ter- 
 giversations : he would have flown before me and 
 my potential words like chafi^ before the storm. 
 " There is no question about that," (said Greg im- 
 patiently,) ** your words and heathen lingo are 
 enough to make a Christian man run away with his 
 fingers in his ears, much more Old Harry, who I 
 dare to say has no more afiection for your potangles, 
 (/ammertons, and peppercorns than I have. Master 
 Plyquill." 
 
 Tapster of the tintinnabulatory cerevisiarum, 
 vulgo ale-house, ta^e ! id est, be still, and leam 
 in silentio ; for I have much to say : — but to the 
 point, for 1 hate prefatory multiverbiage. — Horace 
 says brevis esse laboro. Here Master Gregory 
 
 G 3 
 
130 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 again put in his veto to the use of such unititelli- 
 gible interpolations, with a " Pshaw, who the 
 dickens knows any thing about serviceamurs, or 
 such learned kind o' stuff, in an ale-house, — speak 
 plain English, prithee friend, or you may as well 
 talk to my mare Madge who is as deaf as a beetle." 
 The schoolman, upon this, promised to give occa- 
 sional free translations of such elegances as the na- 
 ture of his story might require, and again proceeded. 
 
 Well, master mine host, to be concise, — I have 
 had ocular demonstration, to my sorrow, of the 
 existence, aye even sensible, tangible, ill-inten- 
 tionable existence of ghosts, alias manes, vel spirits 
 infernales, as the following narrative will disclose. 
 
 Now it is the custom with me. Master Greg, 
 more majorum, that is, after the manner of my 
 ancestorial worthies, who were all men summce 
 doctrina, of profound ability, as I have beett 
 given to understand, to spend a certain part of the 
 day, videlicet the evening, in study, which is a 
 most wholesome practice as far as regards the re- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 131 
 
 fection of the mind and the delectation of the un- 
 derstanding-, and not, I opine, very injurious to the 
 
 body, vel corpus carnosum, whilk Galen says 
 
 ** Body o' me ! never mind what Galen says," 
 interrupted the unlearned clerk, " I hate heathen 
 Greeks, and he is one, I guess, by the name, but 
 pray proceed with a plain matter-of-fact story, for 
 I have a mortal aversion to such roundabout cir- 
 cumhendibusses.^' Be it so Greg, but animum 
 rege, govern your tongue and be silent — I obtest 
 you to be calm ; strike, but hear me, for verily the 
 cacoetkes loquendi is upon me, and I must speak 
 or burst. This is a matter that comes home to me 
 Greg, so no more, as you love me, of your inter- 
 polations. " Polations !" says Greg, "Odds bod- 
 dikins ! I never heard of one before ; why what do 
 you mean Master Plyquill, by a polation, unless it 
 be such a dressing as Wigram the barber gave the 
 glazier with his pole, when he painted it black t 
 instead of sky-blue ; why man I never handled a 
 pole in my life, having no love for sore skins, 
 cracked pates, and quarter-staves rattling about 
 your ears, as if your very brains were gone a wool- 
 
13S THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 gathering ; a pize on such vagaries say I, Master 
 Plyquill." " How the man misconstrues my very 
 simplest words, — why Greg, — but 'tis vain to re- 
 monstrate, he is deaf to reason and bHnd to the 
 beauties of language, — so on with my story. 
 Well, it happened one evening, after the business 
 of the day was over, and my scholars were safely 
 hived in their dormitoria, (vulgo, bed-rooms,) 
 that I retired incontinently to my study, there to 
 unbend the stern disciplinarian feelings of the 
 master and move myself a scholar amid the glorious 
 phalanxes (vel phalanges) of Grecian and Roman 
 literature, a mere tyro in wisdom, among the 
 
 sages of antiquity, Plutarch, Aristophanes, 
 
 ♦' Hang Blueturk, Harry Stoph-and-his, and all 
 the rest o' them !" said the incorrigible and impa- 
 tient Greg; " there they come again ; I hate the 
 whole breed o' such outlandish heathens. Master 
 Plyquill, so pray leave 'em alone and go on with 
 your story, which I verily believe will never have 
 an end." Not if you subject me to such obstruent 
 interruptions as these, my impatient host, (says 
 the schoolman,) but I pardon you, my choleric 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 133 
 
 incognoscent octogenarian, I am, I own, some- 
 what too diffuse and excursive, — but to my nar- 
 ration : — Well, I was busily engaged, Greg, in 
 conning over an old favourite author of mine, 
 being no less a man than Aulus Gellins, so famous 
 for his Nodes Aitica, when my wooden horologue 
 struck one, — a time when yawning graves give up 
 their dead and marble tombs their fleshless heri- 
 tants — a moment before this not a sound was heard 
 through my mansion, even a somniferous snore 
 from the dormitory struck not the sensitive ti/ni' 
 panum of my ear, when, miserabile dictu ! (shock- 
 ing to say !) a strange rustling sound crept on my 
 brain as I sat ereciis auribus, (vulgo, with open 
 ears,) accompanied with the heavy tramp as of an 
 armed man, approaching as it were the very vesii- 
 hulum of my secluded study. 
 
 For a moment, I felt transfixed to my chair with 
 dread : 
 
 " Mihi frigidus horror, 
 
 Membra qutttit gelidusque cuit furmidine sanguis." 
 
