Originally published in St. James's Magazine (W. Kent) vol.3 #9 (Dec 1861).
I am an old man; yet it only seems a very short time since I climbed the tall poplar-tree that grew before the Vicarage, in search of the starling's nest. I can fancy I hear the shout that greeted my descent with the long-coveted prize, and feel again the crimson mounting to my cheeks as it did when, turning to the Vicarage, I saw an expression of pain on the pale face of my father, as he stood at the Study window.
It seems to me but yesterday since I stood in the centre of that group of lads, and now—
"They are all gone, the old familiar faces,"
Dick, the surgeon's son, died many years ago in India. Harry Vernon; the bravest of them all, was slain on the field of Waterloo; and when the village bells rang for the victory, the rudest fellow in the village was touched as he passed the Grange and saw the blinds down, and knew of the breaking heart of old Widow Vernon.
It was a sad day for us at the Vicarage, especially for Emily. My father stayed in his Library all day; though I do not think he read a page in any of his books—even in his favourites, Sophocles and Horace.
Emily and my mother were in my mother's chamber all the day. From that day Emily gradually drooped and faded. Her beautiful face grew more exquisitely beautiful—her dark, deep, eyes became more full and lustrous, but they wandered restlessly, as though seeking some missing resting-place; her golden hair—(I have still a thick lock of it; amongst an old man's memorials of other days, "the days of auld lang syne")—hung more carelessly about her shoulders, and her pale cheeks were suffused with a rosy tint that gradually deepened into a burning crimson, whilst her sweet voice sunk almost into a whisper. As I looked at her, her startling beauty reminded me of the language of the Book my mother used to read to her as she lay on the couch in the drawing-room. Her "face was as the face of an angel."
Ah, me! how I am wandering from the circumstance I sat down to write about: but you must forgive an old man, for whenever I think of Emily it is always so. Let me see—yes, I remember perfectly.
It was Christmas Eve, in the year 1791, and the snow had been falling heavily all the day, blotting out the hedges and walls which surrounded the Vicarage, and burying the sun-dial that Willie and I had: carved with great pains during the long winter evenings. I had come from my father's Study, where I and Willie had been having our usual lesson in Latin. Willie was a high-spirited lad, of a very loving and affectionate disposition; though, when excited or in a passion, his temper was fearful to behold, and his eyes flashed with a strange light that made us all tremble, except my father. It was some time before my father came down; but when he did, we heard him lock the Study door after him, and he came down alone. He looked very stern and angry: he was in one of those moods which sometimes took possession of him when he was disturbed. Though my father was always silent when in these moods, yet I always thought there was a vivid resemblance between them and Willie's outbreaks of passion.
"Willie will not come down to-night," said he; "I have left him in the Study with a lesson that will keep him all night."
I thought I saw a tear start from my mother's eye, as she turned her face to the window and looked out upon the snow, which still continued to fall heavily.
It was the anniversary of Emily's birthday, and we were expecting a party of young friends (children of the neighbouring gentry) to pass the evening at the Vicarage.
It began to grow dark about four o'clock, and then our company began to arrive. There were, first, the children of Squire Harcourt, who came wrapped in soft furs and shawls in the old-fashioned cozy family carriage, with its couple of docile greys. Then came Harry Vernon, and his sisters, Emily and Agnes; and, as the time wore on, about a score of young people were assembled at the Vicarage. It was a merry party. My father, whom it would be an injustice to represent as an unkind man, threw himself into the spirit of our merriment as though he had been one of us. The furniture, excepting the old-fashioned piano, had been removed from the drawing-room, and it and the sitting-room had, by the removal of a partition, been thrown into one, making a large and commodious room, which had been plentifully hung with holly and other evergreens. The red berries gleamed like tiny masses of fire beneath the dark-green glossy leaves, and here and there my sister's hands had gracefully arranged bunches of many-coloured ribbons.
Many inquiries were made for Willie, and for a moment or two a shadow seemed cast upon the pleasure of the children when they were told that Willie, the presiding spirit of fun in every juvenile party, would not be with them; but all feeling of disappointment vanished as the time wore on—except from one gentle, loving spirit.
