University of Virginia Library

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE.

In the course of an excursion through one of the remote
counties of England, I had struck into one of those cross
roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the
country, and stopped one afternoon at a village, the situation
of which was beautifully rural and retired. There
was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants,
not to be found in the villages which lie on the great
coach roads. I determined to pass the night there, and
having taken an early dinner, strolled out to enjoy the
neighbouring scenery.

My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon
led me to the church, which stood at a little distance
from the village. Indeed, it was an object of some curiosity,
its old tower being completely overrun with ivy, so
that only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle of
gray wall, or a fantastically carved ornament, peered
through the verdant covering. It was a lovely evening.
The early part of the day had been dark and showery,
but in the afternoon it had cleared up; and though sullen
clouds still hung over head, yet there was a broad
tract of golden sky in the west, from which the setting
sun gleamed through the dripping leaves, and lit up all
nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed like the parting
hour of a good Christian, smiling on the sins and
sorrows of the world, and giving, in the serenity of his
decline, an assurance that he will rise again in glory.

I had seated myself on a half sunken tombstone, and
was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted
hour, on past scenes and early friends—on those who
were distant and those who were dead—and indulging
in that kind of melancholy fancying, which has in it
something sweeter even than pleasure. Every now and
then, the stroke of a bell from the neighbouring tower
fell on my ear; its tones were in unison with the scene,
and, instead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings; and
it was some time before I recollected, that it must be tolling
the knell of some new tenant of the tomb.

Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the
village green; it wound slowly along a lane; was lost,
and re-appeared through the breaks of the hedges, until
it passed the place where I was sitting. The pall was

supported by young girls, dressed in white; and another,
about the age of seventeen, walked before, bearing a chaplet
of white flowers; a token that the deceased was a
young and unmarried female. The corpse was followed
by the parents. They were a venerable couple of the
better order of peasantry. The father seemed to repress
his feelings; but his fixed eye, contracted brow, and deeply-furrowed
face, showed the struggle that was passing
within. His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud
with the convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow.

I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was
placed in the centre aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers,
with a pair of white gloves, were hung over the seat
which the deceased had occupied.

Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of funeral
service; for who is so fortunate as never to have followed
some one he has loved to the tomb? but when performed
over the remains of innocence and beauty, thus laid low
in the bloom of existence—what can be more affecting?
At that simple, but most solemn consignment of the body
to the grave—“Earth to earth—ashes to ashes—dust to
dust!”—the tears of the youthful companions of the deceased
flowed unrestrained. The father still seemed to
struggle with his feelings, and to comfort himself with
the assurance, that the dead are blessed which die in the
Lord; but the mother only thought of her child as a
flower of the field cut down and withered in the midst
of its sweetness: she was like Rachel, “mourning over
her children, and would not be comforted.”

On returning to the inn I learnt the whole story of
the deceased. It was a simple one, and such as has often
been told. She had been the beauty and pride of the
village. Her father had once been as opulent farmer,
but was reduced in circumstances. This was an only
child, and brought up entirely at home, in the simplicity
of rural life. She had been the pupil of the village pastor,
the favourite of his little flock. The good man watched
over her education with paternal care; it was limited,
and suitable to the sphere in which she was to move;
for he only sought to make her an ornament to her station
in life, not to raise her above it. The tenderness
and indulgence of her parents, and the exemption from
all ordinary occupations, had fostered a natural grace and
delicacy of character, that accorded with the fragile loveliness
of her form. She appeared like some tender plant

of the garden, blooming accidentally amid the hardier
natives of the fields.

The superiority of her charms was felt and acknowledged
by her companions, but without envy; for it was
surpassed by the unassuming gentleness and winning
kindness of her manners. It might be truly said of her:

The village was one of those sequestered spots, which
still retain some vestiges of old English customs. It
had its rural festivals and holyday pastimes, and still
kept up some faint observance of the once popular rites
of May. These, indeed, had been promoted by its present
pastor; who was a lover of old customs, and one of
those simple Christians that think their mission fulfilled
by promoting joy on earth and good-will among mankind.
Under his auspices the may-pole stood from year
to year in the centre of the village green: on May-day it
was decorated with garlands and streamers; and a queen
or lady of the May was appointed, as in former times, to
preside at the sports, and distribute the prizes and rewards.
The picturesque situation of the village, and the
fancifulness of its rustic fetes, would often attract the
notice of casual visiters. Among these, on one May-day
was a young officer, whose regiment had been recently
quartered in the neighbourhood. He was charmed with
the native taste that pervaded this village pageant; but,
above all, with the dawning loveliness of the queen of
May. It was the village favourite, who was crowned
with flowers, and blushing and smiling in all the beautiful
confusion of girlish diffidence and delight. The artlessness
of rural habits enabled him readily to make her
acquaintance; he gradually won his way into her intimacy;
and paid his court to her in that unthinking way
in which young officers are too apt to trifle with rustic
simplicity.

