Chapter 13

There is a glen in the Highlands (dearly beloved Southrons, call on us, on your way through Edinburgh, and we shall delight to instruct you how to walk our mountains) called Glencro--very unlike Glenco. A good road winds up the steep ascent, and at the summit there is a stone seat on which you read "_Rest and be thankful_." You do so--and are not a little proud--if pedestrians--of your achievement. Looking up, you see cliffs high above your head (not the Cobbler), and in the clear sky, as far above them, a balanced bird. You envy him his seemingly motionless wings, and wonder at his air-supporters. Down he darts, or aside he shoots, or right up he soars, and you wish you were an Eagle. You have reached Rest-and-be-thankful, yet rest you will not, and thankful you will not be, and you scorn the mean inscription, which many a worthier wayfarer has blessed, while sitting on that stone he has said, "give us this day our daily bread," eat his crust, and then walked away contented down to Cairndow. Just so has it been with you sitting at your appointed place--pretty high up--on the road to the summit of the Biforked Hill. You look up and see Byron--there "sitting where you may not soar,"--and wish you were a great Poet. But you are no more a great Poet than an Eagle eight feet from wing-tip to wing-tip--and will not rest-and-be-thankful that you are a man and a Christian. Nay, you are more, an author of no mean repute; and your prose is allowed to be excellent, better far than the best paragraph in this our Morning Monologue. But you are sick of walking, and nothing will satisfy you but to fly. Be contented, as we are, with feet, and weep not for wings; and let us take comfort together from a cheering quotation from the philosophic Gray--

"For they that creep and they that fly, Just end where they began!"

THE FIELD OF FLOWERS.

A May-morning on Ulswater and the banks of Ulswater--commingled earth and heaven! Spring is many-coloured as Autumn; but now Joy scatters the hues daily brightening into greener life, then Melancholy dropt them daily dimming into yellower death. The fear of Winter then--but now the hope of Summer; and Nature rings with hymns hailing the visible advent of the perfect year. If for a moment the woods are silent, it is but to burst forth anew into louder song. The rain is over and gone--but the showery sky speaks in the streams on a hundred hills; and the wide mountain gloom opens its heart to the sunshine that on many a dripping precipice burns like fire. Nothing seems inanimate. The very clouds and their shadows look alive--the trees, never dead, are wide-awakened from their sleep--families of flowers are frequenting all the dewy places--old walls are splendid with the light of lichens--and birch-crowned cliffs up among the coves send down their fine fragrance to the Lake on every bolder breath that whitens with breaking wavelets the blue of its breezy bosom. Nor mute the voice of man. The shepherd is whooping on the hill--the ploughman calling to his team somewhere among the furrows in some small late field, won from the woods; and you hear the laughter, and the echoes of the laughter--one sound--of children busied in half-work half-play; for what else in vernal sunshine is the occupation of young rustic life? 'Tis no Arcadia--no golden age. But a lovelier scene--in the midst of all its grandeur--is not in merry and majestic England; nor did the hills of this earth ever circumscribe a pleasanter dwelling for a nobler peasantry, than these Cumbrian ranges of rocks and pastures, where the raven croaks in his own region, unregarded in theirs by the fleecy flocks. How beautiful the Church Tower!

On a knoll not far from the shore, and not high above the water, yet by an especial felicity of place gently commanding all that reach of the Lake with all its ranges of mountains--every single tree, every grove, and all the woods seeming to show or to conceal the scene at the bidding of the Spirit of Beauty--reclined two Figures--the one almost rustic, but venerable in the simplicity of old age--the other no longer young, but still in the prime of life--and though plainly apparelled, with form and bearing such as are pointed out in cities, because belonging to distinguished men. The old man behaved towards him with deference, but not humility; and between them two--in many things unlike--it was clear even from their silence that there was friendship.

