Part 11

She was charitable to all the poor children of the village, giving them bread and clothes, and saying to them, "Pray for him." She consoled afflicted mothers, in the secret hope that consolation would come at last to her. She dried the tears of others, to enjoy the belief that one day she also would cease to weep. In all the country round, she was loved, blessed, venerated. She knew it, and she offered up to Heaven, not with pride but with hope, the blessings of the unfortunate in exchange for the recovery of her son. She loved to watch William's sleep; then he was handsome and like other children. For an instant, for a second perhaps, she forgot; and whilst contemplating those regular features, those golden locks, those long lashes which threw their shadow on his rose-tinted cheek, she felt a mother's joy, almost a mother's pride. God has moments of mercy even for those he has condemned to suffer.

Thus passed the first years of William's childhood. He attained the age of eight years. Then a sad change, which could not escape my attentive observation, occurred in Eva Meredith. Either that her son's growth made his want of intelligence more striking, or that she was like a workman who has laboured all day, and sinks at eve beneath the load of toil, Eva ceased to hope; her soul seemed to abandon the task undertaken, and to recoil with weariness upon itself, asking only resignation. She laid aside the books, the engravings, the music, all the means, in short, that she had called to her aid; she grew silent and desponding; only, if that were possible, she was more affectionate than ever to her son. As she lost hope in his cure, she felt the more strongly that her child had but her in the world; and she asked a miracle of her heart--an increase of the love she bore him. She became her son's servant--his slave; her whole thoughts were concentrated in his wellbeing. If she felt cold, she sought a warmer covering for William; was she hungry, it was for William she gathered the fruits of her garden; did she suffer from fatigue, for him she selected the easiest chair and the softest cushions; she attended to her own sensations only to guess those of her son. She still displayed activity, though she no longer harboured hope.

When William was eleven years old, the last phase of Eva Meredith's existence began. Remarkably tall and strong for his age, he ceased to need that hourly care required by early childhood: he was no longer the infant sleeping on his mother's knees; he walked alone in the garden; he rode on horseback with me, and accompanied me in my distant visits; in short the bird, although wingless, left the nest. His misfortune was in no way shocking or painful to behold. He was of exceeding beauty, silent, unnaturally calm--his eyes expressing nothing but repose, his mouth ignorant of a smile: he was not awkward, or disagreeable, or importunate: it was a mind sleeping beside yours, asking no question, making no reply. The incessant maternal care which had served to occupy Mrs Meredith, and to divert her mind from dwelling on her sorrows, became unnecessary, and she resumed her seat at the window, whence she beheld the village and the church-steeple--at that same window where she had so long wept her husband. Hope and occupation successively failed her, and nothing was left her but to wait and watch, by day and by night, like the lamp that ever burns beneath cathedral vaults.

But her forces were exhausted. In the midst of this grief which had returned to its starting-point, to silence and immobility, after having in vain essayed exertion, courage, hope, Eva Meredith fell into a decline. In spite of all the resources of my art, I beheld her grow weak and thin. How apply a remedy, when the sickness is of the soul?

The poor foreigner! she needed her native sun and a little happiness to warm her; but the ray of sun and the ray of joy were alike wanting. It was long before she perceived her danger, because she thought not of herself; but when at last she was unable to leave her arm-chair, she was compelled to understand. I will not describe to you all her anguish at the thought of leaving William without a guide, without friend or protector--of leaving him alone in the midst of strangers, he who needed to be cherished and led by the hand like a child. Oh, how she struggled for life! with what avidity she swallowed the potions I prepared! how many times she tried to believe in a cure, whilst all the time the disease progressed! Then she kept William more at home,--she could no longer bear to lose sight of him.

"Remain with me," she said; and William, always content near his mother, seated himself at her feet. She looked at him long, until a flood of tears prevented her distinguishing his gentle countenance; then she drew him still nearer to her, and pressed him to her heart. "Oh!" she exclaimed, in a kind of delirium, "if my soul, on leaving my body, might become the soul of my child, how happy should I be to die!" No amount of suffering could make her wholly despair of divine mercy, and when all human possibility disappeared, this loving heart had gentle dreams out of which it reconstructed hopes. But how sad it was, alas! to see the poor mother slowly perishing before the eyes of her son, of a son who understood not death, and who smiled when she embraced him.

"He will not regret me," she said: "he will not weep: he will not remember." And she remained motionless, in mute contemplation of her child. Her hand then sometimes sought mine: "You love him, dear doctor?" she murmured.

"I will never quit him," replied I, "so long as he has no better friends than myself." God in heaven, and the poor village doctor upon earth, were the two guardians to whom she confided her son.

Faith is a great thing! This woman, widowed, disinherited, dying, an idiot child at her side, was yet saved from that utter despair which brings blasphemy to the lips of death. An invisible friend was near her, on whom she seemed to rest, listening sometimes to holy words, which she alone could hear.