I knew that my mother was thinking of the dear boy in the room above us, for Willie was my mother's favourite. She was thinking of a handsome face pressed against the door, and of a tiny ear close to the keyhole, listening to the voices of the merry groups below. She knew these sounds would be exquisite torture to the prisoner. She knew how that quick eager spirit would fret in the Study above like a wild bird in a cage!
Sometimes I saw her whisper to my father,—and then his face grew hard and dark, and my mother's yet more sad and pained.
My sister played, with exceeding grace, some simple airs upon the old piano; and then—the boys choosing their partners from the graceful little maidens who stood with eager, blushing faces and beseeching eyes beneath the hotly in a corner of the room—the dance began. Whilst this was going on, I saw my father put something into my mother's hand. It was the Study key. With a grateful smile—oh, how sweet that smile was!—she left the room. I stole after her to the foot of the wide, old-fashioned staircase; I saw her glide swiftly up the stairs; and I could hear when she unlocked the door,—and when she opened it to pass in, the moonlight streamed brightly through the doorway on to the dark landing, and as its light fell on the face of the old clock which stood there, I saw it wanted but a few minutes of ten o'clock. I had not stood more than a minute at the foot of the stairs when I heard my mother cry "Willie!" Then I heard a piercing scream, and she suddenly passed me, her (face white as the snow that lay outside on the steps, and rushing into the room where my father was playing with the children, went straight up to him, and crying "Willie's gone! oh, Willie, Willie, darling!" fell fainting at his feet.
My sister, immediately left the piano, and with the aid of some cold water, my mother was restored very soon. Of course, this put an end to the festivities, and the children were soon on their way home, except Harry Vernon, who stayed to assist in the search for Willie. Afterwards my mother told us, that as she was endeavouring to amuse a group of the younger children, she heard Willie's voice distinctly calling "Mamma! mamma!" She instantly got the key, as I have before related, and went up to the Study. As soon as she opened the door she felt the window was open, by the rushing of the cold, frosty air past her. The instant she entered the room, she felt a tremour seize her. Why did not Willie spring to meet her? She felt in a moment that Willie was not there! The Study lamp was flickering out; there stood my father's easy-chair opposite a table on which lay his books and manuscripts, and amongst them poor Willie's soiled and hated Latin Grammar.
He must have climbed down the side of the old house, by the aid of the ivy-stems, which grew up to the pinnacles of the gables, on to the top of the antique portico, and from thence have leaped to the ground. Willie, agile as a squirrel, could easily have accomplished this.
In a few moments from the discovery of Willie's absence we—that is, my mother and father, Harry and myself, and two servants, one of them old Walter, who passionately loved Willie—were out in search of the missing one.
The snow was still falling heavily, but by the light of the moon, which was at full, we could see almost as distinctly as by daylight.
Strange to say, my mother went instinctively towards a deep pool of water, beneath the orchard wall, called by the villagers the Black Pool—so called because of its depth. Near it, and overshadowing it, grew an old gnarled thorn-bush, which, after many winters' frosts and snows, still preserved its vitality. It was a pleasant place in summer; the broad, fan-like ferns, with their beautiful serrated leaves, loved to grow there, and in that old thorn, a summer or two before, a nightingale had made its haunt, and sung through the long star-lit nights, and Willie and I had lain awake for hours listening to it.
I never, even now, hear the song of the nightingale without thinking of my darling brother and the chamber in which we slept. The villagers said it was haunted by something more than the nightingale; but that I never positively knew.
