University of Virginia Library

THE WILDERMINGS.

There came to reside in the neighborhood a family consisting
of three persons—an old lady, a young man, and a child
some fourteen years of age. The place they took was divided
by a little strip of woods from Clovernook, and I well remember
how rejoiced I was on first seeing the blue smoke curling
up from the high red chimneys; for the cottage had been a
long time vacant, and the prospect of having people so near us,
gave me delight. Perhaps, too, I was not the less pleased that
they were to be new acquaintances. We are likely to underestimate
persons and things we have continually about us; but
let separation come, and we learn what they were to us.
Apropos of this—in the little grove I have spoken of I remember
there was an oak tree, taller by a great deal than its fellows;
and a thousand times I have felt as though its mates
must be oppressed with a painful sense of inferiority, and really
wished the axe laid at its root. At last, one day, I heard the
ringing strokes of that destroyer—and, on inquiry, was told
that the woodman had orders no longer to spare the great oak.
Eagerly I listened at first—every stroke was like the song of
victory; then the gladness subsided, and I began to marvel
how the woods would look with the monarch fallen; then I
thought, their glory will have departed, and began to reflect
on myself as having sealed the warrant of its death, so that
when the crash, telling that it was fallen, woke the sleeping
echoes from the hills, I cannot tell how sad a feeling it induced
in my heart. If I could see it standing once more, just once
more! but I could not, and till this day I feel a regretful pang
when I think of that grand old tree.

But the new neighbors. Some curiosity mingled with my
pleasure, and so, as soon as I thought they were settled, and
feeling at home, I made my toilet with unusual care for a
first call.

The cottage was a little way from the main road, and
access to it was by a narrow grass-grown lane, bordered on one
side by a green belt of meadow land, and on the other by the
grove, sloping upward and backward to a clayey hill, where,
with children and children's children about them,

A little farther on, but in full view of its stunted cypresses
and white headstones, was the cottage. Of burial grounds
generally I have no dread, but from this particular one I was
accustomed, from childhood, to turn away with something of
superstitious horror. I could never forget how Laura Hastings
saw a light buring there all one winter night, after the death of
John Hine, a wild, roving fellow, who never did any real harm
in his life to any one but himself, hastening his own death by
foolish excesses. Nevertheless, his ghost had been seen more
than once, sitting on the cold mound beneath which the soul's
expression was fading and crumbling: so, at least, said some
of the oldest and most pious inhabitants of our neighborhood.
There, too, Mary Wildermings, a fair young girl who died,
more sinned against than sinning, had been heard to sing sad
lullabies under the waning moon sometimes, and at other times
had been seen sitting by her sunken grave, and braiding roses
in her hair, as for a bridal. I never saw any of these wonderful
things; but a spot more likely to be haunted by the unresting
spirits of the bad could not readily be imagined. The
woods, thick and full of birds, along the roadside, thinned away
toward the desolate ridge, where briers grew over the mounds,
and about and through the fallen fences, as they would, with
here and there a little clearing among weeds and thistles and
high matted grass, for the making of a new grave.

It was the twilight of a beautiful summer day, as I walked
down the grassy lane and past the lonesome cemetery, to make
this first call at the cottage, feeling, I scarcely knew why,

strangely sad. By an old broken bridge in the hollow, between
the cottage and the field of death I remember that I sat down,
and for a long time listened to the trickling of the water over
the pebbles, and watched golden spots of sunlight till they quite
faded out, and “came still evening on, and twilight gray, that
in her sober livery all things clad.”

So quietly I sat, that the mole, beginning its blind work at
sunset, loosened and stirred the ground beneath my feet, and
the white, thick-winged moths, coming from beneath the dusty
weeds, fluttered about me, and lightened in my lap, and the
dull beating of the bat came almost in my face.

The first complaint of the owl sounded along the hollow and
died over the next hill, warning me to proceed, when I heard,—
as it were the echo of my own thought, repeated in a low, melancholy
voice—the conclusion of that beautiful stanza of the
elegy in reference to that moping bird. I distinctly caught the
lines—

Looking up, I saw approaching slowly, with arms folded and
eyes on the ground, a young and seemingly handsome man.
He passed without noticing me at all, and I think without
seeing me. But I had the better opportunity of observing him,
though I would have foregone that privilege to win one glance.
He interested me, and I felt humiliated that he should pass me
with this unkind indifference. His face was pale and very sad,
and his forehead shaded with a heavy mass of black hair,
pushed away from one temple, and falling neglectedly over
the other.

“Well!” said I, as I watched him ascending the opposite
hill, feeling very much as though he had wantonly disregarded
some claim I had on him, though I could not possibly have had
the slightest; and, turning ill-humoredly away, I walked with a
quick step toward the cottage.