 That is to say my very limbs shook with fear an^ 
 
134 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 the blood ran cold in my veins ; (a free translation 
 this, Greg.) Well, the noise ceased, and I rea- 
 soned with myself on the idiocy of supposing it to 
 be aught else than a mere wandering of the imagi- 
 nation — an ignis fatuus — a vapoury phantasy — a 
 figment of the brain. Having settled this point to 
 my most perfect satisfaction, I resumed my studies 
 and was soon deeply immersed in the profound 
 subject before me. " pifficile dictu est" (vulgo, 
 Greg, it is hard to say,) how long I had been thus 
 engaged, when on raising my head from the work 
 before mine eyes, as my lamp shed a paler, or as 
 I have since thought a bluer ray than usual, I be- 
 held, miserabile visu ! the horrible proportions of 
 an apparition standing opposite, and with most 
 death-like glare looking down upon me. I was 
 terrified to death, the very individual hairs of my 
 head stood erect, and my tongue clave to my jaws, 
 my knees trembled, and every member of my frame 
 was paralized with horror. „ 
 
 Oh Greg, " crede mihi" here was proof positive, 
 irrefragable, and not to be dubitated upon, of the 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. . 136 
 
 truth of the doctrine I had then a sincere wish to 
 find false. There the monster stood before me, 
 with a face pale as monumental marble, — eyes 
 glazed and fixed, as in death, on " me miserum," 
 — a red capote upon its fleshless scull, — a winding- 
 sheet *' humeros amictus,^' drawn round its shoul- 
 ders and closely enfolding an attenuated form, the 
 lower extremities of which, I afterwards saw, were 
 cased in an enormous pair of jack-boots. One 
 arm only could I perceive, and that wielded in its 
 truculent yet shrivelled hand the tibia, (vulgo, leg- 
 bone,) of some departed being, which it waved 
 three times over my poor shattered and distracted 
 head, at the same moment slowly and solemnly 
 muttering through its moveless jaws, " Pulvis et 
 umbra sumus /" — we are but dust and shade ! 
 Dust and shade indeed thought T, as I quaked 
 with fear at the horrible and unearthly sound, I 
 shall soon be both if this infernal interview last 
 long. Well Greg, I summoned up courage enough 
 at last to exclaim, in the bitterness of my spirit, — 
 Exorcizote! unquiet spirit, " Proh Jupiter, tu 
 adigis me ad insaniam." — " Adjuro te, per Deum 
 
136 THK EXCURSION OP 
 
 viventum abite a me /"—sad intermixture this of 
 sacred and profane language, but my fright was 
 too great to allow me to choose fitter forms of ex- 
 pression. How vain was this sacred and learned 
 adjuration ! for ere I had well finished, my lamp 
 shed a flickering ray, — the figure seemed to dilate 
 itself, — its shadow grew mightily on the wall,— the 
 room turned round with me, — the deadly arm was 
 raised, — the tibia came clattering down upon my 
 caput, — my eyes struck fire, — a sheet of sulphu- 
 reous flame streamed around, (ohejam satis est,) 
 and I poor mortal wight, fell stupified and sense- 
 less to the floor. Anon I awoke ; there was dark- 
 ness around, but myriads of harpy-feet were tramp- 
 ling and dancing the dance of death upon me, and 
 with vile hands shedding stercoraceous filth on my 
 body bruised to a jelly ; pinches and blows now 
 fell upon me thick as hail, — the contents of my 
 lamp and inkstand were poured upon my face, — I 
 cried, but there was none to save or succour ; and 
 when the fiend and his rascally myrmidons had ex- 
 hausted their rage, to complete my troubles, my 
 study-table was whelmed over me, and I lay pant- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 137 
 
 ing and groaning, distraught with fear and tongue- 
 tied with dismay, amid the silence that followed, 
 like the giants buried under the mountains of an- 
 tiquity. 
 
 There I lay, in a kind of mental stupor, till 
 morning broke, and the sun peeped through my 
 casement. What a scene presented itself to my 
 view ! my books, chairs, inkstand, hat, and lamp 
 were all scattered around me — a ** rudis indiges- 
 taque moles" — the table upon me — a dreadful 
 bump on my organ of ideality, from the accursed 
 tibial bone — my face desecrated and besmeared 
 with ink, oil, and filthy and my whole person so 
 battered, bruised, and beaten that the very mother 
 who bare me would have disowned me. Oh ! the 
 terrors of that night ! I shall never forget them : 
 they are written on ray brain, and indelibly carved 
 on my body : — but they are by, thank Heaven ! 
 and till now I have never repeated the sad tale, 
 from the fear of being made a laughing-stock, — 
 never sat later than nine in my study from the fear 
 of a second visitation, and never hinted the pes- 
 
188 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 sibility of any ghost-story being untrue, however 
 wild or improbable, lest I should even question 
 the strength of my own intellect, or the soundness 
 of my own conviction. 
 
 The story being ended, Master Greg ventured 
 to insinuate the possibility of the aforesaid hob- 
 goblin being neither more nor less than an usher of 
 his (a main lover of fun) dressed up for the occa- 
 sion, and the myrmidons his ovm pupils, creating 
 the rumpus upon his body as a kind of set-off 
 against divers floggings and tasks they had received 
 from the liberality of their pedant preceptor. The 
 insinuation was treated with due contempt by the 
 schoolman, who seeing the perverse obduracy of 
 Greg, cast a withering frown upon him, bowed 
 to me, and departed without his customary vale, 
 or pax vohiscum. 
 
THE VILLAGE CURATE. 13^ 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 THE ABBAYE. 
 
 How musical ! when all devouring Time, 
 Here sitting on his throne of ruins hoar. 
 While winds and tempests sweep his various lyrcy 
 How sweet thy diapason, melancholy ! 
 
 Dyer. 
 
 From the beauty and salubrity of the secluded 
 village of Naetborpe, and its contiguity to the 
 venerable ruins of an " ancient abbaye," to say 
 nothing of the noble stream which wound round its 
 skirts, and the fine overhanging woods, which 
 gave tone to its silver waters, and garbed the 
 surrounding hills with their vari-coloured vest- 
 ments of departing grandeur ; I resolved to make 
 it the place of my abode for some weeks, occa- 
 sionally taking such short excursions from it, as 
 
140 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 might enable me to regain my little room, at mine 
 inn, before night-fall. After making a few ar- 
 rangements, therefore, with my hostess, for my 
 abidance under her roof, to which she was nothing 
 loth, I set out the following day for a stroll to the 
 abbey of St. Mary. At the close of about an 
 hour's walk, through some of the sweetest scenes 
 of nature, in one of those delightful mornings 
 which gild the decline of the year, when nature 
 seems resting, after the full effusion of her plenty, 
 in the glories of autumnal beauty, I reached the 
 precincts of the ivy-mantled fabric of ages past, 
 and seated myself on a ruin, which had doubtless 
 formed a part of its ancient porter's lodge. There 
 I surveyed the goodly pile before me, the glory 
 of by-gone days, till feelings, I cannot well de- 
 scribe, came ** thick and strong" upon me ; suffice 
 it to say, they were of that cast, which harmonized 
 with the changing beauties around, and the deso- 
 lated structure before me. 
 