There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm.
He never even talked of love: but there are modes of
making it more eloquent than language, and which convey
it subtilely and irresistibly into the heart. The
beam of the eye, the tone of the voice, the thousand tendernesses
which emanate from every word, and look, and

action—these form the true eloquence of love, and can
almost be felt and understood, but never described. Can
we wonder that they should readily win a heart young,
guileless, and susceptible? As to her, she loved almost
unconsciously; she scarcely inquired what was the growing
passion that was absorbing every thought and feeling
or what were to be its consequences. She, indeed, looked
not to the future. When present, his looks and words
occupied her whole attention; when absent, she thought,
but of what had passed at their recent interview. She
would wander with him through the green lanes and rural
scenes of the vicinity. He taught her to see new beauties
in nature; he talked in the language of polite and
cultivated life, and breathed into her ear the witcheries of
romance and poetry.

Perhaps there could not have been a passion, between
the sexes, more pure than this innocent girl's. The gallant
figure of her youthful admirer, and the splendour of
his military attire, might at first have charmed her eye;
but it was not these that had captivated her heart. Her
attachment had something in it of idolatry. She looked
up to him as to a being of a superior order. She felt in
his society the enthusiasm of a mind naturally delicate and
poetical, and now first awakened to a keen perception of
the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinctions of
rank and fortune she thought nothing; it was the difference
of intellect, of demeanour, of manners, from those of the
rustic society to which she had been accustomed, that
elevated him in her opinion. She would listen to him
with charmed ear and downcast look of mute delight, and
her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm: or if ever she
ventured a shy glance of timid admiration, it was as quickly
withdrawn, and she would sigh and blush at the idea
of her comparative unworthiness.

Her lover was equally impassioned; but his passion was
mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun
the connexion in levity; for he had often heard his brother
officers boast of their village conquests, and thought
some triumph of the kind necessary to his reputation as a
man of spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervour.
His heart had not yet been rendered sufficiently cold and
selfish by a wandering and a dissipated life: it caught fire
from the very flame it sought to kindle; and before he
was aware of the nature of his situation, he became really
in love.

What was he to do? There were the old obstacles
which so incessantly occur in these heedless attachments.
His rank in life—the prejudices of titled connexions—
his dependence upon a proud and unyielding father—all
forbade him to think of matrimony:—but when he looked
down upon this innocent being, so tender and confiding,
there was a purity in her manners, a blamelessness in her
life, and a beseeching modesty in her looks that awed
down every licentious feeling. In vain did he try to fortify
himself by a thousand heartless examples of men of
fashion; and to chill the glow of generous sentiment, with
that cold derisive levity with which he had heard them
talk of female virtue; whenever he came into her presence,
she was still surrounded by that mysterious, but impressive
charm of virgin purity, in whose hallowed sphere no
guilty thought can live.

The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair
to the continent completed the confusion of his mind. He
remained for a short time in a state of the most painful irresolution;
he hesitated to communicate the tidings, until
the day of marching was at hand; when he gave her the
intelligence in the course of an evening ramble.

The idea of parting had never before occurred to her.
It broke at once upon her dream of felicity; she looked
upon it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, and wept
with the guileless simplicity of a child. He drew her to
his bosom, and kissed the tears from her soft cheek; nor
did he meet with a repulse; for there are moments of
mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses
of affection. He was naturally impetuous; and the sight
of beauty, apparently yielding in his arms; the confidence
of his power over her; and the dread of losing her for
ever; all conspired to overwhelm his better feelings—he
ventured to propose that she should leave her home, and
be the companion of his fortunes.

He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and
faltered at his own baseness; but so innocent of mind
was his intended victim, that she was at first at a loss to
comprehend his meaning; and why she should leave her
native village and the humble roof of her parents? When
at last the nature of his proposal flashed upon her pure
mind, the effect was withering. She did not weep—
she did not break forth into reproach—she said not a word
—but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper; gave him a
look of anguish that pierced to his very soul; and clasping

her hands in agony, fled, as if for refuge, to her father's
cottage.

The officer retired, confounded, humiliated, and repentant.
It is uncertain what might have been the result
of the conflict of his feelings, had not his thoughts been
diverted by the bustle of departure. New scenes, new
pleasures, and new companions, soon dissipated his self-reproach,
and stifled his tenderness; yet, amidst the stir
of camps, the revelries of garrisons, the array of armies,
and even the din of battles, his thoughts would sometimes
steal back to the scene of rural quiet and village simplicity—the
white cottage—the footpath along the silver
brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the little village
maid loitering along it, leaning on his arm, and listening
to him with eyes beaming with unconscious affection.