One morning she sent for me early. She had been unable to get up. With her wan, transparent hand she showed me a sheet of paper on which a few lines were written.

"Doctor," she said, in her gentlest tones, "I have not strength to continue; finish this letter!"

I read as follows:--

"My Lord,--I write to you for the last time. Whilst health is restored to your old age, I suffer and am about to die. I leave your grandson, William Kysington, without a protector. My Lord, this last letter is to recall him to your memory; I ask for him a place in your heart rather than a share of your fortune. Of all the things of this world, he has understood but one--his mother's love; and now she must leave him for ever! Love him, my Lord,--love is the only sentiment he can comprehend."

She could write no more. I added:--

"Mrs William Kysington has but few days to live. What are Lord James Kysington's orders with respect to the child who bears his name?

"The Doctor Barnaby."

This letter was sent to London, and we waited. Eva kept her bed. William, seated near her, held her hand in his: his mother smiled sadly upon him, whilst I, at the other side of the bed, prepared potions to assuage her pains. Again she began to talk to her son, as if no longer despairing that, after her death, some of her words might recur to his memory. She gave the child all the advice, all the instructions she would have given to an intelligent being. Then she turned to me--"Who knows, doctor," she said, "one day, perhaps, he will find my words at the bottom of his heart!"

Three more weeks elapsed. Death approached, and submissive as was the Christian soul of Eva, she yet felt the anguish of separation and the solemn awe of the future. The village priest came to see her, and when he left her I met him and took his hand.

"You will pray for her," I said.

"I have entreated _her_ to pray for _me_!" was his reply.

It was Eva Meredith's last day. The sun had set: the window, near which she so long had sat, was open: she could see from her bed the landscape she had loved. She held her son in her arms and kissed his face and hair, weeping sadly. "Poor child! what will become of you? Oh!" she said, with tender earnestness, "listen to me, William:--I am dying! Your father is dead also; you are alone; you must pray to the Lord. I bequeath you to Him who watches over the sparrow upon the house-top; He will shield the orphan. Dear child, look at me! listen to me! Try to understand that I die, that one day you may remember me!" And the poor mother, unable to speak longer, still found strength to embrace her child.

At that moment an unaccustomed noise reached my ears. The wheels of a carriage grated upon the gravel of the garden drive. I ran to the door. Lord James Kysington and Lady Mary entered the house.

"I got your letter," said Lord James. "I was setting out for Italy, and it was not much off my road to come myself and settle the future destiny of William Meredith: so here I am. Mrs William?----"

"Mrs William Kysington still lives, my lord," I replied.

It was with a painful sensation that I saw this calm, cold, austere man approach Eva's chamber, followed by the haughty woman who came to witness what for her was a happy event--the death of her former rival! They entered the modest little room, so different from the sumptuous apartments of their Montpellier hotel. They drew near the bed, beneath whose white curtains Eva, pale but still beautiful, held her son upon her heart. They stood, one on the right, the other on the left of that couch of suffering, without finding a word of affection to console the poor woman who looked up at them. They barely gave utterance to a few formal and unmeaning phrases. Averting their eyes from the painful spectacle of death, and persuading themselves that Eva Meredith neither saw nor heard, they passively awaited her spirit's departure--their countenances not even feigning an expression of condolence or regret. Eva fixed her dying gaze upon them, and sudden terror seized the heart which had almost ceased to throb. She comprehended, for the first time, the secret sentiments of Lady Mary, the profound indifference and egotism of Lord James; she understood at last that they were enemies rather than protectors of her son. Despair and terror portrayed themselves on her pallid face. She made no attempt to soften those soulless beings. By a convulsive movement she drew William still closer to her heart, and, collecting her last strength--

"My child, my poor child!" she cried, "you have no support upon earth; but God above is good. My God! succour my child!"

With this cry of love, with this supreme prayer, she breathed out her life: her arms opened, her lips were motionless on William's cheek. Since she no longer embraced her son, there could be no doubt she was dead--dead before the eyes of those who to the very last had refused to comfort her affliction--dead without giving Lady Mary the uneasiness of hearing her plead the cause of her son--dead, leaving her a complete and decided victory.

There was a moment of solemn silence: none moved or spoke. Death makes an impression upon the haughtiest. Lady Mary and Lord James Kysington kneeled beside their victim's bed. In a few minutes Lord James arose. "Take the child from his mother's room," he said, "and come with me, doctor; I will explain to you my intentions respecting him."

