CHAPTER IV.
My life--childhood I can scarcely call it--went quietly for severalyears. The eastern wing of the house was left unused, and rarelytraversed by any but myself. Foolish tales, of course, were told aboutit; but my frequent visits found nothing to confirm them. At night,whenever I could slip from the care of good but matter-of-fact AnnMaples, I used to wander down the long corridor, and squeeze through theiron gate now set there, half in hope and half in fear of meeting myfather's spirit. For such an occasion all my questions were prepared,and all the answers canvassed. My infant mind was struggling ever topierce the mystery which so vaguely led its life. Years only quickenedmy resolve to be the due avenger, and hardened the set resolve into afatalist's conviction. My mother, always full of religious feeling,taught me daily in the Scriptures, and tried to make me pray. But Icould not take the mild teachings of the Gospel as a little child. Tome the Psalms of David, and those books of the Old Testament whichrecount and seem to applaud revenge, were sweeter than all the balm ofGilead; they supplied a terse and vigorous form to my perpetualyearnings. With a child's impiety, I claimed for myself the mission ofthe Jews against the enemies of the Lord. The forms of prayer, which mymother taught me, I mumbled through, while looking in her gentle face,with anything but a prayerful gaze. For my own bedside I kept a widelydifferent form, which even now I shudder to repeat. And yet I loveddear mother truly, and pitied her sometimes with tears; but theshadow-love was far the deeper.
My father's grave was in the churchyard of the little village whichclustered and nestled beyond our lodge. It was a real grave. Thethought of lying in a vault had always been loathsome to him, and hesaid that it struck him cold. So fond was he of air and light andfreedom, the change of seasons and weather, and the shifting of the sunand stars, that he used to pray that they still might pass over hisburied head; that he might lie, not in the dark lockers of death, but inthe open hand of time. His friends used to think it strange that a manof so light and festive nature should ever talk of death; yet so heoften did, not morbidly, but with good cheer. In pursuance, therefore,of his well-known wish, the vaults wherein there lay five centuries ofVaughan dust were not opened for him; neither was his grave built overwith a hideous ash-bin; but lay narrow, fair, and humble, with a plain,low headstone of the whitest marble, bearing his initials deeply carvedin grey. Through our warm love and pity, and that of all the village,and not in mere compliance with an old usage of the western counties,his simple bed was ever green and white with the fairest of low flowers.Though otherwise too moody and reckless to be a gardener, I loved torear from seed his favourite plants, and keep them in my room until theyblossomed; then I would set them carefully along his grave, and lie downbeside it, and wonder whether his spirit took pleasure in them.
But more often, it must be owned, I laid a darker tribute there. Thegloomy channel into which my young mind had been forced was overhung, asmight be expected, by a sombre growth. The legends of midnight spirits,and the tales of blackest crime, shed their poison on me. From the dustof the library I exhumed all records of the most famous atrocities, anddevoured them at my father's grave. As yet I was too young to know whatgrief it would cause to him who slept there, could he but learn what hisonly child was doing. That knowledge would at once have checked me, forhis presence was ever with me, and his memory cast my thoughts, asmoonlight shapes the shadows.
The view from the churchyard was a lovely English scene. What higherpraise can I give than this? Long time a wanderer in foreign parts,nothing have I seen that comes from nature to the heart like a trueEnglish landscape.
The little church stood back on a quiet hill, which bent its wings in agentle curve to shelter it from the north and east. These bending wingswere feathered, soft as down, with, larches, hawthorn, and thelightly-pencilled birch, between which, here and there, the bluff rocksstood their ground. Southward, and beyond the glen, how fair a spreadof waving country we could see! To the left, our pretty lake, all clearand calm, gave back the survey of the trees, until a bold gnoll, fringedwith alders, led it out of sight. Far away upon the right, the Severnstole along its silver road, leaving many a reach and bend, which caughttowards eventide the notice of the travelled sun. Upon the horizonmight be seen at times, the blue distance of the Brecon hills.
Often when I sat here all alone, and the evening dusk came on, althoughI held those volumes on my lap, I could not but forget the murders andthe revenge of men, the motives, form, and evidence of crime, and nursea vague desire to dream my life away.
Sometimes also my mother would come here, to read her favourite Gospelof St. John. Then I would lay the dark records on the turf, and sitwith my injury hot upon me, wondering at her peaceful face. While, forher sake, I rejoiced to see the tears of comfort and contentment dawningin her eyes, I never grieved that the soft chastenment was not shed onme. For her I loved and admired it; for myself I scorned it utterly.
The same clear sunshine was upon us both: we both were looking on thesame fair scene--the gold of ripening corn, the emerald of woods andpastures, the crystal of the lake and stream; above us both the peacefulheaven was shed, and the late distress was but a night goneby--wherefore had it left to one the dew of life, to the other athunderbolt? I knew not the reason then, but now I know it well.
Although my favourite style of literature was not likely to improve themind, or yield that honeyed melancholy which some young ladies woo, tome it did but little harm. My will was so bent upon one object, and thewhole substance and shape of my thoughts so stanch in their soleductility thereto, that other things went idly by me, if they showed nopower to promote my end. But upon palpable life, and the doings ofnature I became observant beyond my age. Things in growth or motionround me impressed themselves on my senses, as if a nerve were touched.The uncoiling of a fern-frond, the shrinking of a bind-weed blossom, theescape of a cap-pinched bud, the projection of a seed, or the sparksfrom a fading tuberose, in short, the lighter prints of Nature'ssandalled foot, were traced and counted by me. Not that I derived amaiden pleasure from them, as happy persons do, but that it seemed mybusiness narrowly to heed them.
As for the proud phenomena of imperial man, so far as they yet survivethe crucible of convention--the lines where cunning crouches, the smilethat is but a brain-flash, the veil let down across the wide mouth ofgreed, the guilt they try to make volatile in charity,--all these I wasnot old and poor enough to learn. Yet I marked unconsciously the traitsof individuals, the mannerism, the gesture, and the mode of speech, thecomplex motive, and the underflow of thought. So all I did, and all Idreamed, had one colour and one aim.
My education, it is just to say, was neglected by no one but myself. Myfather's love of air and heaven had descended to me, and nothing but mymother's prayers or my own dark quest could keep me in the house.Abstract principles and skeleton dogmas I could never grasp; butwhatever was vivid and shrewd and native, whatever had point andpurpose, was seized by me and made my own. My faculties were not large,but steadfast now, and concentrated.
Though several masters tried their best, and my governess did all shecould, I chose to learn but little. Drawing and music (to soothe mymother) were my principal studies. Of poetry I took no heed, except inthe fierce old drama.
Enough of this. I have said so much, not for my sake, but for my story.