My mother had not yet been able personally to perform any of her accustomed charitable visits since her lying in; for she was too strict an observer of her religious duties, to go from home till she had gone to the parish church, and publicly offered up her prayers and thanksgivings to her blessed Creator and Saviour. The following Sunday was fixed upon as the day for this religious ceremony. My father expostulated; saying that the church was damp, and that she had better defer it till the next Sunday, and, in the mean time, take some gentle walks abroad, to enure herself by degrees to bear the walk and the fatigue of remaining in the church during the length of the service. He expressed his great dread of her catching cold, and having a relapse in consequence; but she firmly replied, that she never feared any evil when she was performing a sacred religious duty; that God was too wise and too good to permit one of his creatures to suffer, when in the act of obeying his commands; and she urged so many pious reasons to shew the necessity of her not delaying to perform what she termed her indispensable duty, that my father silently, but very reluctantly, submitted to her decision.
But, alas! alas! my father's prophetic forebodings were but too well founded! The ways of God are just, and the dispensations of his wisdom are not to be scanned, much more disputed, by impious man; to submit to his Divine will without repining, is the imperative duty of every sincere Christian. I shall never forget the day, nor the care and anxiety of my excellent father. We set off early, in order to walk leisurely to church, that my mother should not be so heated as to render her liable to catch cold; there was my mother leaning on the right upon my father, and on the left upon me, and two of my sisters, Elizabeth and Sophia, the one about five, and the other about seven years old, skipping lightly along before us. My mother enjoyed the walk very much, and as my father led her into the church, preceded by the clergyman, upon whom we had called in our way thither, the whole congregation spontaneously rose up to greet and to welcome their best and kindest benefactress and amiable neighbour. A gleam of pleasure beamed from every eye, and the curtseys and bows that were bestowed upon her, as she passed along the aisle, most clearly shewed that they proceeded from the impulse of grateful hearts. With a heavenly smile of inward delight, and with an air of the greatest sweetness, she returned their kind salutations. It was an enviable sight, and it imparted to me such sensations of pride and delight, as have been seldom, if ever, equalled since. To see an amiable parent, upon such an occasion, receive the spontaneous willing homage of three or four hundred, the whole, of her poorer neighbours, and the sincere congratulations and kind attentions of all her friends, of this happy village, was a scene never likely to be erased from the memory; every heart appeared to leap with joy, and it seemed to me as if that the whole congregation were preparing to join in prayer, and to participate in the performance of the divine service of the afternoon, with more than usual earnestness and zealous piety.
My mother, who was a tall, thin, elegant figure, and very fair, had a roseate flush spread over her delicate features, and she looked beautiful as she knelt to offer up her grateful and sincere adoration to the omnipotent, omnipresent, merciful Disposer of All. I believe that my father was the only person amongst the whole congregation who did not, at that moment, enjoy unmixed delight. I could discover that his enquiring eye was more frequently fixed upon my mother, than it was upon his prayer-book; a sort of uneasy doubt sat visible upon his brow, and it was plainly to be perceived that his prayers were interrupted by his meditations upon the fearful consequences which he apprehended might be the result of my mother's catching cold, by remaining within the walls of a large damp building, and that building only inhabited for a few hours once a week. But, while he was anticipating earthly misery by the loss of the greatest blessing that kind Heaven had ever bestowed upon man, my angelic mother's soul and body were alike absorbed in the most devout and earnest prayer. In the mean time, the beautiful rosy hue, that had spread such a lustre over her fair face, disappeared. My father's intense anxiety now became so obvious to me that the dreadful uneasiness of mind which he displayed drew my attention to the paleness which had succeeded the colour upon her cheek. The instant the clergyman began to pronounce the concluding prayer, "The peace of God," &c. my father flew across the seat, while my mother was yet on her knees, joining most fervently and devoutly in that beautiful sentence, and exclaimed, in a loud half whisper, which was heard all over the church, "for God's sake! are you not well, my love!" She appeared surprised at the earnestness of his manner, and rather hurt at being interrupted in her devotions; but replied, that she was very well, only a little cold. He hurried her out of the church, and scarcely gave her time to return the salutations of her neighbours, requesting her to take his and my arm, and hasten home as fast as possible, to avoid the effect of a chill which he very much feared that she had taken in the church.
When we got home she was rather fatigued, but, though the colour that had adorned her face did not return, she ate her dinner with a good appetite, and my father began to hope that his fears were groundless. His hope was soon blighted: my mother suddenly screamed out, saying that she had a violent pain in one of her feet. She complained of this pain, sometimes in one foot and sometimes in the other, till bed time; but my father, in order to hide his own forebodings, endeavoured to rally her, and in a joking way told her she was going to have the gout. She took some warm gruel, and retired early to rest.
About twelve o'clock my father came into my bedroom to awake me, and desired me to rise immediately, take my horse, and go for the family apothecary, who lived at a distance of about five miles. I, who was accustomed to rise at a moment's warning, jumped out of bed, and with the greatest haste performed the sad office. I accompanied the apothecary to her bedside before two o'clock, for I had made my poney almost fly thither and back. We found my poor father, who had been anxiously attending the progress of her disorder, in great distress. She had no sooner gone to bed than she was seized with cold chills, which continued, with alternate fever, the paroxysms of which had increased with such violence that she was already partially delirious. The next day Dr. Barvis[7], from Devizes, attended her and pronounced her in considerable danger. I mounted my poney, rode back with him, and soon returned again with the medicine he had prescribed; but my mother's disorder baffled all their skill and attention. My poor father was distracted; he never quitted her bedside for a moment; all his large farming concerns were left to the care of the servants; he desired me to go to them on the Monday morning, the day after my mother was taken ill, and to request them all to do their best in each of their separate departments, and they were left entirely to themselves; every other thought but what was directed to the attention and care of my mother was abandoned; my father, whom I had never known to neglect seeing all his servants once a day at least, and who suffered nothing to be done unless it was under his immediate direction, would not now listen even to an inquiry about his business; his whole soul was wrapped up in his attention to my mother, whose illness he had anticipated with a presaging spirit, even before it came upon her. I was incessantly employed in going too and from the medical attendants, and assisting to wait upon my mother; and from the time of her first attack she took nothing but from the hand either of myself or my father. Her illness was now pronounced to be a determined putrid fever, and she was continually in a delirious state. Her infant son, William, had been kindly received to nurse by an excellent neighbour, Mrs. Patient of Compton, a most worthy lady, who nursed him and her own son together, with great good-nature and ease to herself.
