THE WIDOW AND HER SON.
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<span style="crey">Pittie olde age, within whose silver haires</span><span style="crey">Honour and reverence evermore have raind.</span>
<span style="crey">MARLOWES TAMBURLAINE.</span>
THOSE who are in the habit of remarking such matters must have noticed the passive quiet of an English landscape on Sunday. The clag of the mill, the regularly recurring stroke of the ?ail, the din of the blacksmiths hammer, the whistling of the ploughman, the rattling of the cart, and all other sounds of rural labor are suspehe very farm-dogs bark less frequently, being less disturbed by passing travellers. At such times I have almost fahe wind sunk into quiet, and that the sunny landscape, with its fresh green tints melting into blue haze, ehe hallowed calm.
<span style="crey">Sweet day, so pure, so calm, sh</span>
<span style="crey">The bridal of the earth and sky.</span>
Well was it ordaihat the day of devotion should be a day of rest. The holy repose which reigns over the face of nature has its moral in?uence; every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel the natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. For my part, there are feelings that visit me, in a try church, amid the beautiful serenity of nature, which I experienowhere else; and if not a mious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on any other day of the seven.
During my ret residen the try, I used frequently to attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering mos, its dark oaken panelling, all reverend with the gloom of departed years, seemed to ?t it for the haunt of solemation; but, being in a wealthy, aristocratieighborhood, the glitter of fashiorated even into the sanctuary; and I felt myself tinually thrown back upon the world, by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms arouhe only being in the whole gregation eared thhly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true Christian oor decrepit old woman, bending uhe weight of years and in?rmities. She bore the traces of somethier than abject poverty. The lingerings of det pride were visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble ireme, was scrupulously . Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone oeps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, all society, and to have nothi her but the hopes of heaven. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer; habitually ing her prayer-book, which her palsied hand and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which she evidently knew by heart, I felt persuaded that the faltering voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far before the responses of the clerk, the swell of the an, or the ting of the choir.
I am fond of l about try churches, and this was so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful bend and then wound its way through a long reach of soft meadow sery.
The church was surrounded by yew trees, which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows generally wheeling about it. I was seated there oill sunny m watg two laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of the most remote and ed ers of the churchyard,<cite></cite> where, from the number of nameless graves around, it would appear that the i and friendless were huddled into the earth. I was told that the new-made grave was for the only son of a poor hile I was meditating on the distins of worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell annouhe approach of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A of the plai materials, without pall or other c, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before with an air of cold indifferehere were no mock mourners irappings of affected woe, but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased, the poor old woman whom I had seeed oeps of the altar.
She was supported by a humble friend, who was endeav to fort her. A few of the neighb poor had joihe train, and some children of the village were running hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking mirth, and now pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity on the grief of the mourner.
As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson <big>??</big>issued from the church-porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer-book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had beeute, and the survivor enniless. It was shuf?ed through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeeling. The well-fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I hear the funeral service, that sublime and toug ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of words.
I approached the grave. The laced on the ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the deceased--"Gee Somers, aged 26 years." The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer; but I could perceive, by a feeble rog of the body, and a vulsive motion of the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with the yearnings of a mothers heart.
Preparations were made to deposit the in the earth. There was that bustling stir, which breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affe; dires given in the cold tones of business; the striking of spades into sand and gravel; which, at the grave of those we love, is, of all sounds, the most withering. The bustle around seemed to wakeher from a wretched revery. She<bdi></bdi> raised her glazed eyes, and looked about with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords to lower the into the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended her took her by the arm endeav to raise her from the earth, and to whisper something like solation: "Nay, now--nay, now--dont take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake her head, and wring her hands, as o to be forted.
As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the cords seemed to agonize her; but when, on some actal obstru, there was a jostling of the , all the tenderness of the mother burst forth, as if any harm could e to him who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering.
I could see no more--my heart swelled into my throat--my eyes ?lled with tears; I felt as if I were ag a barbarous part in standing by and gazing idly on this se of maternal anguish. I wao another part of the churchyard, where I remained until the funeral train had dispersed.