A golden-haired young girl sat in the window reading, and
on my approach arose and received me with easy gracefulness
and well-bred courtesy, but during my stay her manner did not
once border on cordiality. She was very beautiful, but her

beauty was like that of statuary. The mother I did not see.
She was, I was told, indisposed, and, on begging that she might
not be disturbed, the daughter readily acquiesced. Every
thing about the place indicated refinement and elegant habits,
but whence the family came, how long they proposed to remain,
and what relation the young man sustained to the rest, I
would gladly have known.

Seeing a flute on the table, I spoke of music, for I suspected
it to belong to the absent gentleman. I received no information,
however; and as the twilight was already falling deeply, I
felt a necessity to take leave, without obtaining even a glimpse
of the person whom I had pictured in my fancy as so young
and fair, and, of course so agreeable.

The sun had been set some time, but the moon had risen full
and bright, so that I had no fear even in passing the graveyard,
but walked more slowly than I had done before, till, reaching
the gate, I paused to think of the awful mysteries of life and
death.

This is not a very desolate spot after all, I thought, as, leaning
over the gate, something of the quiet of the place infused
itself into my spirits. Here, I felt, the wicked cease from
troubling, and the weary are at rest; the long train of evils
that attach to the best phases of humanity, is quite forgotten;
the thorn-crown is loosened from the brow of sorrow by the
white hand of peace, and the hearts that were all their lifetime
under the shadows of great and haply unpitied afflictions
never ache any more. And here, best of all! the frailties of
the unresisting tempted, are folded away beneath the shroud,
from the humiliating glances of pity, and the cold eyes of pride.
We have need to be thankful that when man brought on the
primal glory of his nature the mildew of sin, God did not cast
us utterly from him, but in the unsearchable riches of his
mercy struck open the refuge of the grave. If there were no
fountain where our sins of scarlet might be washed white as
wool, if the black night of death were not bordered by the
golden shadows of the morning of immortality, if deep in the
darkness were not sunken the foundations of the white bastions
of peace, it were yet an inestimable privilege to lay aside the

burden of life, for life becomes, sooner or later, a burden, and
an echo among ruins.

In the corner of the burial ground, where the trees are
thickest, a little apart from the rest, was the grave of Mary
Wildermings, and year after year, the blue thistles bloomed
and faded in its sunken sod.

The train of my reflections naturally suggested her, and,
turning my eyes in the direction of her resting place, I saw, or
thought I saw, the outline of a human figure. I remembered
the story of her unresting ghost, and at first little doubted that
I beheld it, and felt a tumult of strange emotions on finding
myself thus alone near so questionable a shape.

Then, I said, this is some delusion of the senses; and I passed
my hand over my eyes, for an uncertain glimmer had followed
the intensity of my gaze. I looked towards the cottage to reassure
myself by the light of a human habitation, but all there
was dark; a cloud had passed over the moon, and, without
venturing to look towards the haunted grave, I withdrew from
the gate, very lightly, though it creaked as I did so. Any
sound save the beating of my own heart gave me courage; and
when I had walked a little way, I turned and looked again,
but the dense shadow would have prevented my seeing any
thing, if any thing had been there. Certain it is, I saw nothing.

On reaching home, I asked the housekeeper, a garrulous person
usually, if she remembered Mary Wildermings, and what
she could tell me of her burial, in the graveyard across the
wood.

“Yes, I remember her, and she is buried in the corner of the
ground, on the hill. They came to my house, I know, to get a
cup, or something of the sort, with which to dip the water from
her grave, for it rained terribly all the day of her funeral.
She added, “But what do you want to talk of the dead and
gone for, when there are living folks enough to talk about?”

Truth is, she wanted me to say something of our new neighbors,
and was vexed that I did not, though I probably should
have done so had they not been quite driven from my mind by
the more absorbing event of the evening; so, as much vexed
and disappointed as herself, I retired. The night was haunted

with some troublous dreams, but a day of sunshine succeeded,
and my thoughts flowed back to a more pleasing channel.

Days and weeks went by, and we neither saw nor heard anything
of our new neighbors, for my call was not returned, nor
did I make any further overtures towards an acquaintance.
But often, as I sat under the apple tree by the door, in the twilight,
I heard the mellow music of the distant flute.

“Is that at the cottage?” said the housekeeper to me, one
night: “it sounds to me as though it were in the corner of the
graveyard.”

I smiled as she turned her head a little to one side, and encircling
the right ear with her hand, listened some minutes
eagerly, and then proceeded to express her conviction that the
music was the result of no mortal agency.

“Did you ever hear of a ghost playing the flute?” I said.

“A flute!” she answered, indignantly, “it's a flute, just as
much as you are a flute; and for the sake of enlightening your
blind understanding, I'll go to the graveyard, night as it is, if
you will go with me.”