A little way off, and sometimes almost running, now up and now down the slopes and hollows, was a girl about eight years old--whether beautiful or not you could not know, for her face was either half-hidden in golden hair, or when she tossed the tresses from her brow, it was so bright in the sunshine that you saw no features, only a gleam of joy. Now she was chasing the butterflies, not to hurt them, but to get a nearer sight of their delicate gauze wings--the first that had come--she wondered whence--to waver and wanton for a little while in the spring sunshine, and then, she felt, as wondrously, one and all, as by consent, to vanish. And now she stooped as if to pull some little wildflower, her hand for a moment withheld by a loving sense of its loveliness, but ever and anon adding some new colour to the blended bloom intended to gladden her father's eyes--though the happy child knew full well, and sometimes wept to know, that she herself had his entire heart. Yet gliding, or tripping, or dancing along, she touched not with fairy foot one white clover-flower on which she saw working the silent bee. Her father looked too often sad, and she feared--though what it was, she imagined not even in dreams--that some great misery must have befallen him before they came to live in the glen. And such, too, she had heard from a chance whisper, was the belief of their neighbours. But momentary the shadows on the light of childhood! Nor was she insensible to her own beauty, that with the innocence it enshrined combined to make her happy; and first met her own eyes every morning, when most beautiful, awakening from the hushed awe of her prayers. She was clad in russet like a cottager's child; but her air spoke of finer breeding than may be met with among those mountains--though natural grace accompanies there many a maiden going with her pitcher to the well--and gentle blood and old flows there in the veins of now humble men--who, but for the decay of families once high, might have lived in halls, now dilapidated, and scarcely distinguished through masses of ivy from the circumjacent rocks!

The child stole close behind her father, and kissing his cheek, said, "Were there ever such lovely flowers seen in Ulswater before, father? I do not believe that they will ever die." And she put them in his breast. Not a smile came to his countenance--no look of love--no faint recognition--no gratitude for the gift which at other times might haply have drawn a tear. She stood abashed in the sternness of his eyes, which, though fixed on her, seemed to see her not; and feeling that her glee was mistimed--for with such gloom she was not unfamiliar--the child felt as if her own happiness had been sin, and, retiring into a glade among the broom, sat down and wept.

"Poor wretch, better far that she never had been born."

The old man looked on his friend with compassion, but with no surprise; and only said, "God will dry up her tears."

These few simple words, uttered in a solemn voice, but without one tone of reproach, seemed somewhat to calm the other's trouble, who first looking towards the spot where his child was sobbing to herself, though he heard it not, and then looking up to heaven, ejaculated for her sake a broken prayer. He then would have fain called her to him; but he was ashamed that even she should see him in such a passion of grief--and the old man went to her of his own accord, and bade her, as from her father, again to take her pastime among the flowers. Soon was she dancing in her happiness as before; and, that her father might hear she was obeying him, singing a song.

"For five years every Sabbath have I attended divine service in your chapel--yet dare I not call myself a Christian. I have prayed for faith--nor, wretch that I am, am I an unbeliever. But I fear to fling myself at the foot of the cross. God be merciful to me a sinner!"

The old man opened not his lips; for he felt that there was about to be made some confession. Yet he doubted not that the sufferer had been more sinned against than sinning; for the goodness of the stranger--so called still after five years' residence among the mountains--was known in many a vale--and the Pastor knew that charity covereth a multitude of sins--and even as a moral virtue prepares the heart for heaven. So sacred a thing is solace in this woeful world.

"We have walked together, many hundred times, for great part of a day, by ourselves two, over long tracts of uninhabited moors, and yet never once from my lips escaped one word about my fates or fortunes--so frozen was the secret in my heart. Often have I heard the sound of your voice, as if it were that of the idle wind; and often the words I did hear seemed, in the confusion, to have no relation to us, to be strange syllablings in the wilderness, as from the hauntings of some evil spirit instigating me to self-destruction."