The shock which the poor girl had received, in the
destruction of all her ideal world, had indeed been cruel.
Faintings and hysterics, had at first shaken her tender
frame, and were succeeded by a settled and pining melancholy.
She had beheld from her window the march of
the departing troops. She had seen her faithless lover
borne off, as if in triumph, amidst the sound of drum and
trumpet, and the pomp of arms. She strained a last aching
gaze after him, as the morning sun glittered about his
figure, and his plume waved in the breeze: he passed
away like a bright vision from her sight and left her all
in darkness.

It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her
after-story. It was, like other tales of love, melancholy.
She avoided society, and wandered out alone in the walks
she had most frequented with her lover. She sought,
like the stricken deer, to weep in silence and loneliness,
and brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her
soul. Sometimes she would be seen late of an evening
sitting in the porch of the village church; and the milkmaids,
returning from the fields, would now and then
overhear her, singing some plaintive ditty in the hawthorn
walk. She became fervent in her devotions at
church: and as the old people saw her approach, so
wasted away, yet with a hectic bloom, and that hallowed
air which melancholy diffuses round the form, they would
make way for her, as for a thing spiritual, and, looking
after her, would shake their heads in gloomy foreboding.

She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the
tomb, but looked forward to it as a place of rest. The

silver cord that had bound her to existence was loosed,
and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the sun.
If ever her gentle bosom had entertained resentment
against her lover, it was extinguished. She was incapable
of angry passions; and in a moment of saddened tenderness,
she penned him a farewell letter. It was couched
in the simplest language; but touching from its very
simplicity. She told him that she was dying, and did
not conceal from him that his conduct was the cause.
She even depicted the sufferings which she had experienced;
but concluded with saying, that she could not die
in peace, until she had sent him her forgiveness and her
blessing,

By degrees her strength declined, so that she could no
longer leave the cottage. She could only totter to the
window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her enjoyment
to sit all day and look out upon the landscape.
Still she uttered no complaint, nor imparted to any one
the malady that was preying upon her heart. She never
even mentioned her lover's name; but would lay her
head on her mother's bosom and weep in silence. Her
poor parents hung in mute anxiety over this fading
blossom of their hopes, still flattering themselves that it
might again revive to freshness, and that the bright unearthly
bloom which sometimes flushed her cheek might
be the promise of returning health.

In this way she was seated between them one Sunday
afternoon; her hands were clasped in theirs, the lattice
was thrown open, and the soft air that stole in brought
with it the fragrance of the clustering honeysuckle which
her own hands had trained round the window.

Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible:
it spoke of the vanity of worldly things and of the joys
of heaven: it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity
through her bosom. Her eye was fixed on the
distant village church; the bell had tolled for the evening
service; the last villager was lagging into the porch
and every thing had sunk into that hallowed stillness
peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents were gazing on
her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sorrow, which
pass so roughly over some faces, had given her's the expression
of a seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft blue
eye. Was she thinking of her faithless lover?—or were
her thoughts wandering to that distant church-yard, into
whose bosom she might soon be gathered?

Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard—a horseman
galloped to the cottage—he dismounted before the window—the
poor girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk
back in her chair;—it was her repentant lover! He
rushed into the house, and flew to clasp her to his bosom;
but her wasted form—her death-like countenance
—so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation,—smote him to
the soul, and he threw himself in an agony at her feet.
She was too faint to rise—She attempted to extend her
trembling hand—her lips moved as if she spoke, but no
word was articulated—she looked down upon him with
a smile of unutterable tenderness,—and closed her eyes
for ever!

Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village
story. They are but scanty, and I am conscious
have little novelty to recommend them. In the present
rage also for strange incident and high-seasoned narrative,
they may appear trite and insignificant, but they interested
me strongly at the time; and, taken in connexion
with the affecting ceremony which I just witnessed, left
a deeper impression on my mind than many circumstances
of a more striking nature. I have passed through
the place since, and visited the church again, from a better
motive than mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening;
the trees were stripped of their foliage; the church-yard
looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled
coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had
been planted about the grave of the village favourite, and
osiers were bent over it to keep the turf uninjured.

The church door was open, and I stepped in. There
hung the chaplet of flowers and the gloves as on the day
of the funeral: the flowers were withered, it is true, but
care seemed to have been taken that no dust should soil
their whiteness. I have seen many monuments, where
art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of
the spectator; but I have met with none that spoke more
touchingly to my heart, than this simple, but delicate
memento of departed innocence.