The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume I Part 6

Since my father's death our family have resided in London. I am in practice as a surgeon there. My mother died two years after we left Widford.

A month or two ago I had been busying myself in drawing up the above narrative, intending to make it public. The employment had forced my mind to dwell upon _facts_, which had begun to fade from it--the memory of old times became vivid, and more vivid--I felt a strong desire to revisit the scenes of my native village--of the young loves of Rosamund and her Clare.

A kind of dread had hitherto kept me back; but I was restless now, till I had accomplished my wish. I set out one morning to walk--I reached Widford about eleven in the forenoon--after a slight breakfast at my inn--where I was mortified to perceive, the old landlord did not know me again--(old Thomas Billet--he has often made angle rods for me when a child)--I rambled over all my accustomed haunts.

Our old house was vacant, and to be sold. I entered, unmolested, into the room that had been my bed-chamber. I kneeled down on the spot where my little bed had stood--I felt like a child--I prayed like one--it seemed as though old times were to return again--I looked round involuntarily, expecting to see some face I knew--but all was naked and mute. The bed was gone. My little pane of painted window, through which I loved to look at the sun, when I awoke in a fine summer's morning, was taken out, and had been replaced by one of common gla.s.s.

I visited, by turns, every chamber--they were all desolate and unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord, probably to be sold--I touched the keys--I played some old Scottish tunes, which had delighted me when a child. Past a.s.sociations revived with the music-blended with a sense of _unreality_, which at last became too powerful--I rushed out of the room to give vent to my feelings.

I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at the back of the house--we called it the _Wilderness_. A well-known _form_ was missing, that used to meet me in this place--it was thine, Ben Moxam--the kindest, gentlest, politest, of human beings, yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest creature, thou didst never pa.s.s me in my childish rambles, without a soft speech, and a smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there is one thing, for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam--that thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to lop away the hanging branches of the old fir trees.--I remember them sweeping to the ground.

I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place--its glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind, nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which have accompanied me to maturer years.

In this _Wilderness_ I found myself after a ten years' absence. Its stately fir trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the wood-pigeon--all was as I had left it--my heart softened at the sight--it seemed, as though my character had been suffering a _change_, since I forsook these shades.

My parents were both dead--I had no counsellor left, no experience of age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The LORD had taken away my _friends_, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round the wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed, that I might be restored to that _state of innocence_, in which I had wandered in those shades.

Methought, my request was heard--for it seemed as though the stains of manhood were pa.s.sing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed that I was enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father--and, extravagantly, put off the shoes from my feet--for the place where I stood, I thought, was holy ground.

This state of mind could not last long--and I returned, with languid feelings to my Inn. I ordered my dinner--green peas and a sweetbread--it had been a favorite dish with me in my childhood--I was allowed to have it on my birth days. I was impatient to see it come upon table--but, when it came, I could scarce eat a mouthful--my tears choaked me. I called for wine--I drank a pint and a half of red wine--and not till then had I dared to visit the church-yard, where my parents were interred.

The _cottage_ lay in my way--Margaret had chosen it for that very reason, to be near the church--for the old lady was regular in her attendance on public worship--I pa.s.sed on--and in a moment found myself among the tombs.

I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again--my mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending--a plain stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon it--for they both occupied one grave.

I prostrated myself before the spot--I kissed the earth that covered them--I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should mingle my dust with their's--and kneeled, with my arms inc.u.mbent on the grave-stone, in a kind of mental prayer--for I could not speak.

Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects.--Still I continued in the church-yard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing on them with that kind of levity, which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind, in the midst of deep melancholy.

I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said jestingly, where be all the _bad_ people buried? Bad parents, bad husbands, bad children--what cemeteries are appointed for these? do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their life-time, discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely?--Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. _Man wars not with the dead._ It is a _trait_ of human nature, for which I love it.

I had not observed, till now, a little group a.s.sembled at the other end of the church-yard; it was a company of children, who were gathered round a young man, dressed in black, sitting on a grave-stone.

He seemed to be asking them questions--probably, about their learning--and one little dirty ragged-headed fellow was clambering up his knees to kiss him.--The children had been eating black cherries--for some of the stones were scattered about, and their mouths were smeared with them.

As I drew near them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild benignity of countenance, which I had somewhere seen before--I gazed at him more attentively--

It was Allan Clare! sitting on the grave of his sister.

I threw my arms about his neck. I exclaimed "Allan"--he turned his eyes upon me--he knew me--we both wept aloud--it seemed, as though the interval, since we parted, had been as nothing--I cried out, "come, and tell me about these things."

I drew him away from his little friends--he parted with a show of reluctance from the church-yard--Margaret and her grandaughter lay buried there, as well as his sister--I took him to my Inn--secured a room, where we might be private--ordered fresh wine--scarce knowing what I did, I danced for joy.