For two hours William had been resting on the shoulder of Eva Meredith, his heart against her heart, his lips pressed to hers, receiving her kisses and her tears. I approached him, and, without expending useless words, I endeavoured to raise and lead him from the room; but he resisted, and his arms clasped his mother more closely. This resistance, the first the poor child had ever offered to living creature, touched my very soul. On my renewing the attempt, however, William yielded; he made a movement and turned towards me, and I saw his beautiful countenance suffused with tears. Until that day, William had never wept. I was greatly startled and moved, and I let the child throw himself again upon his mother's corpse.

"Take him away," said Lord James.

"My lord," I exclaimed, "he weeps! Ah, check not his tears!"

I bent over the child, and heard him sob.

"William! dear William!" I cried, anxiously taking his hand, "why do you weep, William?"

For the second time he turned his head towards me; then, with a gentle look, full of sorrow, "My mother is dead," he replied.

I have not words to tell you what I felt. William's eyes were now intelligent: his tears were sad and significant; and his voice was broken as when the heart suffers. I uttered a cry; I almost knelt down beside Eva's bed.

"Ah! you were right, Eva!" I exclaimed, "not to despair of the mercy of God!"

Lord James himself had started. Lady Mary was as pale as Eva.

"Mother! mother!" cried William, in tones that filled my heart with joy; and then, repeating the words of Eva Meredith--those words which she had so truly said he would find at the bottom of his heart--the child exclaimed aloud,

"I am dying, my son. Your father is dead; you are alone upon the earth; you must pray to the Lord!"

I pressed gently with my hand upon William's shoulder; he obeyed the impulse, knelt down, joined his trembling hands--this time it was of his own accord--and, raising to heaven a look full of life and feeling: "My God! have pity on me!" he murmured.

I took Eva's cold hand. "Oh mother! mother of many sorrows!" I exclaimed, "can you hear your child? do you behold him from above? Be happy! your son is saved!"

Dead at Lady Mary's feet, Eva made her rival tremble; for it was not I who led William from the room, it was Lord James Kysington who carried out his grandson in his arms.

I have little to add, ladies. William recovered his reason and departed with Lord James. Reinstated in his rights, he was subsequently his grandfather's sole heir. Science has recorded a few rare instances of intelligence revived by a violent moral shock. Thus does the fact I have related find a natural explanation. But the good women of the village, who had attended Eva Meredith during her illness, and had heard her fervent prayers, were convinced that, even as she had asked of Heaven, the soul of the mother had passed into the body of the child.

"She was so good," said they, "that God could refuse her nothing." This artless belief took firm root in the country. No one mourned Mrs Meredith as dead.

"She still lives," said the people of the hamlet: "speak to her son, and she will answer you."

And when Lord William Kysington, in possession of his grandfather's property, sent each year abundant alms to the village that had witnessed his birth and his mother's death, the poor folks exclaimed--"There is Mrs Meredith's kind soul thinking of us still! Ah, when she goes to heaven, it will be great pity for poor people!"

We do not strew flowers upon her tomb, but upon the steps of the altar of the Virgin, where she so often prayed to Mary to send a soul to her son. When taking thither their wreaths of wild blossoms, the villagers say to each other--"When she prayed so fervently, the good Virgin answered her softly: 'I will give thy soul to thy child!'"

The _curé_ has suffered our peasants to retain this touching superstition; and I myself, when Lord William came to see me, when he fixed upon me his eyes, so like his mother's--when his voice, which had a well-known accent, said, as Mrs Meredith was wont to say--"Dear Doctor, I thank you!" Then,--smile, ladies, if you will--I wept, and I believed, like all the village, that Eva Meredith was before me.

She, whose existence was but a long series of sorrows, has left behind her a sweet, consoling memory, which has nothing painful for those who loved her.

In thinking of her we think of the mercy of God, and those who have hope in their hearts, hope with the greater confidence.

But it is very late, ladies--your carriages have long been at the door. Pardon this long story: at my age it is difficult to be concise in speaking of the events of one's youth. Forgive the old man for having made you smile when he arrived, and weep before he departed."

These last words were spoken in the kindest and most paternal tone, whilst a half-smile glided across Dr Barnaby's lips. All his auditors now crowded round him, eager to express their thanks. But Dr Barnaby got up, made straight for his riding-coat of puce-coloured taffety, which hung across a chair back, and, whilst one of the young men helped him to put it on--"Farewell, gentlemen; farewell, ladies," said the village doctor. "My chaise is ready; it is dark, the road is bad; good-night: I must be gone."

When Dr Barnaby was installed in his cabriolet of green wicker-work, and the little gray cob, tickled by the whip, was about to set off, Madame de Moncar stepped quickly forward, and leaning towards the doctor, whilst she placed one foot on the step of his vehicle, she said, in quite a low voice--

"Doctor, I make you a present of the white cottage, and I will have it fitted up as it was when you loved Eva Meredith!"

Then she ran back into the house. The carriages and the green chaise departed in different directions.

NATIONAL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.