 It was a noble edifice, shattered as it was by 
 the storms of many years: — its lofty turrets were 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 141 
 
 nearly gone, — its roofs dismantled, and its walls 
 had betrayed their trust in many places ; still it 
 stood, a striking spectacle of grandeur in decay, a 
 perishable, yet eloquent type of human ambition. 
 I walked into its once hallowed courts, there was 
 silence and ruin around me, — thorns, nettles, and 
 brambles had come up in its saintless shrines ; the 
 owl, also, and the raven, dwelt in its ivied arches, 
 and the screech-owl had found for herself a place 
 of rest, in its vaulted chambers. There was its 
 gateway crowned with " ivy never sere," — its 
 fretted stone-roofed porch, through which so many 
 pageants had passed, — so many of the mighty 
 and noble of the land had entered to their banquet 
 or their tomb. Here, a part of its spacious refec- 
 tory, with its mouldering carved work and ruined 
 windows, yawned coldly on the spectator. — Where 
 were its festal days — its groaning tables— its merry 
 monks, and lordly abbot? All — all, departed, 
 like " the baseless fabric of a vision." There 
 was its chapel, with its mutilated tombs, and shat- 
 tered altar : — here lay the knight-templar, with 
 his shield and banner, his legs crossed, and his 
 
142 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 sword half-sheathed : — there slept the sainted ab- 
 bot, with mitred head, and crosiered hand, in vest- 
 ments of marble, whilst his cowled brethren lay 
 unnoticed around him, but they murmured not, 
 for death had made them equal. 
 
 No incense now breathed over its censerless 
 altar, save that which the yellow wall- flower 
 threw around : — no " dim religious light" stole 
 through its oriel window; the mellowing glory 
 of the morning sun alone burst through the gaping 
 void, and called up a smile on its rifted walls, — 
 no solemn miserere, — nor mournful de profundis, 
 nor rapturous jubilate "pealed through the long 
 drawn aisle and fretted vault" — the shrill note of 
 the tiny robin perched on some mossy pillar, was 
 the only music which cheered its decaying walls, 
 and woke the echoes in its mouldering cells. Its 
 pomp, glory and magnificence had passed away, 
 its boasted beauty had yielded to the touch of 
 time, and the once massive pile, lay as a giant in 
 death, wasted and powerless, yet betokening the 
 mightiness that had been, by the ruins that were 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 143 
 
 left. So feeble are the works of man, in com- 
 parison with those of God : —the wonders of art 
 are of to day, — the marvellous handy works of 
 God, are to day and for ever. The noblest struc- 
 tures of human pride, one by one, lose their glory 
 and their place ; but the simplest productions 
 of Almighty power, continue through boundless 
 ages the same. The daisy of the field, and the 
 floweret of the wall, bloom as fair, and smell as 
 sweet, even in these latter days, as when the one 
 opened its little star as the world of waters retired, 
 and the other first spread its odours over the pros- 
 trate pride of Babylon, the fallen temples of Per- 
 sepolis, or the gigantic ruins of Tadmor. 
 
 • We rifle earth of its solid granite, and endu- 
 ring marble, and erect on its surface, monuments 
 of our arrogance and presumption, vainly conceit- 
 ing to ourselves, that our memories shall endure 
 with them for ever ; but bow absurd are our en- 
 deavours,— thunder-blasts cleave them asunder, — - 
 earthquakes root up their foundations, and the hoar 
 frost of Time enshrouds them beneath its silent 
 
144 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 mantle. In vain we connect our memories with 
 things of a temporary nature, as well might we 
 wrestle with the whirlwind, or battle with the 
 tempest for supremacy : — we are, and are not of 
 this world, — the sacred impress of God only is in- 
 delibly stamped on the bosom of Nature — the face 
 of material things — shall we endeavour to efface it 
 and write man ? Those crumbling walls have haply 
 enclosed some who have ambitiously endeavoured 
 to render their names more than co-extensive with 
 its own duration ; how have they been mistaken ! — 
 their proud temple is a ruin, whilst their remem- 
 brance is clean gone from the earth like the glitter 
 of the morning dew or the smoke of their fallen 
 altar. They built shrines for their canonized and 
 sainted remembrance, but the Ithuriel spear of decay 
 has touched them and they are not, — " sic transit 
 gloria mundi /" and so time extinguishes the poor 
 taper of human ambition, and leaves the shattered 
 pillar of mortal pride in the mistiness of passing 
 ages, — a dim ruin in the hazy distance, to bid fu- 
 ture travellers walk with humility and circumspec- 
 tion, and meekly hope for heavenly things. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 145 
 
 ABBEY MUSINGS. 
 Siste Viator f 
 
 O THOU who roam'st, these hoary aisles among, 
 By fancy led, or rev'rence for the grave ; 
 
 Sequester'd now, (from earth's alluring throng,) 
 Where noisome, weeds, o'er fallen greatness wave. 
 
 Here, stay and bid thy warring feelings cease, 
 Thy grosser passions chasten down to rest ; 
 
 And woo the spirit of immortal peace. 
 To bless the silent mansions of thy breast. 
 
 Not sounds of mirth, nor panoply of arms 
 Nor aught that pomp, or majesty can yield, 
 
 Are here to wake thee, with fallacious charms, 
 For this, ~-is sober Meditation's fieM. 
 
