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<h2> THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE. </h2>
<p>May no wolfe howle; no screech owle stir<br/>
A wing about thy sepulchre!<br/>
No boysterous winds or stormes come hither,<br/>
To starve or wither<br/>
Thy soft sweet earth! but, like a spring,<br/>
Love kept it ever flourishing.<br/>
HERRICK.<br/></p>
<p>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
neighboring scenery.</p>
<p>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 overhead, 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.</p>
<p>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 neighboring
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.</p>
<p>Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village green; it wound
slowly along a lane, was lost, and reappeared 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.</p>
<p>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, was
hung over the seat which the deceased had occupied.</p>
<p>Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the 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."</p>
<p>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 an 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 favorite lamb 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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>"This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever<br/>
Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems<br/>
But smacks of something greater than herself;<br/>
Too noble for this place."<br/></p>
<p>The village was one of those sequestered spots which still retain some
vestiges of old English customs. It had its rural festivals and holiday
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 Mayday 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 visitors. Among these, on
one May-day, was a young officer whose regiment had been recently
quartered in the neighborhood. 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 favorite 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.</p>
<p>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 to the heart. The
beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses which
emanate from every word and look and action,—these form the true
eloquence of love, and can always 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.</p>
<p>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 splendor 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 demeanor, 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.</p>
<p>Her lover was equally impassioned, but his passion was mingled with
feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the connection 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 fervor. 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.</p>
<p>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
connections, 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 impassive charm
of virgin purity in whose hallowed sphere no guilty thought can live.</p>
<p>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 for marching was at hand, when he gave her the
intelligence in the course of an evening ramble.</p>
<p>The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It broke in 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 forever all
conspired to overwhelm his better feelings: he ventured to propose that
she should leave her home and be the companion of his fortunes.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 scenes 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
milk-maids, 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 gloom and that hallowed air which melancholy
diffuses round the form, they would make way for her as for something
spiritual, and looking after her, would shake their heads in gloomy
foreboding.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>By degrees her strength declined 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 on 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 everything 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 to hers 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 churchyard, into
whose bosom she might soon be gathered?</p>
<p>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
deathlike countenance—so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation—smote
him to the soul, and he threw himself in 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
forever.</p>
<p>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 connection with the affecting ceremony which I
had 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 churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled
coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been planted about
the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were bent over it to keep
the turf uninjured.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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