"I saw that your life was oppressed by some perpetual burden; but God darkened not your mind while your heart was disturbed so grievously; and well pleased were we all to think, that in caring so kindly for the griefs of others, you might come at last to forget your own; or if that were impossible, to feel, that with the alleviations of time, and sympathy, and religion, yours was no more than the common lot of sorrow."

They rose--and continued to walk in silence--but not apart--up and down that small sylvan enclosure overlooked but by rocks. The child saw her father's distraction--no unusual sight to her; yet on each recurrence as mournful and full of fear as if seen for the first time--and pretended to be playing aloof with her face pale in tears.

"That child's mother is not dead. Where she is now I know not--perhaps in a foreign country hiding her guilt and her shame. All say that a lovelier child was never seen than that wretch--God bless her--how beautiful is the poor creature now in her happiness singing over her flowers! Just such another must her mother have been at her age. She is now an outcast--and an adulteress."

The Pastor turned away his face, for in the silence he heard groans, and the hollow voice again spoke.--

"Through many dismal days and nights have I striven to forgive her, but never for many hours together have I been enabled to repent my curse. For on my knees I implored God to curse her--her head--her eyes--her breast--her body--mind, heart, and soul--and that she might go down a loathsome leper to the grave."

"Remember what He said to the woman--'Go, and sin no more!'"

"The words have haunted me all up and down the hills--His words and mine; but mine have always sounded liker justice at last--for my nature was created human--and human are all the passions that pronounced that holy or unholy curse!"

"Yet you would not curse her now--were she lying here at your feet--or if you were standing by her deathbed?"

"Lying here at my feet! Even here--on this very spot--not blasted, but green through all the year--within the shelter of these two rocks--she did lie at my feet in her beauty--and as I thought her innocence--my own happy bride! Hither I brought her to be blest--and blest I was even up to the measure of my misery. This world is hell to me now--but then it was heaven!"

"These awful names are of the mysteries beyond the grave."

"Hear me and judge. She was an orphan; all her father's and mother's relations were dead, but a few who were very poor. I married her, and secured her life against this heartless and wicked world. That child was born--and while it grew like a flower--she left it--and its father--me who loved her beyond light and life, and would have given up both for her sake."

"And have not yet found heart to forgive her--miserable as she needs must be--seeing she has been a great sinner!"

"Who forgives? The father his profligate son, or disobedient daughter? No; he disinherits his firstborn, and suffers him to perish, perhaps by an ignominious death. He leaves his only daughter to drag out her days in penury--a widow with orphans. The world may condemn, but is silent; he goes to church every Sabbath, but no preacher denounces punishment on the unrelenting, the unforgiving parent. Yet how easily might he have taken them both back to his heart, and loved them better than ever! But she poisoned my cup of life when it seemed to overflow with heaven. Had God dashed it from my lips, I could have borne my doom. But with her own hand which I had clasped at the altar--and with our Lucy at her knees--she gave me that loathsome draught of shame and sorrow:--I drank it to the dregs--and it is burning all through my being--now--as if it had been hell-fire from the hands of a fiend in the shape of an angel. In what page of the New Testament am I told to forgive her? Let me see the verse--and then shall I know that Christianity is an imposture; for the voice of God within me--the conscience which is His still small voice--commands me never from my memory to obliterate that curse--never to forgive her, and her wickedness--not even if we should see each other's shadows in a future state, after the day of judgment."

His countenance grew ghastly--and staggering to a stone, he sat down and eyed the skies with a vacant stare, like a man whom dreams carry about in his sleep. His face was like ashes--and he gasped like one about to fall into a fit. "Bring me water"--and the old man motioned on the child, who, giving ear to him for a moment, flew away to the Lakeside with an urn she had brought with her for flowers; and held it to her father's lips. His eyes saw it not;--there was her sweet pale face all wet with tears, almost touching his own--her innocent mouth breathing that pure balm that seems to a father's soul to be inhaled from the bowers of paradise. He took her into his bosom--and kissed her dewy eyes--and begged her to cease her sobbing--to smile--to laugh--to sing--to dance away into the sunshine--_to be happy!_ And Lucy afraid, not of her father, but of his kindness--for the simple creature was not able to understand his wild utterance of blessings--returned to the glade but not to her pastime, and couching like a fawn among the fern, kept her eyes on her father, and left her flowers to fade unheeded beside her empty urn.