“Very well,” I said; “let us go.”

So, under the faint light of the crescent moon, we took our
way together. Gradually the notes became lower and sadder, and
at length quite died away. I urged my trembling companion
to walk faster, lest the ghost should vanish too; and she acceded
to my wish with a silent alacrity, that convinced me at
once of the sincerity of her expressed belief. Just as we began
to ascend the hill, she stopped suddenly, saying, “There! did
you hear that?”

I answered, that I heard a noise, but that it was no unusual
thing to hear such sounds in an inhabited neighborhood, at so
early an hour. “It was the latching of the gate at the graveyard,”
she answered, solemnly. “As you value your immortal
soul, go no further.”

In vain I argued, that a ghost would have no need to unlatch
the gate. She positively refused to go farther, and with a courage
not very habitual to me, I walked on alone.

“Do you think I don't know that sound?” she called after
me. “I would know if I had forgotten everything else. Oh,

stop, till I tell you! The night Mary Wildermings died,” I
heard her say; but I knew the sound of the gate as well as
she, and would not wait even for a ghost story. I have since
wished I had, for I could never afterwards persuade her to proceed
with it.

Gaining the summit of the hill, I saw, a little way before me,
a dark figure, receding slowly; but so intent was I on the superhuman,
that I paid little heed to the human; though afterward,
in recalling the circumstance, the individual previously
seen while I sat on the bridge became in some way associated
with this one.

How hushed and solemn the graveyard seemed! I was half
afraid, as I looked in—quite startled, in fact, when, latching and
unlatching the gate, to determine whether the sound I had heard
were that or not, a rabbit, roused from its light sleep, under the
fallen grass, sped fleetly across the still mounds to the safer
shelter of the woods. I saw nothing else, save that the grass
was trampled to a narrow path all the way leading toward
Mary's grave.

During the summer, I sometimes saw the young girl in the
woods, and I noticed that she neither gathered flowers nor sang
with the birds; but would sit for hours in some deep shadow,
without moving her position in the least, not even to push away
the light curls which the wind blew over her cheeks and forehead,
as they would. She seemed neither to love nor seek
human companionship. Once only I noticed, and it was the
last time she ever walked in the woods, that he whom I supposed
to be her brother was with her. She did not sit in the
shade, as usual, but walked languidly, and leaning heavily on
the arm of her attendant, who several times swept off the curls
from her forehead, and bent down, as if kissing her.

A few days afterwards, being slightly indisposed, I called in
the village doctor. Our conversation, naturally, was of who
was sick and who was dead.

“Among my patients,” he said, “there is none that interests
me so deeply as a little girl at the cottage—indeed, I have
scarcely thought of anything else, since I knew that she must
die. A strange child,” he continued; “she seems to feel neither

love of life nor fear of death, nor does she either weep or
smile; and though I have been with her much of late, I have
never seen her sleep. She suffers no pain—her face wears the
same calm expression, but her melancholy eyes are wide open
all the time.”

The second evening after this, though not quite recovered
myself, I called at the cottage, in the hope of being of some
service to the sick girl. The snowy curtain was dropped over
the window of her chamber, the sash partly raised, and all
within still—very still. The door was a little way open, and,
pausing, I heard from within a low, stifled moan, which I could
not misunderstand, and pushing the door aside, I entered, without
rapping.

In the white sheet, drawn straight over the head and the feet,
I recognised at once the fearful truth—the little girl was dead.
By the head of the bed, and still as one stricken into stone, sat
the person I so often wished to see. The room was nearly
dark, and his face was buried in his hands—nevertheless, I knew
him—it was he who had passed me on the bridge.

Presently the housekeeper, or one that I took to be her, entered,
and whispering to him, he arose and went out, so that I
saw him but imperfectly. When he was gone, the woman
folded the covering away from the face, and to my horror I saw
that the eyes were still unclosed. Seeing my surprise, she
said, as she folded a napkin, and pinned it close over the lids—

“It is strange, but the child would never in life close her
eyes—her mother, they say, died in watching for one who
never came, and the baby was watchful and sleepless from the
first.”

The next day, and the next, it was dull and rainy—excitement
and premature exposure had induced a return of my first
indisposition, so that I was not at the funeral. I saw, however,
from my window, preparations for the burial—to my surprise,
in the lonesome little graveyard by the woods.

In the course of a fortnight, I prepared for a visit of condolence
to the cottage, but on reaching it, found the inhabitants
gone—the place still and empty.

Returning, I stopped at the haunted ground: close by the

grave of Mary Wildermings was that of the stranger child.
The briers and thistles had been carefully cut away, there was
no slab and no name over either, but the blue and white violets
were planted thickly about both. That they slept well,
was all I knew.