 Here, 'mid the relics of the olden time, 
 Bespread with moss and ivied o'er with age ; 
 
 Staid Wisdom sits ; in solitude sublime. 
 And opes to view her all-instructive page ; 
 
 H 
 
146 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 Where thou may'st read of dynasties gone by, 
 Of thrones and empires crumbled to their base ; 
 
 Of fallen glories, tow'rs and temples high, 
 The goodly fabrics of a nameless race. 
 
 With wrecks of fate, her ample volumes teem, 
 Whence sage Reflection draws her truths divine ; 
 
 That man is vanity, — his life a dream, — 
 His fame a breath, — his pride an empty shrine. 
 
 Time was, — and these, — these ruinated heaps 
 Had beauty, strength and dignity sublime ; 
 
 Now, low in dust their hoary genius weeps, 
 And mutters mournfully of former prime. 
 
 How many sleep, beneath this holy ground, 
 
 Who once like thee, perchance eryoy'd life's hour ; 
 
 How do they speak, from out the dull profound, 
 Of all the vanity of pride and pow'r. 
 
 Time is, — and thou art wand'ring o'er their tomb, 
 And haply reckless of approaching fate, 
 
 When thou, like them, shalt sink in mould'ring gloom^ 
 And change thy mortal for immortal state. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 147 
 
 They sleep the silent sleep of death — whilst thou 
 
 Art gaily floating on the living wave ; 
 But little dreaming that the stream which now 
 
 Is full and strong— bat bears thee to the grave. 
 
 Time shall be, — and thy tottering limbs shall fail. 
 The wheel of life move slowly at its well ; 
 
 Thy face turn chilly cold, and deadly pale, 
 And thou shalt rest, within thy secret cell. 
 
 The dust, shall bow unto its parent earth, 
 And moulder with the mighty of mankind ; 
 
 Thy soul return from whence it took its birth, 
 To God — the everlasting source of mind. 
 
 Thy future doom, — no earthly skill can tell, 
 Nor angel's tongue declare its pain or rest ; 
 
 Nor sage magician, with unhallow'd spell, 
 May draw the secret from Jehovah's breast 
 
 Then, stranger pause, amid this sacred fane. 
 And draw instruction even from these stones ; 
 
 Though silently they preach, — yet not in vain 
 If man bis poor seif-conseqwiice disowns. 
 
 h2 
 
148 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 If, from one sin— one error thou art saved. 
 Thou hast not reason'd with thyself for nought. 
 
 But all unwittingly, hast wisely paved 
 A road to bliss, through purity of thought. 
 
 Having reasoned with myself and put a few 
 thoughts into verse, as I lingered within the soli- 
 tary ruin, I departed, to imbibe something of a 
 more cheerful feeling from the varied beauties of 
 its vicinity. After sunning myself in the still 
 fields and wandering on from view to view through 
 the fading yet gorgeous scenery around me, I 
 began to think of returning, and was about to 
 Scramble over a brambly quickset hedge, into a 
 retired and winding lane which led to my village- 
 home, when my ears were saluted by a simple, 
 yet touching melody, from some one stretched at 
 his ease by his knapsack on the green carpet of 
 Nature, crooning to himself one of the sweet 
 ditties of his beloved native land. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 149 
 
 I have a decided objection to the mingling 
 of aught light and trifling with the solemn subject 
 my pen has so recently left, but I trust in this case 
 I may be pardoned a transcript of the feelings of 
 a gentle lover of the laud of his birth, since to me 
 they possess somewhat even of a sacred character 
 about them. ** The love of our country" (says 
 St. Pierre) " increases with extension, and ex- 
 pands with time, as a sentiment of a celestial and 
 immortal nature" With this trite apology, I 
 shall venture to lay the patriotic strain of a Cale- 
 donian exile before my readers, which ran (as far 
 as I could afterwards collect from him) as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 MY BONNIE NORTH COUNTRIE. 
 
 My ain gude land, my cozie hame, 
 
 I loo ye true and leal ; 
 Whate'er I ken, where'er I rame, 
 
 There's nought I loo sae weel. 
 
150 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 Y'er mountains and y'er gladsome dales* 
 Y'er sons sae bauld and free ; 
 
 My benison upon them dwells, 
 My bonnie north countrie. 
 
 Whene'er in lands abraid, my eyne 
 
 Hae spier'd the broom sae gay, 
 I've croon'd the sang of " Auld Lang Syne,' 
 
 To wile my cares away. 
 I've thocht upon my friends and hame, 
 
 Till tears were in my ee ; 
 And noo, I'll to y'er highlands rame. 
 
 My bonnie north countrie. 
 
 And, shall I ken y'er streams again. 
 
 And wear y'er bonnet blue ; ' 
 And sleep on heather where I've lain, 
 
 And suck'd the siller dew. 
 And wuU ye smile, as once ye ded, 
 
 And siccan pleasures gie ; 
 Then honours on y'er brows be shed. 
 
 My bonnie north countrie. 
 
 Nae mair I'll wander frae yer side. 
 
 Gin ye'U receive yer ain ; 
 And weel I ken, my constant pride, 
 
 Ye'U tak me back again : 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE, 151i 
 
 Ye'U nae refuse to welcame hame, 
 
 Though age be o'er his ee ; 
 The man that's focht for Scotia's fame, 
 
 My bonnie north countrie. 
 
 He finished his lay, and I sprang over the hedge, 
 to the no small surprise of the honest ** auld soger- 
 laddie," who starting up exclaimed — ** Hoot mon! 
 but ye're not ower scrupulous in yer louping in sic 
 a fashion, like ony bristling stot, — ye hae gien me 
 a scart by my faith, and siccan ane as I canna 
 weel remember the likes on't, sin I spier'd the 
 bogle in the auld castle of Knochlevin." After a 
 fitting apology we proceeded on our road together, 
 his destination for that day being the little hamlet 
 where I resided. During our walk, he entertained 
 me much with his occasional remarks on passing 
 events — " the moving accidents of flood and field" 
 he had been an eye-witness to, — and the deeds of 
 days long gone by, some of which perhaps may 
 
152 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 see the light at no very distant day ; at present I 
 am content to keep them in " durance vile," i. e. 
 in the well of my desk, where truth in the shape 
 of a folio MS. of Jedediah Cleisbotham's lies at 
 the bottom. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CURATE. 
 