"Unintelligible mystery of wickedness! That child was just three years old the very day it was forsaken--she abandoned it and me on its birthday! Twice had that day been observed by us--as the sweetest--the most sacred of holidays; and now that it had again come round--but I not present--for I was on foreign service--thus did she observe it--and disappeared with her paramour. It so happened that we went that day into action--and I committed her and our child to the mercy of God in fervent prayers; for love made me religious--and for their sakes I feared though I shunned not death. I lay all night among the wounded on the field of battle--and it was a severe frost. Pain kept me from sleep, but I saw them as distinctly as in a dream--the mother lying with her child in her bosom in our own bed. Was not that vision mockery enough to drive me mad? After a few weeks a letter came to me from herself--and I kissed it and pressed it to my heart; for no black seal was there--and I knew that little Lucy was alive. No meaning for a while seemed to be in the words--and then they began to blacken into ghastly characters--till at last I gathered from the horrid revelation that she was sunk in sin and shame, steeped for evermore in utmost pollution.

"A friend was with me, and I gave it to him to read--for in my anguish at first I felt no shame--and I watched his face as he read it, that I might see corroboration of the incredible truth, which continued to look like falsehood, even while it pierced my heart with agonising pangs. 'It may be a forgery,' was all he could utter--after long agitation; but the shape of each letter was too familiar to my eyes--the way in which the paper was folded--and I knew my doom was sealed. Hours must have passed, for the room grew dark--and I asked him to leave me for the night. He kissed my forehead--for we had been as brothers. I saw him next morning--dead--cut nearly in two--yet had he left a paper for me, written an hour before he fell, so filled with holiest friendship, that oh! how even in my agony I wept for him, now but a lump of cold clay and blood, and envied him at the same time a soldier's grave!

"And has the time indeed come that I can thus speak calmly of all that horror? The body was brought into my room, and it lay all day and all night close to my bed. But false was I to all our life-long friendship--and almost with indifference I looked upon the corpse. Momentary starts of affection seized me--but I cared little or nothing for the death of him, the tender and the true, the gentle and the brave, the pious and the noble-hearted; my anguish was all for her, the cruel and the faithless, dead to honour, to religion dead--dead to all the sanctities of nature--for her, and for her alone, I suffered all ghastliest agonies--nor any comfort came to me in my despair, from the conviction that she was worthless; for desperately wicked as she had shown herself to be--oh! crowding came back upon me all our hours of happiness--all her sweet smiles--all her loving looks--all her affectionate words--all her conjugal and maternal tendernesses; and the loss of all that bliss--the change of it all into strange, sudden, shameful, and everlasting misery, smote me till I swooned, and was delivered up to a trance in which the rueful reality was mixed up with phantasms more horrible than man's mind can suffer out of the hell of sleep!

