by Charles Ollier.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.1 #2 (Mar 1842).
"No sun or moon, or other cheerful star,
Looked out of heaven! but all the cope was dark,
As it were hung so for her exequies!
And not a voice or sound to ring her knell,
But of that dismal pair, the scritching owl,
And buzzing hornet! Hark!" BEN JONSON.
I am an old man, and for many years have been a wanderer in foreign and remote lands. But now, tired even of novelty and variety, finding no pleasure or excitement in beholding the wonders of the world,—or, rather, having lost, through age, the power of taking interest in things which to younger minds are full of attraction,—my "truant disposition" has left me, and I have made an abiding home in Copseleigh, one of the villages of my native England. The quiet, the leafy seclusion, the hill-sheltered beauty, the quaint and straggling cottages, the solitary farm-houses, and the picturesque old church, suggest to me, instead of the pleasure of retirement, no other idea than the serenity of the grave; with which, indeed, all the meditations of my daily walks, and all my night reveries, are inseparably connected. To prepare for death is now the constant business of my life; and, possessed by this one absorbing thought,—this monomania, if so it may be called,—I have, by constant visits, made myself familiar with our old church-yard, and know by heart the inscription on every tombstone in it. I feel that I shall soon be one of the silent company sleeping beneath the grassy covering of that last home. I have outlived all my relatives and friends. An only and dearly-beloved sister was lost to me while I was abroad; and, in spite of anxious and prolonged inquiries, I never could ascertain whether she still lived; or, if not, where she breathed her last, nor in what ground her relics reposed. Her fate was wrapped in mystery, and with her the last of my family disappeared. Alas! who will supply an epitaph for the "frail memorial" which may indicate where I am laid?
I must not think of this: I must forget the affecting declaration of the poet,
"On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires."
There will be no one to bestow on me—a lonely man—these final consolations. But let me not complain: let me rather extract, if possible, something of comfort from circumstances which I may not change. If my death-bed cannot be cheered by the tender offices of wife, or children, or other kindred, I at least know that my end will be unproductive of pain to a single living creature. In this conviction, I find repose.
A simple, rustic, ancient pile, is the church belonging to the place of my sojourn. Like the generality of village fanes, it has a square and not lofty tower, touched in wandering lines with clinging ivy; a deep porch with stone benches on each side, and a low-roofed, tranquil, and humble nave. But its structure must originally have been very strong; for though centuries have rolled over its head, it is still undeformed by crude repairs or modern alterations, and stands with its grey, and sanctified, and time-hallowed honours about it. Leading to the porch are two rows of reverend yews, casting a solemn shade on the villagers as they pace along that avenue to their Sunday worship. The church-yard is fenced by a green hedge, of which the line is broken here and there by towering elms, giving to the edifice, especially as it stands a little apart from our village, an air of still and holy seclusion, of inviolable sanctity, of gentle awfulness, which even the most wanton and depraved—should such ever penetrate so pastoral a recess—would fear to outrage. As the parishioners are few, the surface of our burial-ground is seldom broken; so that, unlike those crowded cemeteries surrounding London, it presents frequent patches of soft and velvet turf, beautifying the loneliness with their emerald gleam. The tender melancholy inspired by this spot is increased by its being situated at the foot of the loftiest upland (for it can hardly be called a hill) in the neighbourhood. This slope fences the church and churchyard from tumultuous north-west winds, cherishes the brooding silence that inhabits there, and, in the evening, casts a premature shadow over the place. But, as towards the east it is more open, the morning light comes there at earliest dawn; and when the sun swells above the horizon, its slant rays fall on turfy graves and carved monuments, investing them with golden hues as with a glory. In this calm enclosure, this spiritual sanctuary, where few sounds are ever heard, except the numerous whispers of elm-tree leaves, or their rustling fall in autumn, or the untaught canticles of summer-birds, it is, as I have said, my delight to linger. In proof, however, that peace has taken its flight from earth, not deigning to abide for a season even in its stillest nooks, I became last year acquainted with a story, of which the elements are—rage, terror, delusion, and remorse, and of which the rustic burial-ground of Copseleigh was in part the scene. I am, moreover, though not an actor in them, personally concerned in the details.