 Patents of human lives are short, and drawn 
 Without a clause and with a secret date ; 
 
 Our day is spent, before it scarcely dawn, 
 Each urns' appointed, come it soon or late : 
 
 The coarse-grain'd Lockram, and the white skin Lawn 
 Are both subjected to the selfsame fate. 
 
 F. Ovaries. 
 
 Walking one beauteous evening in the village 
 church yard, and meditating on the transitory 
 glories of existence, I was insensibly led to the 
 perusal of a brief inscription on a simple stone, 
 erected under the shade of a fine old thorn, that ap- 
 peared to have been the hoary genius of the silent 
 spot, for many generations. It ran thus, — 
 
 ULtt iSuTiaUpIate of 
 
 CHARLES HERBERT, 
 
 Ctiratc. 
 
 MDcccvm. . 
 
 H 3 
 
154 
 
 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 Whilst I sat upon a tomb near by, engaged in 
 reflections suited to the place, and desiring to know 
 more of the gentle being whose quaint memorial 
 stood before me, a person whom I had often seen 
 lingering near the spot, before and after the sab- 
 bath service, came out of a little coppice or orchard 
 abutting in the churchyard, and invited me to walk 
 into his neat and rural home near by, and take 
 such refreshments as his house afforded. I unhesi- 
 tatingly complied, and spent a very rational and 
 pleasant evening with my young farmer-friend, — 
 during which, I gathered enough to form the out- 
 lines of the following narrative. 
 
 Charles Herbert was the only child of a private 
 gentlemen of good family, residing on his own pro- 
 perty, on the borders of Sherwood Forest, near the 
 little hamlet of Gamwell, so famed in olden time, 
 as the scene of the wild vagaries of Robin Hood, 
 and his merry archers. His father had died in his 
 infancy, leaving the family estate so encumbered 
 with mortgages, as to afford but a scanty pittance for 
 the wants of his widow, and the maintenance and 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 155 
 
 education of his son. It is not expedient that the 
 causes of this defalcation of family property, should 
 be investigated here, sufficient is it, that it was 
 more owing to bank failures and other frowns of 
 fortune, over which there could be no control than 
 to want of prudence, forethought, or management 
 in his parents. 
 
 During the very earliest period of childhood, 
 Charles had received the benefit of a perfect co- 
 operation as regarded his education, in both father 
 and mother ; but, from the time his fathers affairs 
 had fallen into disorder, his course of instruction had 
 grown irregular too ; — the mind of that amiable, 
 yet too sensitive being, having succumbed beneath 
 its burthen and gradually waned into the absorbing 
 darkness of mental melancholy. On the decease 
 of this kind, but unfortunate parent, his mother 
 sold the estate, to pay off the many claims upon it, 
 and retired with the small remaining part of her 
 property, to a small, but neat cottage, about two 
 miles distant from her former abode of affluence 
 and comfort. 
 
156 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 Her mind naturally firm, and steadily stayed by 
 religion, changed not with her change of circum- 
 stances, but on the contrary, grew daily, more 
 equal to the task allotted it, the more its stability 
 was tried. Her aflfections had not been placed 
 upon perishable things, but upon that rock of ages, 
 that strong and sure defence, whose shadow now 
 shielded her from the windy storm and tempest, 
 and bade her rejoice, in that she was deemed 
 worthy to be tried of her Lord and her God. She 
 looked through her tears to her Maker, and Re- 
 deemer, and was comforted, — she bowed her head 
 submissively to the blow, and its severity passed as 
 it were, harmlessly over her ; — one thing only oc- 
 casioned her to sometimes deplore her altered cir- 
 cumstances, and that was her son ; but hers was 
 an enduring faith, and the murmur that at any time 
 escaped her lips, was as instantly followed by her 
 contrition and pious resignation. Even in her de- 
 solation, she felt that she had much to be thankful 
 for ; — she had enough left to live upon, and the con- 
 tiguity of a large town to the place of her residence 
 afforded her the possibility of giving her darling 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 1G7 
 
 boy, the benefit of a liberal education at small cost, ; 
 and consequently little inconvenience. At the. 
 early break of day, Charles might be seen with 
 satchel in his hand, cheerfully wending his way to 
 school, a simple, yet a thoughtful boy ; and at night-, 
 fall the very sound of his returning feet, made the 
 widow's heart leap with joy, as opening the little 
 wicket which led to her humble door, he tripped 
 along the gravel path with light and jocund step. 
 Early griefs, had somewhat sobered down the 
 buoyant feelings of youth, and given him something 
 of the sedateness of the man, — still he was 
 beloved by all his companions, not so much for his 
 playfulness as the kindness and open generosity of 
 his heart. He was considered, rather in the light 
 of a common friend, than an every-day companion, 
 — an adviser, rather than a participator in the 
 giddy freaks of boyhood. 
 
 By the forest shepherd or the woodman, the 
 only persons he met with in his rambles to and from 
 school, he was considered a most uncommon lad, 
 the marvel of the forest boundary. He was pas- 
 
158 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 sionately fond of poetry, and often was he seen 
 sitting by some aged tree, or reclining on the 
 blooming heath on a " sunshine holiday," with some 
 favourite bard of by-gone days, rapt with enthu- 
 siastic feelings, and wandering on imagination's 
 airy wing, to blissful regions far away. When at 
 home, he cheered the widow's fire-side with his 
 anecdotes of the day, or by reading such works to 
 her as her taste and judgment recommended for 
 his perusal ; and truly might it be said, he was the 
 widow's only earthly happiness, the only source of 
 worldly joy afiliction had left her. He felt all this 
 — he knew that he was the tie which bound her to 
 earth, — the only consideration which made life de- 
 sirable, and he endeavoured so to demean himself, 
 as to return her affection tenfold into her own heart. 
 
