Certain spot; even the tired labourer, coming home to his tea, will let
his eyes dwell on some green mound, to see sitting or standing there
someone who in life was very near and dear to him, with whom he is now
exchanging greetings. But the old worn-out labourer, who happily has
not gone to end his days in captivity in the bitter Home of the Poor -
he, sitting on a tomb to rest and basking in the sunshine, has a whole
crowd of the vanished villagers about him.
It is useless their telling us that when we die we are instantly judged
and packed straight off to some region where we are destined to spend
an eternity. We know better. Nature, our own hearts, have taught us
differently. Furthermore, we have heard of the resurrection - that the
dead will rise again at the last day; and with all our willingness to
believe what our masters tell us, we know that even a dead man can't be
in two places at the same time. Our dead are here where we laid them;
sleeping, no doubt, but not so soundly sleeping, we imagine, as not to
see and hear us when we visit and speak to them. And being villagers
still though dead, they like to see us often, whenever we have a few
spare minutes to call round and exchange a few words with them.
This extremely beautiful - and in its effect beneficial - feeling and
belief, or instinct, or superstition if the superior inhabitants of the
wood-ants' nest, who throw their dead away and think no more about
them, will have it so - is a sweet and pleasant thing in the village
life and a consolation to those who are lonely. Let me in conclusion
give an instance.
The churchyard I like best is situated in the village itself, and is in
use both for the dead and living, and the playground of the little
ones, but some time ago I by chance discovered one which was over half
a mile from the village; an ancient beautiful church and churchyard
which so greatly attracted me that in my rambles in that part I often
went a mile or two out of my way just for the pleasure of spending an
hour or two in that quiet sacred spot. It was in a wooded district in
Hampshire, and there were old oak woods all round the church, with no
other building in sight and seldom a sound of human life. There was an
old road outside the gate, but few used it. The tombs and stones were
many and nearly covered with moss and lichen and half-draped in
creeping ivy. There, sitting on a tomb, I would watch the small
woodland birds that made it their haunt, and listen to the delicate
little warbling or tinkling notes, and admire the two ancient
picturesque yew trees growing there.
One day, while sitting on a tomb, I saw a woman coming from the village
with a heavy basket on her head, and on coming to the gate she turned
in, and setting the basket down walked to a spot about thirty yards
from where I sat, and at that spot she remained for several minutes
standing motionless, her eyes cast down, her arms hanging at her sides.
A cottage woman in a faded cotton gown, of a common Hampshire type,
flat-chested, a rather long oval face, almost colourless, and black
dusty hair. She looked thirty-five, but was probably less than thirty,
as women of their class age early in this county and get the toil-worn,
tired face when still young.
By-and-by I went over to her and asked her if she was visiting some of
her people at that spot. Yes, she returned; her mother and father were
buried under the two grass mounds at her feet; and then quite
cheerfully she went on to tell me all about them - how all their other
children had gone away to live at a distance from home, and she was
left alone with them when they grew old and infirm. They were natives
of the village, and after they were both dead, five years ago, she got
a place at a farm about a mile up the road. There she had been ever
since, but fortunately she had to come to the village every week, and
always on her way back she spent a quarter or half an hour with her
parents. She was sure they looked for that weekly visit from her, as
they had no other relation in the place now, and that they liked to
hear all the village news from her.
All this and more she told me in the most open way. Like Wordsworth's
"simple child," what could she know of death? But being a villager
myself I was better informed than Wordsworth, and didn't enter on a
ponderous argument to prove to her that when people die they die, and
being dead, they can't be alive - therefore to pay them a weekly visit
and tell them all the news was a mere waste of time and breath.
XXXVII
A STORY OF THREE POEMS
I wrote in the last sketch but one of the villager with a literary gift
who composes the epitaphs in rhyme of his neighbours when they pass
away and are buried in the churchyard. This has served to remind me of
a kindred subject - the poetry or verse (my own included) of those who
are not poets by profession: also of an incident. Undoubtedly there is
a vast difference between the village rhymester and the true poet, and
the poetry I am now concerned with may be said to come somewhat between
these two extremes.