It is well known, that the January and February of I841 were more than usually inclement. Iron frosts, heavy snow, bitter and furious gales, and angry rains characterized both months; but March set in without its usual north-east winds; and it was not until two or three weeks of it had passed, that the arid and withering quality of this period of the year became predominant. The approach of spring, under any aspect, however forbidding, is generally delightful to the heart of man, for it is the season of hope; but it brought with it no peculiar joys for me. To the happy mind of the brightest, wisest, most various, and most original of English essayists,[1] March is fraught with pleasure. "It is one of the best-natured months in the year," says he; "drying up the superabundant moisture of winter with its fierce winds, and thus restoring us our paths through the fields, and piping before the flowers like a bacchanal." In spite, however, of so poetical an eulogy, I did not mark this advent of the vernal quarter by haunting the fields, but confined my out-of-door perambulations to the old churchyard, in the shelter of which the cutting northern blasts were mitigated, though I was obliged to compound for an exposure to the eastern breeze.
Roaming thus frequently in these hallowed precincts of the dead, I could not fail to witness the greater portion of what passed there. The month of which I write was exceedingly unhealthy. March is generally a trying time, especially to the aged; but now the rapid alternation from soft south-western airs to rigid blasts from the east, made the time more than usually fatal. The sward of our burying-ground was accordingly broken up almost every other day. So great a mortality had not, for many years, been known in Copseleigh and its neighbourhood. Our old sexton was therefore called from the hermit-like seclusion in which he loved to dwell, and was compelled to face the savage winds as they rushed against him from the east. There was something singular in the character of this man: he shunned society, seldom or never held converse with his neighbours; lived in perfect solitude, in a hut situated in one of the green and tree-bordered lanes branching from the village; and, except that he evidently disliked his calling, seemed, of all others, fitted for the dreary offices of the churchyard. His figure was bent, more, as it would appear, from constant despondency than from age; his face was pale and haggard, and his voice that of one who had long bidden adieu to hope. The fitful and piercing glances of his eye gave symptoms of mental alienation, and he never entered the confines of our receptacle for the dead (though from it he drew the means of life) without a shudder. But what attracted the curiosity of the villagers more than all this, was the fact of his pertinaciously shunning, as if a nest of vipers lay there, a particular angle made by the porch and the body of the church, in the shadow of which was a single grave-mound, covered with rank grass, neglected, and unmarked by either headstone or footstone.
Though the corpse beneath this turfy hillock had lain there undisturbed for thirty years, and the ground was liable to be again opened, our sexton anxiously dissuaded the relatives of any person deceased against selecting that spot as a place of interment. The angle, he said, was almost always in shadow: it was grim, gloomy, and, worse than all, damp, from the constant dripping, in rainy weather, of the projecting church-roof. In accomplishing his point, he had hitherto found little difficulty, there being still so many unoccupied spots in the burial-ground. Nevertheless, his reluctance to open that solitary grave, and his constant avoidance even of approaching it, were, as I have said, noticed by the villagers in general, and by myself in particular, though none could form the remotest guess as to the cause.
One day—one bitter day in March—I repaired to my usual place of meditation, though all around was bare and comfortless, and hough the baleful east wind was abroad. So piercing were the blasts that I should have retreated to my home, had not my attention been attracted to the sexton, who was superintending the digging of a grave by his assistant. The work was going on near the nameless mound of which I have spoken. I had never before seen the sexton so close to it, and I watched him anxiously. Pacing restlessly by the side of the narrow chasm, he urged the man, in a voice tremulous with agitation, to hasten and complete his task. Being thus incessantly pressed, and seeing the perturbation of his master, the labourer plied his pickaxe and shovel so incautiously as to break into the confines of the neighbouring grave, and not only to lay bare part of the old coffin, but even to break away a piece of its mouldering wood. Seeing this, the sexton uttered a sudden shriek, and fell senseless to the ground.