 At the age of sixteen, from his classical acquire- 
 ments and excellence of conduct, he was chosen 
 by the governors of the school, to the foundation 
 of which he was so bright an ornament, to fill up 
 in the following year, a college scholarship in their 
 gift. His mother received the tidings with inex- 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 169 
 
 pressible joy and gratitude, and many were the 
 tears shed on both sides, when he left his poor 
 widowed mother's humble cot, for the spacious 
 quadrangle of a college. His vacations, for the 
 most part, were spent at home, under the maternal 
 wings of his life's best and dearest treasure. At 
 the end of three years, he bore away a wrangler's 
 honours ; and ere another similar term had closed, 
 (spent in preparing young men for the university) 
 he was received within the bosom of his church, as 
 a minister of her divine ordinances. Exclusive of 
 this, his literary toil passed unrewarded, his 
 honours faded on his brow, and a small stipend of 
 £25 per annum, arising from the fortnight duty of 
 a parish church in the vicinity of his mother's resi- 
 dence, was the only golden reward for such high 
 desert, so much industry, unwearied attention, 
 and integrity. 
 
 The following year, his mother died, and he was 
 cast on the world with nothing save his talents ; (his 
 curacy having passed into the hands of another, from 
 the death of his vicar;) the little whole of his earthly 
 
160 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 property having been lost, some few weeks after his 
 mother's decease, by the failure of a firm into whose 
 hands it had been placed by the widow with full 
 and entire confidence ; one of the partners being a 
 distant relative. A college frieijd, perceiving his 
 unfortunate situation, procured him the curacy of 
 Naethorpe, with a yearly stipend of £60, a sum 
 nearly equivalent to the salary of a butler, or the 
 wages of a common artisan. The old vicar had 
 given up his residence there, and had retired to 
 another benefice in the same diocese, with his £800 
 per annum, leaving his untenanted house to far 
 into decay, and his heirs to meet future claims for 
 dilapidations. 
 
 He went to his new curacy, with a heart some- 
 thing cheered by the hope of being able to provide 
 for the day passing over his head, and his example 
 and teaching had the happy effect of estabUshing 
 a new order of things in the parish, ere twelve 
 months had passed away. He was diligent to de- 
 serve and improve the high trust he had received, 
 nor did he suff*er his own necessities, or affairs, to 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 161 
 
 interfere at any time with the faithful discharge of 
 his duty. The sick-room, the dying penitent, or 
 the desponding sinner, called for, and met with his 
 instant and persevering attention. He watched 
 by the aflQicted, — prayed with the departing, — 
 read to the ignorant,— wept with those who wept, 
 and praised with those, whose cup of happiness 
 was full. A life Uke this, spent in doing good, 
 was a boon too great for the world to deserve. — 
 Such beings do not light on every spot of earth, 
 else were the world far otherwise than it is. 
 Where they do fallj they bless^ and where they are 
 not, there is barrenness. His, was no desponding 
 creed, no religion of limitations, save those which 
 the sinner draws around himself. — His doctrine 
 was that of the fathers of the church ; — his princi- 
 ples such as his articles taught, — sound, orthodox, 
 and scriptural. Still he was charitable to those 
 who differed from him in opinion, — he felt that he 
 was not a master, but a teacher, —not a railer, 
 but an adviser, — not a judge, but an advocate for 
 the cause of Truth, — the religion of his Divine 
 Master. 
 
162 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 Such was the amiable curate of Naethorpe, and 
 such was his truly Christian course, till disease, 
 brought on by exposing himself to the bleakness 
 of a wintry storm, after attending the death-bed 
 of an aged parishioner, brought his holy labours to 
 a close, and extinguished for ever a bright light 
 in Israel. 
 
 On the evening of his death, which was, indeed, 
 sudden, he preached to his beloved congregation, 
 and gave them such a farewell, as became the 
 apostle of a glorious cause, about to finish his 
 course, and enter into the joy of his Lord. Ere 
 he could well conclude, nature had done its ut- 
 most,-— his voice trembled with emotions too deep 
 for utterance, — the blessing was on his lips, — he 
 paused a moment, — again essayed, but failed;— 
 staggered back to his seat, — a bright gleam passed 
 over his dying features, — a sigh followed, and his 
 spirit was gone for ever. Such was the end of the 
 young apostle, and so gently was his soul released 
 from the bondage of the flesh, and wafted on angel 
 wings, to the bosom of his Father and his God,— 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 163 
 
 the everlasting habitation of just men made per- 
 fect,— the hallowed mansion of eternal peace. 
 
 For some years previous to his death, he had 
 lived imder the roof of a respectable farmer, the 
 eldest son of whom was, at one time, a professed 
 infidel. By the blessing of God on his pious la- 
 bours, he at length opened his young friends' 
 eyes, to the awful delusion he was in, and con- 
 vinced him, that, in truth, there was no other name 
 under heaven, by which men might be saved, but 
 Jesus Christ the righteous. The person, who so 
 regularly visited his tomb, and from whom I de- 
 rived the above information, was the one his 
 endeavours plucked, as a brand from the burning. 
 (To him, also, I am indebted for sundry poetical 
 relics of his friend, the curate, with some of 
 which I shall venture to close my labours, for the 
 present.) 
 
164 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 RELIQUI^ POETIC^. 
 
 AN IRREGULAR ODE. 
 Written during a Storm on New Year's Eve. 
 
 Labuntur aiui. 
 
 'Tis finished— the year 
 Hath sunk upon his bier. 
 
 With dead leaves scatter'd all around : 
 And stern he lies in rest, 
 With snow wreaths on his bresiat. 
 
 Like a warrior, in death that's bound. 
 The singing birds are still ; 
 And e'en the silver rill, 
 That chimed along so merrily in summer's day^ 
 Hath lost its wonted tune, 
 As it babbled all alone ; 
 And Echo spread its music to the woods away. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE 165 
 
 The beauties of creation, 
 
 Are wasted and drear, 
 And all her boasted treasures. 
 Her florid charms and pleasures, 
 
 Are mourning the year. 
 