The subject of the Parochial School System of Scotland claims some attention at the present moment. Following up certain ominous proceedings of other parties high in authority, Lord Melgund, M. P. for Greenock, has given notice of a motion for the appointment of a select committee of the House of Commons to consider the expediency of a fundamental revision of that system. The question here involved is one of national importance; and the family and other ties by which Lord Melgund is connected with the Government, are likely, we fear, to secure for his proposed innovations on that institution which has been hitherto, perhaps, the pre-eminent glory of Scotland, a certain degree of favour.

It may be of some use to preface the few observations we have to offer on the Scottish system, and the proposed alterations of it, by a brief recapitulation of some of the more prominent methods and statistics of popular education in other countries, taken chiefly from a very carefully prepared and important Appendix to the Privy Council committee's _Minutes_ for 1847-8. The information was obtained through the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, from the Governments of the principal states of Europe and America.

The _cost_ of public instruction is defrayed by different means in different countries--means varying, however, more in detail than in principle. In Prussia, a regular school-rate, varying from 3d. to 6d. per month, according to circumstances, is levied upon all who have children; but this is supplemented by a grant from the state budget which, for elementary schools alone, amounted in 1845 to £37,000. A similar practice prevails not only in the other countries of Central Europe, but in Pennsylvania, where it was introduced by the German emigrants, and, of late years, also in some other parts of the United States. The income of schools in the Austrian Empire is derived from a variety of sources, of which school-money constitutes little more than one-third; the remainder, as far as we can understand the technical phraseology of the report, being partly derived from old endowments, partly from provincial revenues, and partly from the imperial treasury. In Holland, the governments of the towns and provinces are charged with the cost of maintaining their own schools, aided by grants from the state. On the first year that separate accounts were kept for the northern provinces, after their separation from Belgium, the sum raised in this way amounted (in a population of 2,450,000) to no less than £76,317. In Belgium, where the funds are derived from old foundations and local endowments, aided by the government, two-fifths of the scholars received, in 1840, their education gratuitously; but the provision seems to be not very complete, for in that year, out of 2510 communes, 163 were without any school.

As to _management_, there appears to be no country in Europe in which public instruction is not directed by a department of the government. No regular system of superintendence, however, has yet been established in the United States. In Prussia, there is a minister of public instruction, who is also at the head of church affairs, and under whom are local consistories and school inspectors, one of the latter being always the superintendent or bishop of the district. In Würtemberg, each school is inspected by the clergyman of the confession to which the schoolmaster belongs, and is subject to the control of the presbytery. In the Grand-duchy of Baden, the minister of the interior has charge of the department of education. The local school authority is commonly a parochial committee, consisting of clergy and laymen combined. The parish clergyman is the regular school inspector, but where there are different confessions, each clergyman inspects the school of his own church. Certain functionaries, called "Visitors" and "County Authorities," are also intrusted with special powers. In Lombardy, the direction is committed to a chief inspector, with a number of subordinates, and the parish clergy. (By _clergy_, of course, throughout these details, must usually be understood Roman Catholic priests.) In Holland, every province was in 1814 divided into educational districts, with a school inspector for each district, and provincial school commissions chosen from the leading inhabitants, to which were afterwards added provincial "juries." In Russia, public instruction is superintended by the government.

The details regarding _religious instruction_ are not so full as we should have wished. The great difficulty as regards this appears, however, in most of the European states to be met by the establishment of separate schools for the different sects. In Würtemberg, "if, in a community of different religious confessions, the minority comprises sixty families, they may claim the establishment and support of a school of their own confession, at the expense of the whole community." The ecclesiastical authorities of the various sects are not, however, independent of, but merely associated with, the state functionaries, whose sanction is indispensable for the catechisms and school-books in use in every school. Such, at least, is said to be the case in Würtemberg; and, as far as we can judge from the not very precise statements made on this subject, the rule appears to be universal. Roman Catholic, Protestant, Greek Church, and Jewish schools are, in the Austrian empire, alike established by law, according to the necessities of each province and district. But in the state of New York (and we believe a like practice prevails in other parts of the Union) the sectarian difficulty is overcome in a different way. By a recent act of the legislature, it is provided that "no school shall be entitled to a portion of the school-moneys, in which the religious sectarian doctrine or tenet of any particular Christians, or other religious sect, shall be taught, inculcated, or practised."

The only other particulars we shall notice relate to school attendance. It must be premised that, in the countries of central Europe, the attendance of every child at the elementary schools is compulsory--the only alternative being private instruction. _Fines and imprisonment are employed to enforce this regulation._ Free education is also provided, at the general expense, for those unable to pay the school fees.

In Prussia, the proportion of those enjoying school education was to the population, in 1846, as 1 to 6.

In Bavaria, in 1844, nearly as 1 to 4.