Allan was quite overcome, and taking me by the hand he said, "this repays me for all."

It was a proud day for me--I had found the friend I thought dead--earth seemed to me no longer valuable, than as it contained _him_; and existence a blessing no longer than while I should live to be his comforter.

I began, at leisure, to survey him with more attention. Time and grief had left few traces of that fine _enthusiasm_, which once burned in his countenance--his eyes had lost their original fire, but they retained an uncommon sweetness and, whenever they were turned upon me, their smile pierced to my heart.

"Allan, I fear you have been a sufferer." He replied not, and I could not press him further. I could not call the dead to life again.

So we drank, and told old stories--and repeated old poetry--and sang old songs--as if nothing had happened.--We sat till very late--I forgot that I had purposed returning to town that evening--to Allan all places were alike--I grew noisy, he grew cheerful--Allan's old manners, old enthusiasm, were returning upon him--we laughed, we wept, we mingled our tears, and talked extravagantly.

Allan was my chamber-fellow that night--and lay awake, planning schemes of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar pursuits;--and praising G.o.d, that we had met.

I was obliged to return to town the next morning, and Allan proposed to accompany me.--"Since the death of his sister," he told me, "he had been a wanderer."

In the course of our walk he unbosomed himself without reserve--told me many particulars of his way of life for the last nine or ten years, which I do not feel myself at liberty to divulge.

Once, on my attempting to cheer him, when I perceived him over thoughtful, he replied to me in these words:--

"Do not regard me as unhappy, when you catch me in these moods. I am never more happy than at times, when, by the cast of my countenance, men judge me most miserable.

"My friend, the events, which have left this sadness behind them, are of no recent date. The melancholy, which comes over me with the recollection of them, is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human pursuits.

"The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects.

"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I expect a renewal of them in the _World of Spirits_.

"I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth. I have made no new friendships, that can compensate me for the loss of the old--and the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circ.u.mstances, of past pleasures.

"I am sensible that I am surrounded by a mult.i.tude of very worthy people, plain-hearted souls, sincere, and kind.--But they have hitherto eluded my pursuit, and will continue to bless the little circle of their families and friends, while I must remain a stranger to them.

"Kept at a distance by mankind, I have not ceased to love them--and could I find the cruel persecutor, the malignant instrument of G.o.d'S judgments on me and mine, I think I would forgive, and try to love him too.

"I have been a quiet sufferer. From the beginning of my calamities it was given to me, not to see the hand of man in them. I perceived a mighty arm, which none but myself could see, extended over me. I gave my heart to the Purifier, and my will to the Sovereign Will of the Universe. The irresistible wheels of destiny pa.s.sed on in their everlasting rotation,--and I suffered myself to be carried along with them without complaining."

CHAPTER XII

Allan told me, that for some years past, feeling himself disengaged from every personal tye, but not alienated from human sympathies, it had been his taste, his _humour_ he called it, to spend a great portion of his time in _hospitals_ and _lazar houses_.

He had found a _wayward pleasure_, he refused to name it a virtue, in tending a description of people, who had long ceased to expect kindness or friendliness from mankind, but were content to accept the reluctant services, which the often-times unfeeling instruments and servants of these well-meant inst.i.tutions deal out to the poor sick people under their care.

It is not medicine, it is not broths and coa.r.s.e meats, served up at a stated hour with all the hard formalities of a prison,--it is not the scanty dole of a bed to die on--which dying man requires from his species.

Looks, attentions, consolations,--in a word, _sympathies_, are what a man most needs in this awful close of mortal sufferings. A kind look, a smile, a drop of cold water to the parched lip--for these things a man shall bless you in death.

And these better things than cordials did Allan love to administer--to stay by a bed-side the whole day, when something disgusting in a patient's distemper has kept the very nurses at a distance--to sit by, while the poor wretch got a little sleep--and be there to smile upon him when he awoke--to slip a guinea, now and then, into the hands of a nurse or attendant--these things have been to Allan as _privileges_, for which he was content to live, choice marks, and circ.u.mstances, of his Maker's goodness to him.

And I do not know whether occupations of this kind be not a spring of purer and n.o.bler delight (certainly instances of a more disinterested virtue) than arises from what are called Friendships of Sentiment.

Between two persons of liberal education, like opinions, and common feelings, oftentimes subsists a Vanity of Sentiment, which disposes each to look upon the other as the only being in the universe worthy of friendship, or capable of understanding it,--themselves they consider as the solitary receptacles of all that is delicate in feeling, or stable in attachment:--when the odds are, that under every green hill, and in every crowded street, people of equal worth are to be found, who do more good in their generation, and make less noise in the doing of it.

It was in consequence of these benevolent propensities, I have been describing, that Allan oftentimes discovered considerable inclinations in favor of my way of life, which I have before mentioned as being that of a surgeon. He would frequently attend me on my visits to patients; and I began to think, that he had serious intentions of making my profession his study.