The labourer sprang from the dismal pit he had formed, and, with my assistance, lifted his master from the earth. We bore him speedily to his house, laid him on his bed, and did our best to restore him to animation. In this, after an interval, we succeeded; and, having promised to send the village doctor to him, I was about to retire, when he begged I would stay, adding, that he had something to impart which for many years had oppressed and tortured him, and which he could no longer conceal. I acquiesced in his wish; when, having dismissed his assistant, he thus began:—
"I have been a sufferer many years. Racked with remorse, and languishing under broken health, my life has become a burden to me. Often have I longed to reveal a crime of which the memory is ever present, and which, like a perilous load, weighs me down, even unto the dust. But whom among my neighbours could I select as a fitting auditor for woes like mine?"
"The clergyman," I said; "why not confide in him?"
"No," replied my companion. "Our rector is a cold and haughty man, more used to the sports of the field than to administering spiritual consolation to such as I am. Besides, he seldom officiates here, and is perpetually changing his curates. As I have frequently seen you in our burial-ground, and during divine worship at church, and have perceived that your demeanour and mode of life differ widely from those of the other parishioners, it has long been my wish humbly to solicit that I might confide to you the secret of my agony. But, sir, I feared to ask so great a favour; and I dreaded still more to encounter the pangs of confession. My purpose has been thus procrastinated; and I should still have shrunk from it, had not the torturing incident of this day rendered silence no longer supportable. Besides, I feel that death is not far off."
The unhappy man here paused, being apparently exhausted. In a little time, however, he recovered; and thus resumed his story:—
"I must be brief in what I have to say. It is now nearly thirty years ago since I kept a school in a neighbouring country town. I was then in the prime of manhood, and my business succeeded so well as to warrant me in seeking a wife. At the house of a friend, I became acquainted with a young, and fair, and gentle being, who inspired me with a love more intense, more devoted, more passionate than I believe was ever felt by one human creature for another. I offered her my hand, and was rejected. My mortification was extreme; and I abandoned myself to the wildest impulses of sorrow. But when I learned, as I soon did, that she was already betrothed—nay, that she would speedily be married—my bosom, madman that I was! burned with the fiercest longings of revenge against the man who had interposed between me and the bliss for which I would then have impiously bartered my hopes of heaven!
"The marriage soon took place. The bride and bridegroom were settled, in a humble way of life, in the very town wherein I dwelt; and my rage was fed by seeing them from day to day existing in unrestrained happiness. With the spirit of a fiend, resolved, if possible, to destroy their felicity; and having discovered that the husband had formerly been engaged at sea in the merchant service, I found means (the war with France then raging hotly, and seamen being wanted for our ships) to get him hunted down by a press-gang, and he was dragged away from his shrieking wife, to a frigate then lying off the adjacent coast. The ship sailed immediately afterwards, and was soon engaged in a bloody conflict with the enemy, in which the young husband fell! The fatal news was quickly heard by his wife, who never smiled again.
"I now began to tremble at the consequences of my heinous treachery; but the worst of my suffering was to come—the final measure of my iniquity was yet to be accomplished. The hapless widow was soon to become a mother. Exhausted by sorrow, heart-broken, and suffering under penury, she died in giving birth to a child, who did not many hours survive her! How can I describe the terrors of conscience, the dismal throes of remorse that convulsed me when my fatal revenge was thus consummated? The gates of hell seemed yawning to demand me.
