Margaret Smith's Journal Part 4

October 18.

A cloudy wet day. Goody Nowell brought me this morning a little parcel of papers, which she found in the corner of a closet. They are much stained and smoked, and the mice have eaten them sadly, so that I can make little of them. They seem to be letters, and some fragments of what did take place in the life of a young woman of quality from the North of England. I find frequent mention made of Cousin Christopher, who is also spoken of as a soldier in the wars with the Turks, and as a Knight of Jerusalem. Poorly as I can make out the meaning of these fragments, I have read enough to make my heart sad, for I gather from them that the young woman was in early life betrothed to her cousin, and that afterwards, owing, as I judge, to the authority of her parents, she did part with him, he going abroad, and entering into the wars, in the belief that she was to wed another. But it seemed that the heart of the young woman did so plead for her cousin, that she could not be brought to marry as her family willed her to do; and, after a lapse of years, she, by chance hearing that Sir Christopher had gone to the New England, where he was acting as an agent of his kinsman, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in respect to the Maine Province, did privately leave her home, and take pa.s.sage in a Boston bound ship. How she did make herself known to Sir Christopher, I find no mention made; but, he now being a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and vowed to forego marriage, as is the rule of that Order, and being, moreover, as was thought, a priest or Jesuit, her great love and constancy could meet with but a sorrowful return on his part. It does appear, however, that he journeyed to Montreal, to take counsel of some of the great Papist priests there, touching the obtaining of a dispensation from the Head of the Church, so that he might marry the young woman; but, getting no encouragement therein, he went to Boston to find a pa.s.sage for her to England again.

He was there complained of as a Papist; and the coming over of his cousin being moreover known, a great and cruel scandal did arise from it, and he was looked upon as a man of evil life, though I find nothing to warrant such a notion, but much to the contrary thereof. What became of him and the young woman, his cousin, in the end, I do not learn.

One small parcel did affect me even unto tears. It was a paper containing some dry, withered leaves of roses, with these words written on it "To Anna, from her loving cousin, Christopher Gardiner, being the first rose that hath blossomed this season in the College garden. St.

Omer's, June, 1630." I could but think how many tears had been shed over this little token, and how often, through long, weary years, it did call to mind the sweet joy of early love, of that fairest blossom of the spring of life of which it was an emblem, alike in its beauty and its speedy withering.

There be moreover among the papers sundry verses, which do seem to have been made by Sir Christopher; they are in the Latin tongue, and inscribed to his cousin, bearing date many years before the twain were in this country, and when he was yet a scholar at the Jesuits' College of St. Omer's, in France. I find nothing of a later time, save the verses which I herewith copy, over which there are, in a woman's handwriting, these words:

"VERSES

"Writ by Sir Christopher when a prisoner among the Turks in Moldavia, and expecting death at their hands.

1.

"Ere down the blue Carpathian hills The sun shall fall again, Farewell this life and all its ills, Farewell to cell and chain

2.

"These prison shades are dark and cold, But darker far than they The shadow of a sorrow old Is on mine heart alway.

3.

"For since the day when Warkworth wood Closed o'er my steed and I,-- An alien from my name and blood,-- A weed cast out to die;

4.

"When, looking back, in sunset light I saw her turret gleam, And from its window, far and white, Her sign of farewell stream;

5.

"Like one who from some desert sh.o.r.e Does home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave and sky,

6.

"So, from the desert of my fate, Gaze I across the past; And still upon life's dial-plate The shade is backward cast

7.

"I've wandered wide from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, I've knelt at many a shrine, And bowed me to the rocky floor Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;

8.

"And by the Holy Sepulchre I've pledged my knightly sword, To Christ his blessed Church, and her The Mother of our Lord!

9.

"Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife How vain do all things seem!

My soul is in the past, and life To-day is but a dream.

10.

"In vain the penance strange and long, And hard for flesh to bear; The prayer, the fasting, and the thong, And sackcloth shirt of hair:

11.

"The eyes of memory will not sleep, Its ears are open still, And vigils with the past they keep Against or with my will.

12.

"And still the loves and hopes of old Do evermore uprise; I see the flow of locks of gold, The shine of loving eyes.

13.

"Ah me! upon another's breast Those golden locks recline; I see upon another rest The glance that once was mine!

14.

"'O faithless priest! O perjured knight!'

I hear the master cry,

'Shut out the vision from thy sight, Let earth and nature die.'

15.

"'The Church of G.o.d is now my spouse, And thou the bridegroom art; Then let the burden of thy vows Keep down thy human heart.'

16.

"In vain!--This heart its grief must know, Till life itself hath ceased, And falls beneath the self-same blow The lover and the priest!

17.

"O pitying Mother! souls of light, And saints and martyrs old, Pray for a weak and sinful knight, A suffering man uphold.

18.

"Then let the Paynim work his will, Let death unbind my chain, Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill The sunset falls again!"

