I
clung to them as one clings to a wreck, though he knows he must
eventually cast himself loose and swim for his life. I sat down on a
hill within sight of my paternal home, but I did not venture to
approach it, for I felt compunction at the thoughtlessness with which I
had dissipated my patrimony. But was I to blame, when I had the rich
possessions of my curmudgeon of an uncle in expectation?
The new possessor of the place was making great alterations. The house
was almost rebuilt. The trees which stood about it were cut down; my
mother's flower-garden was thrown into a lawn; all was undergoing a
change. I turned my back upon it with a sigh, and rambled to another
part of the country.
How thoughtful a little adversity makes one. As I came in sight of the
school-house where I had so often been flogged in the cause of wisdom,
you would hardly have recognized the truant boy who but a few years
since had eloped so heedlessly from its walls. I leaned over the paling
of the playground, and watched the scholars at their games, and looked
to see if there might not be some urchin among them, like I was once,
full of gay dreams about life and the world. The play-ground seemed
smaller than when I used to sport about it. The house and park, too, of
the neighboring squire, the father of the cruel Sacharissa, had shrunk
in size and diminished in magnificence. The distant hills no longer
appeared so far off, and, alas! no longer awakened ideas of a fairy
land beyond.
As I was rambling pensively through a neighboring meadow, in which I
had many a time gathered primroses, I met the very pedagogue who had
been the tyrant and dread of my boyhood. I had sometimes vowed to
myself, when suffering under his rod, that I would have my revenge if
ever I met him when I had grown to be a man. The time had come; but I
had no disposition to keep my vow. The few years which had matured me
into a vigorous man had shrunk him into decrepitude. He appeared to
have had a paralytic stroke. I looked at him, and wondered that this
poor helpless mortal could have been an object of terror to me! That I
should have watched with anxiety the glance of that failing eye, or
dreaded the power of that trembling hand! He tottered feebly along the
path, and had some difficulty in getting over a stile. I ran and
assisted him. He looked at me with surprise, but did not recognize me,
and made a low bow of humility and thanks. I had no disposition to make
myself known, for I felt that I had nothing to boast of. The pains he
had taken and the pains he had inflicted had been equally useless. His
repeated predictions were fully verified, and I felt that little Jack
Buckthorne, the idle boy, had grown up to be a very good-for-nothing
man.
This is all very comfortless detail; but as I have told you of my
follies, it is meet that I show you how for once I was schooled for
them.
The most thoughtless of mortals will some time or other have this day
of gloom, when he will be compelled to reflect. I felt on this occasion
as if I had a kind of penance to perform, and I made a pilgrimage in
expiation of my past levity.
Having passed a night at Leamington, I set off by a private path which
leads up a hill, through a grove, and across quiet fields, until I came
to the small village, or rather hamlet of Lenington. I sought the
village church. It is an old low edifice of gray stone on the brow of a
small hill, looking over fertile fields to where the proud towers of
Warwick Castle lifted themselves against the distant horizon. A part of
the church-yard is shaded by large trees. Under one of these my mother
lay buried. You have, no doubt, thought me a light, heartless being. I
thought myself so - but there are moments of adversity which let us into
some feelings of our nature, to which we might otherwise remain
perpetual strangers.
I sought my mother's grave. The weeds were already matted over it, and
the tombstone was half hid among nettles. I cleared them away and they
stung my hands; but I was heedless of the pain, for my heart ached too
severely. I sat down on the grave, and read over and over again the
epitaph on the stone. It was simple, but it was true. I had written it
myself. I had tried to write a poetical epitaph, but in vain; my
feelings refused to utter themselves in rhyme. My heart had gradually
been filling during my lonely wanderings; it was now charged to the
brim and overflowed. I sank upon the grave and buried my face in the
tall grass and wept like a child. Yes, I wept in manhood upon the
grave, as I had in infancy upon the bosom of my mother. Alas! how
little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while living! How
heedless are we in youth, of all her anxieties and kindness. But when
she is dead and gone; when the cares and coldness of the world come
withering to our hearts; when we find how hard it is to find true
sympathy, how few love us for ourselves, how few will befriend us in
our misfortunes; then it is we think of the mother we have lost.