 There's darkness in the air, 
 And the storms are rising round ; 
 
 The hail and the snow 
 
 Are congregating slow, 
 And marshalling their hosts in the hearens profound. 
 
 A voice hath gone abroad, 
 
 From the presence of the Lord, 
 And its sound hath travell'd forth to the world afar ; 
 
 The legions of the air, 
 
 Are rousing from their lair. 
 
 The cohorts of the deep 
 
 Are waking from their sleep. 
 
 To join their forces dire 
 
 With the elemental fire, 
 That sweeps along the heavens, in its burning car. 
 
 The hoarse wind leaves his caves, 
 
 And rolls along the waves ; 
 
 Whilst the ever-heaving tide 
 
 Spreads its foaming path aside, 
 And channels to its depths its mighty way ; 
 
THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 And giant mountains rise 
 Like Pelion to the skies, 
 And scatter o'er ttie rocks their briny spray. 
 
 And now the lofty dome 
 
 That girdeth in the earth. 
 Hath fiU'd its mighty womb 
 
 And mutters of the birth ; 
 The north wind strideth on 
 
 As a giant in his course. 
 And beareth on its wings 
 
 The storm's embattled force. 
 
 The shepherd now, with prudent care, 
 
 Looking 'mid the murky air 
 
 At the tempest's coming fray. 
 
 Drives his fleecy charge away, 
 
 From the mountain's rugged brow. 
 
 Where the hail and flaky snow, 
 
 Whirl around his cow'ring head. 
 
 To some closely wattled shed : 
 
 Then with Tray behind him, goes 
 
 Floundering through the drifting snows. 
 
 To his lowly rustic cot 
 
 Where, the cares of life forgot. 
 
 On his pallet truly blest 
 
 With his lov'd ones sinks to rest. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 107 
 
 Now, the pilgrim looking round 
 O'er the snow-encumber'd ground. 
 Where some refuge he may find 
 From the biting winter's wind ; 
 Or, by dim and distant gleam. 
 Mill-wheel dashing in the stream, 
 Watch-dog's bay, or cow-herd's horn. 
 On the grisly tempest borne. 
 Dubious led o'er heath and hedge, 
 Quaking bog or moory sedge. 
 Flouncing on, he hopes to meet 
 Shelter from the cruel sleet, 
 'Till at length some friendly door 
 Opeps, — and his fears are o'er. 
 
 And now, when all is hushed and still 
 Save clacking of the ceaseless mill, 
 Or moaning of the winds around, 
 Or owlet's shrill and screaming sound ; 
 When all within the cotter's shed, 
 Are closely hous'd, and warm'd and fed, 
 And all his little ones at rest, 
 With frolics of the day oppress'd ; 
 Then flaky snows and pelting hail. 
 Are scatter'd by the passing gale. 
 And whirled about the cottage door. 
 Or chimney top, with constant roar; 
 
168 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 And forests groan and bend their form 
 
 Before the wildly-chafing storm ; 
 
 Whilst the hoarse blast on raven wings 
 
 Its deep, continuous music sings. 
 
 Then rideth the gale, with its wild career, 
 
 The heaven along in its pathway drear ; 
 
 The whirlwinds roll on their mighty way, . 
 
 And Nature quakes at the dire affray. 
 
 Then rock the steeple and flagstaff high, 
 As the loud wind laughs along the sky ; 
 
 Then turrets shake, and tremble and fall. 
 And roofs are stripp'd from the lordly hall ; 
 Whilst startled birds from their houseless trees 
 Are swept away, by the madd'ning breeze. 
 And hurried they go, with the blast along, 
 Whilst shrieks betoken their requiem song. 
 So howls it now, through the troubled air. 
 And heaven is garb'd in dark despair ; 
 And earth, with her drifting vest of snow 
 Looks sad and wild in her hour of woe. 
 And now — but hark in the gusty blast 
 The sweetness of music floateth past. 
 It cometh in peals,* then murmurs low. 
 And strikes, — then melts like the falling snow. 
 
 * Alluding to the custom in the country of ringing the old 
 year out and the new one in. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 168 
 
 On the midnight gale it sweeps along, 
 Like the swelling sweetness of vesper-song, 
 Or the thrilling tone of some plaintive lyre, 
 Gushing away, from the trembling wire; 
 Or the melody soft, that sinks and swells, 
 When Harmony plays with her silver bells. 
 
 Old year, old year. 
 On lowly bier 
 Thy requiem-lay is singing ; 
 Farewell, farewell, 
 The pealing bell 
 Thy last adieu is ringing : 
 For thoa'rt embalm'd in thy silent tomb, 
 
 Like a thing into darkness cast ; 
 To moulder in chronicled dust and gloom, 
 'Mid the relics of ages past. 
 
 Come forth, come forth, ye months of spring. 
 
 With flowery pomp and dewy wing ; 
 Come, for the year hath pass'd away, 
 And sing o'er his tomb the dirge-like lay. 
 
 Come forth, come forth, ye months so gay, 
 Who love to sleep on the new-mown hay, 
 
 I 
 
l70 THE EXCURSION OP 
 
 On beds of flow'rs, or in verdant shades, 
 When sumtner is burning the panting glades. 
 Come, for the year is stretch'd along, 
 And needeth your wild ^olian song. 
 
 Come forth, come forth from your cooling bowers 
 Bedeck'd with your fruits and fading flowers, 
 Ye months of autumn, who wind the horn 
 And deck your brows with the ripened corn. 
 Come, for the year hath sunk in gloom. 
 And requiems are wanted around his tomb. 
 
 Come forth, — come forth — ye months so old. 
 Children of him who is dead and cold ; 
 Come from your thrones of winter wild 
 On your mountains of snow eternal pil'd. 
 Your frozen fountains, or oceans vast. 
 And mingle your wails with the passing blast. 
 Come, for your sire is deep and low 
 Entomb'd in your winding-sheet of snow. 
 