"Notwithstanding the fierce torture I underwent, I was selfish enough to rejoice that the poverty in which my victim died, warranted me, as one formerly acquainted with her, to offer to defray the expenses of her burial, provided I might select the spot where she should be laid. There was no one to object to this. I was actuated by an irrepressible desire to get the body removed from our town, for I could not endure to live in contiguity with her grave. If her remains should repose at some little distance, I fondly hoped that my horror would be abated. With this design, I ordered that the funeral should take place here, and I selected a gloomy and hidden spot in the churchyard of this village, where I thought both she and the memory of my crime would be hidden. It was late in an afternoon of March, thirty years ago, that the dead victim and her infant were given to earth. Twilight was coming on. The bleak and howling wind sounded like a dirge, chilling to the very heart myself and one only other mourner. The service was briefly dispatched, and we hurried from the spot, leaving two men busily employed in shovelling earth upon the coffin. How I exulted in the secrecy and obscurity of the place! Fool! madman! what can appease the ever-gnawing consciousness of guilt—what can elude the dreadful eye of God? I have myself frustrated my own design, and am led by the irresistible course of events to the daily contemplation of the object I desired to shun.
"The state of mind into which I was plunged by wickedness, rendered me unfit for my calling. I neglected my scholars, and they were not long in neglecting me. Want was fast approaching my door, when a vacancy occurred in the office of sexton to this village. It was offered to me; and my repugnance being overcome by the universal law of nature—self-preservation, I accepted it. For some time I endeavoured to lull the spasms of remorse by mixing in company, and frequenting the ale-house. Alas! this was of no avail. I became more and more the prey of the worm that dieth not. My night-slumber was constantly broken. Body and mind suffered equally.
"Thus far, monstrous as was my offence, you will give credence to what I have said. That which is to come, you will set down as the delusion of a disordered imagination. Indeed, I am not sure that it was not so, though when it occurred I fully believed in its reality. Whenever I walked to or from the inn at night, was I always encountered by a stranger who, I was certain, did not belong to the village. Whence he came, or why he should thus waylay me, I could not guess. His presence filled me with dread. I dared not speak to him; and he, on his part, was silent. I made many inquiries in the neighbourhood, but no one had ever seen him. Still he invariably crossed my path at nightfall; till at length I resolved not to stir abroad any more except in the full light of day.
"One night, as I was preparing for rest, a knock was heard at my door. I opened it, and was confronted by the stranger, who pushed past me, paced into my room, and sat down at the table. To my inquiries as to the cause of his visit, he deigned no reply, but bent on me a stern and searching gaze. Seared by his silence, no less than by his unearthly look, I started up in a paroxysm of fear, and would have fled the house, had he not grasped my arm and held me back. 'What are you? why come you here?' I again demanded. 'To punish you,' he replied. 'Come with me.' So saying, he drew me out of the house, forcing me to walk with him even to our churchyard, and to the obscure grave-mound, now lighted by the moon. 'Wretch!' exclaimed he, 'the innocent sleepers here were destroyed by you. They once were mine—my wife, my child! This meeting shall for ever hang upon your memory like a curse, and this spot shall be unto you a perpetual terror. Look at me!' I gazed at him, and instantly recognised the man as he appeared when I plotted against him thirty years ago! Aghast with fear, I turned away my face. 'Look again!' thundered he. I lifted my eyes towards him a second time, and, lo! an ashy and eyeless corpse was before me, which soon faded away into the night air! How I reached home, I know not; but the morning found me in a raging fever; from which I recovered only to endure prolonged torment. You must often have noticed my painful avoidance of the lonely grave. The cause is now before you."
Such was the end of the Sexton’s recital. Impelled by the interest his story had inspired, I asked what was the maiden name of the dead woman. Shudderingly he whispered it in my ear. "Great Heaven!" I exclaimed, "my sister! Inscrutable are thy ways, O Supreme Disposer of events!"
The Sexton never again left his bed; and died within a month after he had disclosed to me his miserable secret. The ghost, vividly as its appearance was impressed on him, was doubtless nothing more than the offspring of his own sick and terrified imagination—the fruit of that one dread idea which he could not hake off—the light-headed wandering of a heavy heart burning with fever.
A tomb has been erected at my cost over the grave of my sister, with the simple inscription--
Maria!
1. Leigh Hunt. See his "Months."