Children
love to listen to stories about their elders,
when they
were children; to stretch their
imagination
to the conception of a traditionary
great-uncle,
or granddame, whom they never saw.
It was in
this spirit that my little ones crept about
me the
other evening to hear about their great-
grandmother
Field, who lived in a great house in
Norfolk (a
hundred times bigger than that in which
they and
papa lived), which had been the scene —
so at least
it was generally believed in that part of
the country
— of the tragic incidents which they
had lately
become familiar with from the ballad of
the
Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the
whole story
of the children and their cruel uncle
was to be
seen fairly carved out in wood upon the
chimney-piece
of the great hall, the whole story
down to the Robin Redbreast; till a foolish rich
down to the Robin Redbreast; till a foolish rich
person pulled it down to set up a marble one of
modern invention in its stead, with no story upon
it. Here Alice put on one of her dear mother's
looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then
I went on to say how religious and how good their
great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and
respected by everybody, though she was not indeed
the mistress of this great house, but had only the
charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be
said to be the mistress of it, too) committed to her
by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and
more fashionable mansion which he had purchased
somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she
lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own,
and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort
while she lived, which afterwards came to decay,
and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments
stripped and carried away to the owner's
other house, where they were set up and looked
as awkward as if some one were to carry away the
old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and
stick them up in Lady C's tawdry gilt drawing-
room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "That
would be foolish indeed." And then I told how
when she came to die, her funeral was attended by
a concourse of all the poor and some of the gentry,
too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to
show their respect for her memory, because she
had been such a good and religious woman; so
good, indeed, that she knew all the Psaltery by
heart; aye,. and a great part of the Testament be-
Sides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then
I told her what a tall, upright, graceful person their
great-grandmother Field once was: and how in her
youth she was esteemed the best dancer, — here
Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement,
till upon my looking grave, it desisted, — the
best dancer, I was saying, in the country, till a cruel
disease, called a cancer, came and bowed her down
with pain: but it could never bend her good spirits,
or make them stoop, but they were still upright,
because she was so good and religious. Then I
told how she used to sleep by herself in a lone
chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed
that an apparition of two infants was to be
seen at midnight gliding up and down the great
staircase near where she slept, but she said, 'Those
innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened
I used to be, though in those days I had my
maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so
good or religious as she, — and yet I never saw the
infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and
tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she
was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great
house in the holidays, where I in particular used to
spend many hours by myself gazing upon the old
busts of the twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors
of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to
live again or I to be turned into marble with them;
how I never could be tired with roaming about that
huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with
their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and
carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost
rubbed out,- — sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned
gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless
when now and then a solitary gardening man
would cross me — and how the nectarines and
peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever
offering to pluck them, because they were for-
bidden fruit, unless now and then — and because I
had more pleasure in strolling about among the
old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the firs, and
picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which
were good for nothing but to look at, — or in lying
upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smells
around me, — or basking in the orangery, till I
could almost fancy myself ripening too long with
oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth, or
in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the
fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here
and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down
the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent
friskings: I had more pleasure in these
busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flowers
of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of
children. Here John slyly deposited
back upon the plate a bunch of grapes which, not
unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing
with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish
them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in some-
what a more heightened tone, I told how, though
their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-
children, yet in an especial manner she might be
said to love their uncle John L , because
he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a
king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about
in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount
the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but
an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it
carry him half over the country in a morning, and
join the hunters when there were any out, — and
yet he loved the old great house and gardens, too,
but had too much spirit to be always pent up
within their boundaries, — and how their uncle grew
up to a man's estate as brave as he was handsome,
to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-
grandmother Field most especially; and how he
used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-
footed boy — for he was a good bit older than me
— many a mile when I could not walk for pain; —
and how in after-life he became lame-footed, too,
and I did not always (I fear) make allowances
enough for him when he was impatient and in pain,
nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had
been to me when I was lame-footed; and how when
he died, though he had not yet been dead an hour,
it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such
a distance there is between life and death, as I
thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it
haunted and haunted me; and though I did not
cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think
he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him
all day long, and knew not till then how much I
had loved him. I missed his kindness, and missed
his crossness, and wished him to be alive again,
to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled some-
times), rather than not have him again, and was
as uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must
have been when they took off his limb. Here the
children fell a-crying, and asked if their little
mourning they had on was not for Uncle John, and
they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about
their uncle, but to tell them some stories about
their pretty dead mother. Then I told how, for
seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in
despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice
W n; and, as much as children could under-
stand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty,
and denial meant to maidens, — when
suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first
Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality
of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of
them stood there before me, or whose that bright
hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children
gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and
still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful
features were seen in the uttermost distance, which,
without speech, strangely impressed upon me the
effects of speech: ''We are not of Alice, nor of
thee, nor are we children at all. The children of
Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less
than nothing, and dreams. We are only what
might have been, and must wait upon the tedious
shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have
existence, and a name" — and immediately awakening,
I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor
arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful
Bridget unchanged by my side, — but John L,
{or James Eli) was gone forever.
Literature liberates and leavens our latent learning with limpid lumina. So myself a lustful literary lacky.
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