 Weep, ye months, for your reign is by. 
 And sadness broods o'er the ebon sky ; 
 Weep, for your term of joy hath sped, 
 And wail for the gone, — the past, — the dead. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 1^ 
 
 Dirge of the Months, 
 
 Aged and hoary year, 
 
 With a soft dewy tear 
 
 Dropp'd on thy silent bier, 
 We mourn thy doom ; 
 
 Cypress and holly crown, 
 
 Waving their boughs adown, 
 Droop o'er thy tomb. 
 
 Rest thee, oh ! rest thee, then, 
 As, when the chief of men 
 
 Sinks to the blest ; 
 With his brows laurel-crown'd, 
 And his arms strown around, 
 
 Silent in rest. 
 
 Rest, for thy tumult of trouble is over. 
 
 Thy storms and thy tempests are scattered and flown ; 
 Rest, for thy glory and strength are departed, 
 
 And all thy proud honours are wither'd and gone. 
 Rest, for the fame ojf thy being remaineth. 
 
 In language undying and leaves ever green ; 
 And the record of honour for ever retaineth 
 
 The deeds that are past, and the acts that have beea. 
 
172 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 " CUI BONO." 
 
 Why, buUd a shrine to canonize the dust, 
 The soul's frail tegument of fleshly pain ? 
 
 Is it, that earth disdains the noisome trust 
 And will not take her earthly own again ? 
 
 Why, grave the tomb to eulogize the dead, 
 And bid their virtues in the marble live ? 
 
 Why, with the laurel bind the hero's head. 
 Or myrtle-chaplets to the poet give ? 
 
 Sleepeth the dust, more soundly in the pride 
 Of gorgeous monument, or costly shrine f 
 
 Will deep sarcophagus its inmate hide 
 From wrath to come, or scrutiny divine ? 
 
 Shall panegyric's fulsome praise, begtiile 
 Corruption of her victim, or the crown 
 
 Of empty honour, wreathe with victor smile, 
 The pallid face that fears a Maker's /rown ? 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. ITS 
 
 Then mortal being, man infinn and vain, 
 Pant for no earthly shrine to guard thy clay ; 
 
 Court not the sound of eulogistic strain, 
 Nor seek for glories subject to decay. 
 
 Make for thyself a tenement on high, 
 
 And let thy shrine thy Saviour's mercy be ; 
 
 For praise of God, — no\. fellow-mortaW sigh, 
 And none shall rest more monarch-like than thee. 
 
 I 2 
 
174 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 A SPRING CALL 
 
 To my Bees. 
 
 Why tarry in your cells, 
 Ye laggards at your ease ; 
 
 When there's honey in the dells. 
 And music on the breeze ? 
 
 The streams no longer rest, 
 
 'Neath their chilling garb of snow, 
 But bare their silver breast 
 
 And murmur as they flow. 
 
 The flowers are springing round, 
 And there's softness in the air ; 
 
 , The buds are all unbound 
 And bursting from their lair. 
 
 A joyous strain of mirth 
 Is wand'ring far and wide. 
 
 O'er the Talleys of the earth 
 And the bosom of the tide. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 175 
 
 The woodland banks are spread 
 
 With the primrose faint and pale ; 
 And violeta hang their bead 
 
 'Mid the greenness of the dale. 
 
 E'en the cowslip peepeth out 
 
 In the sunny meads below, 
 Where the daisy flings about 
 
 Its little stars of snow. 
 
 Then greet the gentle spring 
 
 With your blithesome merry lay. 
 Expand your folded wing 
 
 And float in air away. 
 
 By bank and bloomy brake, 
 
 Heath, — garden, — hedge or bower. 
 
 Your devious journey take, 
 And sip the nectar'd flower. 
 
 Till laden well your thighs. 
 
 Ye homeward gladly roam. 
 Content to store your prize. 
 
 In your waxen cells at home. 
 
176 THE EXCURSION OF 
 
 THE DYING CURATE. 
 
 My days are number'd and are few ; 
 
 Life ebbeth to its last : 
 My hopes are vanished from my view, 
 Like footsteps in the morning dew, 
 
 Or leaves before the blast. 
 
 I'm trembling on the verge of death ; 
 
 One only step remains, 
 Which trod, shall change my mortal state 
 To one confined to time, nor date. 
 
 Nor chequer'd by these pains. 
 
 Here, then 'tis wise to pause and take 
 
 One retrospective glance. 
 On all the follies, cares and fears, 
 The vanities of by-gone years, 
 
 'Mid life's deceitful dance. 
 
 Where are the hopes I've treasnr'd long ? 
 
 The faithless joys I've sought? 
 All frail — all wither'd and all flown. 
 And I am left at last alone. 
 
 To know them but as nought. 
 
A VILLAGE CURATE. 177 
 
 No more the living, staU, and laum, 
 
 Like visions cross my brain ; ^ 
 
 Ambition's goad and honour's crown, 
 
 Have lost their point and high renown ; 
 To me their pomp's in vain. 
 
 No more I crave the " little cove 
 
 The parsonage of rest," 
 Preferment bears, no cheering sound 
 To one, some petty space of ground, 
 
 Receiveth in its breast. 
 
 Time was, and oh ! the cherish'd thoughts 
 
 That fill'd my busy head ; 
 Some patron's smile, some holy gift. 
 My soul with fleeting joy uplift, 
 
 But O ! how soon they're fled. 
 
 Then fare.ye-well ! I've found ye vain ; 
 
 Like birds of summer skies, 
 Ye flutter'd round my sunny day ; 
 Like them ye took your flight away 
 
 When hopes were tum'd to sighs. 
 
 'TIS done— the hum of life hath past. 
 Like morning mists away ; 
 
178*^ THE EXCURSION, ETC. 
 
 The bitteniese of death is by. 
 Already from the eternal sky, 
 I see that dawn of day, 
 
 Whose light increasing, shall not cease 
 
 To bless my wond'ring eyes ; 
 Till all the rays of glory shed, 
 Their influence o'er my pardon'd head, 
 And bid my soul arise. 
 
 THE END. 
 
tjt \f \J *^ 
 
 X- 3M-3S3