Well; I saw my mother bend down close to the water a moment, and then suddenly turn and pick something up from the ground at the foot of the thorn. She held it out a moment in the moonlight, and then gave a wild cry of pain. It was a little handkerchief of Willie's, edged with a particular kind of lace which she had put on herself. The water was still and rippleless—save a slight tremour, which might be caused by the breeze—and reflected the quiet stars in its dark face. My father, who was a good swimmer and a stranger to fear, quietly took off his coat, and in a moment was down at the bottom of the pool. I shall never forget the expression of anxiety on my mother's face as she bent forward over the pool. Her large dark eyes had something awful in the intensity of their gaze; her thin white hands were clasped convulsively upon her bosom; her lips were drawn tightly across her small white teeth, and we could hear her breathe as though she had been running rapidly.
It seemed an age before my father reappeared; but when he did, it was with Willie's pale, handsome face, looking more beautiful than ever, lying on his shoulder, and his long dark hair, which it always seemed a shame to cut, falling over his arm! 1 think I hear my mother's wild, despairing cry now, at the distance of seventy years. I have heard it at night in my quiet study; I have heard it on board-ship, when the stormwinds have thrown us like a feather amongst the frothing waves; I have heard it in old continental cathedrals, above the voices of the choir, the music of the organ, and the ringing and clashing of the bells.
Hush! I thought I heard it then! My father carried Willie home, and old Walter and the other servant assisted my mother. Willie was instantly got to bed, and the ordinary means used for his restoration, whilst old Walter was sent off on the brown mare to the doctor's. We heard the dull, heavy sound of her hoofs upon the snow, as she went off at a swift pace down the carriage-drive. In a short time she came back, bringing the doctor.
My mother was bending over Willie, and nervously swaying herself backwards and forwards, when he came in; but she rose immediately, and with wide, flashing eyes, exclaimed—
"Oh! doctor, save my boy! Oh, Willie! Willie, darling! Speak to me, my child!"
"I never read David's thrilling lament, "Oh, Absalom! my son, Absalom!" without thinking of my mother's great agony in Willie's chamber. The doctor was a remarkably skilful man; but it seemed a hopeless case. How my mother's eager eyes followed all his movements!
At last, when we were just despairing, Willie gently opened his eyes—those magnificent eyes of his! There was an unspeakable ecstacy on my mother's face, the like of which I have never seen since, and never expect to see again. It was coming light when the doctor left us, and Willie was in a refreshing sleep.
The many-coloured rainbow of Hope now hung over the Vicarage, alas! soon to fade away, leaving us but the cold rain and dark clouds of a great sorrow.
After an hour or two of sleep, Willie awoke, and told my mother how he heard the shouts and laughter of the children in the drawing-room, and how the music seemed to taunt him; and then, how he became afraid, and dared not look where the shadows lay in the Library; and how, as he watched the moon rise through the poplars before the window, he was tempted to climb down by the ivy-stems; and how he had wandered to the Black Pool, and been tempted to spring across it to get a bunch of crimson berries that hung from a branch on the other side, thinking he would give them her; and how he had missed his footing and fallen backward into the pond. Then he told her how he rose to the surface,—and how he was falling into a sweet and pleasant slumber at the bottom with thoughts of her passing dream-like through his mind,—and how he felt some hand touch him, and an exquisite sensation of pain as if he were dying,—and that was all he knew. How my mother wept and smiled, and clasped him to her bosom, and called him her darling Willie! I need not tell you now how my poor father kissed him, and asked—ay, he, the stern disciplinarian, asked—pardon of his own child. Willie, fatigued with his long talk, fell asleep again; but it was a troubled, broken slumber. His cheeks grew crimson, and his breath quick and hot, and he trembled as though he were very cold.
The doctor came again,—but this time he shook his head, and said there was no chance for him. My mother and father watched him night and day; but he grew worse and worse. Now he would talk of the wild bee's nest he had found a few days ago in a bank in the wood,—then he would shout as if at play; and then, whilst my father covered his face with his hands and the big tears trickled through his fingers in an agony of grief, he would try to repeat his Latin, and failing to do so correctly, he would begin again, saying in beseeching tones, "Oh! papa, forgive me! I cannot!"
Willie died one morning, just as the old year was dying amidst frost and snow, repeating his Latin lesson, as my mother held his head with its splendid dark locks on her bosom, and his little hand lay in my father's trembling palm.