"Wretched coward that I was to outlive that night! But my mind was weak from great loss of blood--and the blow so stunned me that I had not strength of resolution to die. I might have torn off the bandages--for nobody watched me--and my wounds were thought mortal. But the love of life had not welled out with all those vital streams; and as I began to recover, another passion took possession of me--and I vowed that there should be atonement and revenge. I was not obscure. My dishonour was known through the whole army. Not a tent--not a hut--in which my name was not bandied about--a jest in the mouths of profligate poltroons--pronounced with pity by the compassionate brave. I had commanded my men with pride. No need had I ever had to be ashamed when I looked on our colours; but no wretch led out to execution for desertion or cowardice ever shrunk from the sun, and from the sight of human faces arrayed around him, with more shame and horror than did I when, on my way to a transport, I came suddenly on my own corps, marching to music as if they were taking up a position in the line of battle--as they had often done with me at their head--all sternly silent before an approaching storm of fire. What brought them there? To do me honour! Me, smeared with infamy, and ashamed to lift my eyes from the mire. Honour had been the idol I worshipped--alas! too, too passionately far--and now I lay in my litter like a slave sold to stripes--and heard as if a legion of demons were mocking me with loud and long huzzas; and then a confused murmur of blessings on our noble commander, so they called me--me, despicable in my own esteem--scorned, insulted, forsaken--me, who could not bind to mine the bosom that for years had touched it--a wretch so poor in power over a woman's heart, that no sooner had I left her to her own thoughts than she felt that she had never loved me, and, opening her fair breast to a new-born bliss, sacrificed me without remorse--nor could bear to think of me any more as her husband--not even for sake of that child whom I knew she loved--for no hypocrite was she there; and oh! lost creature though she was--even now I wonder over that unaccountable desertion--and much she must have suffered from the image of that small bed, beside which she used to sit for hours, perfectly happy from the sight of that face which I too so often blessed in her hearing, because it was so like her own! Where is my child? Have I frightened her away into the wood by my unfatherly looks? She too will come to hate me--oh! see yonder her face and her figure like a fairy's, gliding through among the broom! Sorrow has no business with her--nor she with sorrow. Yet--even her how often have I made weep! All the unhappiness she has ever known has all come from me; and would I but leave her alone to herself in her affectionate innocence, the smile that always lies on her face when she is asleep would remain there--only brighter--all the time her eyes are awake; but I dash it away by my unhallowed harshness, and people looking on her in her trouble wonder to think how sad can be the countenance even of a little child. O God of mercy! what if she were to die!"

"She will not die--she will live," said the pitying pastor; "and many happy years--my son--are yet in store even for you--sorely as you have been tried; for it is not in nature that your wretchedness can endure for ever. She is in herself all-sufficient for a father's happiness. You prayed just now that the God of Mercy would spare her life--and has He not spared it? Tender flower as she seems, yet how full of life! Let not then your gratitude to Heaven be barren in your heart; but let it produce there resignation--if need be, contrition--and, above all, forgiveness."

"Yes! I had a hope to live for--mangled as I was in body, and racked in mind--a hope that was a faith--and bittersweet it was in imagined foretaste of fruition--the hope and the faith of revenge. They said he would not aim at my life. But what was that to me who thirsted for his blood? Was he to escape death, because he dared not wound bone, or flesh, or muscle of mine, seeing that the assassin had already stabbed my soul? Satisfaction! I tell you that I was for revenge. Not that his blood could wipe out the stain with which my name was imbrued, but let it be mixed with the mould; and he who invaded my marriage-bed--and hallowed was it by every generous passion that ever breathed upon woman's breast--let him fall down in convulsions, and vomit out his heart's blood, at once in expiation of his guilt, and in retribution dealt out to him by the hand of him whom he had degraded in the eyes of the whole world beneath the condition even of a felon, and delivered over in my misery to contempt and scorn. I found him out;--there he was before me--in all that beauty by women so beloved--graceful as Apollo; and with a haughty air, as if proud of an achievement that adorned his name, he saluted me--_her husband_--on the field,--and let the wind play with his raven tresses--his curled love-locks--and then presented himself to my aim in an attitude a statuary would have admired. I shot him through the heart."

The good old man heard the dreadful words with a shudder--yet they had come to his ears not unexpectedly, for the speaker's aspect had gradually been growing black with wrath, long before he ended in an avowal of murder. Nor, on ceasing his wild words and distracted demeanour, did it seem that his heart was touched with any remorse. His eyes retained their savage glare--his teeth were clenched--and he feasted on his crime.