When I saw the mother sloainfully quitting the grave, leaving behihe remains of all that was dear to her oh, aurning to silend destitution, my heart ached for her. What, thought I, are the distresses of the rich? They have friends to soothe--pleasures to beguile--a world to divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the sorrows of the young?
Their growing minds soon close above the wound--their elastic spirits soon rise beh the pressure--their green and ductile affes soon twine round new objects. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward appliao soothe--the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is but a wintry day, and who look for no after-growth of joy--the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, destitute, m over an only son, the last solace of her years,--these are indeed sorrows which make us feel the impotency of solation.
It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way homeward, I met with the woman who had acted as forter: she was just returning from apanying the mother to her lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars ected with the affeg se I had witnessed.
The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from childhood. They had inhabited one of the cottages, and by various rural occupations, and the assistance of a small garden, had supported themselves creditably and fortably, and led a happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who had grown up to be the staff and pride of their age. "Oh, sir!" said the good woman, "he was such a ely lad, so sweet-tempered, so kind to every one around him, so dutiful to his parents! It did ones heart good to see him of a Sunday, drest out in his best, so tall, sht, so cheery, supp his old mother to church; for she was always fonder of leaning on Gees arm than on her good mans; and, poor soul, she might well be proud of him, for a ?ner lad there was not in the try round."
Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of scarcity and agricultur<dfn></dfn>al hardship, to enter into the service of one of the small craft that plied on a neighb river. He had not been long in this employ, when he was entrapped by a press-gang, and carried off to sea. His parents received tidings of his seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. It was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was already in?rm, grew heartless and melancholy and sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind feeling towards her throughout the village, and a certain respect as being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no one applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many happy days, she ermitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were chie?y supplied from the sty produs of her little garden, which the neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. It was but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she heard the cottage-door which faced the garden, suddenly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in seamens clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air of one broken by siess and hardships. He saw her and hasteowards her, but his steps were faint and faltering; he sank on his knees before her and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with a vat and wandering eye. "Oh, my dear, dear mother! dont you know your son? your poor boy, Gee?" It was, ihe wreck of her onoble lad; who shattered by wounds, by siess and fn impriso, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs homeward, to repose among the ses of his childhood.
I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting, where sorrow and joy were so pletely blended: still, he was alive! he was e home! he might yet live to fort and cherish her old age! Nature, however, was exhausted in him; and if any thing had been wanting to ?nish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been suf?t. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again.
The villagers, when they heard that Gee Somers had returned, crowded to see him, every fort and assistahat their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk--he could only look his thanks. His mother was his stant attendant; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any other hand.
There is something in siess that breaks down the pride of manhood, that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in siess and despondency, who that has pined on a weary bed in the and loneliness of a fn land, but has thought oher "that looked on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness? Oh, there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transds all other affes of the heart. It is her to be chilled by sel?shness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor sti?ed by ingratitude. She will sacri?ce every fort to his venience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame a in his prosperity; and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.
Pee Somers had known what it was to be in siess, and o soothe--lonely and in prison, and o visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight; if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed watg him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw her bending over him; when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died.
My ?rst impulse on hearing this humble tale of af?i was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer peiary assistance, and, if possible, fort. I found, however, on inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do everything that the case admitted; and as the poor know best how to sole each others sorrows, I did not veo intrude.
The Sunday I was at the village church, when, to my surprise, I saw the poor old woman t down the aisle to her aced seat oeps of the altar.
She had made an effort to put on something like m for her son; and nothing could be more toug than this struggle between pious affe and utter poverty--a black ribbon or so, a faded black handkerchief, and one or two more such humble attempts to express by outward signs that grief which passes show. When I looked round upooried mos, the stately hatts, the arble pomp with which grandeur mourned magly over departed pride, and turo this poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and up the prayers and praises of a pious though a broke, I felt that this living mo of real grief was worth them all.
I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the gregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her situation more fortable, and to lighten her af?is. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the neighborhood I heard, with a feeling of satisfa, that she had quietly breathed her last, and had goo rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known and friends are never pa<q>..</q>rted.
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