My heart is heavy with the thought of these unfortunates. Where be they now? Did the knight forego his false worship and his vows, and so marry his beloved Anna? Or did they part forever,--she going back to her kinsfolk, and he to his companions of Malta? Did he perish at the hands of the infidels, and does the maiden sleep in the family tomb, under her father's oaks? Alas! who can tell? I must needs leave them, and their sorrows and trials, to Him who doth not willingly afflict the children of men; and whatsoever may have been their sins and their follies, my prayer is, that they may be forgiven, for they loved much.

October 20.

I do purpose to start to-morrow for the Ma.s.sachusetts, going by boat to the Piscataqua River, and thence by horse to Newbury.

Young Mr. Jordan spent yesterday and last night with us. He is a goodly youth, of a very sweet and gentle disposition; nor doth he seem to me to lack spirit, although his father (who liketh not his quiet ways and easy temper, so contrary to his own, and who is sorely disappointed in that he hath chosen the life of a farmer to that of a minister, for which he did intend him) often accuseth him of that infirmity. Last night we had much pleasant discourse touching the choice he hath made; and when I told him that perhaps he might have become a great prelate in the Church, and dwelt in a palace, and made a great lady of our cousin; whereas now I did see no better prospect for him than to raise corn for his wife to make pudding of, and chop wood to boil her kettle, he laughed right merrily, and said he should never have gotten higher than a curate in a poor parish; and as for Polly, he was sure she was more at home in making puddings than in playing the fine lady.

"For my part," he continued, in a serious manner, "I have no notion that the pulpit is my place; I like the open fields and sky better than the grandest churches of man's building; and when the wind sounds in the great grove of pines on the hill near our house, I doubt if there be a choir in all England so melodious and solemn. These painted autumn woods, and this sunset light, and yonder clouds of gold and purple, do seem to me better fitted to provoke devotional thoughts, and to awaken a becoming reverence and love for the Creator, than the stained windows and lofty arched roofs of old minsters. I do know, indeed, that there be many of our poor busy planters, who, by reason of ignorance, ill- breeding, and lack of quiet for contemplation, do see nothing in these things, save as they do affect their crops of grain or gra.s.ses, or their bodily comforts in one way or another. But to them whose minds have been enlightened and made large and free by study and much reflection, and whose eyes have been taught to behold the beauty and fitness of things, and whose ears have been so opened that they can hear the ravishing harmonies of the creation, the life of a planter is very desirable even in this wilderness, and notwithstanding the toil and privation thereunto appertaining. There be fountains gushing up in the hearts of such, sweeter than the springs of water which flow from the hillsides, where they sojourn; and therein, also, flowers of the summer do blossom all the year long. The brutish man knoweth not this, neither doth the fool comprehend it."

"See, now," said Polly to me, "how hard he is upon us poor unlearned folk."

"Nay, to tell the truth," said he, turning towards me, "your cousin here is to be held not a little accountable for my present inclinations; for she it was who did confirm and strengthen them. While I had been busy over books, she had been questioning the fields and the woods; and, as if the old fables of the poets were indeed true, she did get answers from them, as the priestesses and sibyls did formerly from the rustling of leaves and trees, and the sounds of running waters; so that she could teach me much concerning the uses and virtues of plants and shrubs, and of their time of flowering and decay; of the nature and habitudes of wild animals and birds, the changes of the air, and of the clouds and winds. My science, so called, had given me little more than the names of things which to her were familiar and common. It was in her company that I learned to read nature as a book always open, and full of delectable teachings, until my poor school-lore did seem undesirable and tedious, and the very chatter of the noisy blackbirds in the spring meadows more profitable and more pleasing than the angry disputes and the cavils and subtleties of schoolmen and divines."

My cousin blushed, and, smiling through her moist eyes at this language of her beloved friend, said that I must not believe all he said; for, indeed, it was along of his studies of the heathen poets that he had first thought of becoming a farmer. And she asked him to repeat some of the verses which he had at his tongue's end. He laughed, and said he did suppose she meant some lines of Horace, which had been thus Englished:--

"I often wished I had a farm, A decent dwelling, snug and warm, A garden, and a spring as pure As crystal flowing by my door, Besides an ancient oaken grove, Where at my leisure I might rove.

"The gracious G.o.ds, to crown my bliss, Have granted this, and more than this,-- They promise me a modest spouse, To light my hearth and keep my house.

I ask no more than, free from strife, To hold these blessings all my life!"

Tam exceedingly pleased, I must say, with the prospect of my cousin Polly. Her suitor is altogether a worthy young man; and, making allowances for the uncertainty of all human things, she may well look forward to a happy life with him. I shall leave behind on the morrow dear friends, who were strangers unto me a few short weeks ago, but in whose joys and sorrows I shall henceforth always partake, so far as I do come to the knowledge of them, whether or no I behold their faces any more in this life.