My mother grew worse and worse, and was at length pronounced by the physician past all hopes of recovery. My poor father was frantic; he, who possessed the most manly resolution and firmness upon all other occasions, was now by excessive grief and despair reduced almost to the level of a child; he alternately wept and prayed; but he wept and prayed in vain. I was at this time under seventeen years of age, and I had scarcely time to vent my sorrow. Although I was distressed beyond measure at the suffering of my mother, yet the affliction, the indiscribable anguish, of my father demanded almost as much of my attention as the illness of my mother. To see his noble soul bent down to the earth, driven almost to the madness of desperation, was to me a more heart-rending spectacle than the delirium which produced a sort of stupor in my mother. She had not been sensible for any considerable period of time together for two days; and we were under dreadful apprehensions that she would be taken from us without ever recovering her reason. This my poor father dreaded excessively; yet the very thing we most prayed for, proved, when it was ultimately granted to us, our greatest affliction; so incapable are poor frail mortals of judging what is best for them under such trying circumstances.
My mother had now lain as it were in a doze for about two hours, and my father and myself, who were anxiously watching every breath, observed her awake up, as if it were from a sound sleep; she appeared to feel as if she had recovered from a trance; she spoke; and to the great joy of my father and myself she was perfectly collected. But our joy was of the most transient nature. She looked around in the most melancholy manner, and having enquired where all the children were gone, she expressed a great desire to see them before she breathed her last; for she said she was perfectly sensible of her situation, and she must see her children once more. They had all been removed to the house of a friend, as those who remained were considered in imminent danger from infection, the putrid state of my mother having assumed a very alarming appearance, and no one was now left, except my father, myself, and the nurse; the maid servant having already failed with the fever. My poor father had entreated, nay had commanded me also to save myself by flight; but upon my knees I implored him to let me remain and participate with him in performing the last sad office for my dear mother; I told him that I should break my heart to leave him alone; for he really was now become an object of much greater pity than my dying parent.
My mother repeated so earnestly her wish to see her children, that they were immediately sent for, and she took a last sad farewell of them. They were hastened out of the room, that they might be removed at once from such a melancholy scene, and from the serious danger of contagion, arising from the dreadful state of their mother. To those who have never witnessed a parting of this sort, any attempt of mine to convey to them even a slight representation of the agony it inflicts on those who undergo it, would be in vain, for it is impossible. The great exertion of my poor mother, during this affecting scene, was such as left her almost without the power of speech; her respiration became excessively quick, and my afflicted father exclaimed, "I shall never hear her voice again!" She, however, soon recovered a little, and in the most plaintive strain lamented her approaching end, and prayed aloud to her blessed Saviour, to spare her life that she might have the happiness of seeing her children brought up. In fact, this most excellent of women appeared very much to dread the hand of death. My father now implored her to be tranquillised, and, in the most tender and affectionate manner, assured her, that of all living creatures she was, he thought, the best prepared to enter the presence of her Creator. She calmly replied that though to her knowledge she had never intentionally injured any human being, either in thought, word, or deed; though she had never neglected her duty to her Maker, but had always acted to the best of her judgment so as to deserve his mercy; yet, she trembled, and doubted, and feared to die. My father now observed that her voice faltered, and, to draw her attention from such a painful, heart-rending subject, he asked her if she knew me, supposing that she was becoming insensible. With the kindest look she took my hand, and gently replied, "I know him perfectly well, God bless him!" She then seized his hand also, and instantly expired, grasping both. Thus breathed the last, of as bright, as lovely, and as perfect a pattern of Christian piety as ever lived to grace society, and to adorn and bless a husband and family.
My father's sorrow was now become too intense for outward shew; he stood dumb and motionless, with his eyes fixed and rivetted upon her, in whose death he felt that he had sustained an irretrievable loss. We had both still hold of her hands; his mute, immovable figure looked like a statue; and I fancied that his heart was breaking. I seized him by the hand, and in the most supplicating manner implored him to leave the room. My extreme sorrow seemed to awake him from his trance; and I led him gently, and he followed involuntarily, out of the chamber. Having seated him in his armed chair, I knelt before him, and threw my head in his lap, there I gave a loose to my grief, and mingled my tears with those which were now flowing in streams down his manly cheeks. To endeavour to describe what I felt, upon this melancholy event, would be puerile in the extreme; none but those who have been placed in a similar situation are capable of comprehending the distress which enters the soul of such a husband and child, who had witnessed the last sad moments of such a wife and mother.
To have dwelt so long upon such a melancholy subject, may, perhaps, appear to some of my readers to be not only unnecessary, but tedious. I must, therefore, intreat their indulgence, by confessing my error, if an error it be. At the same time I must assure them, that I believe this to have not only been the most important event of my life, but that it was a matter of more serious importance to me than all the occurrences of my previous existence multiplied ten times ten fold; and this being the case, I shall rely upon their kind forgiveness with great confidence; for I feel that every incident of my life, for many years after this, may be fairly said to have been influenced in some degree, or in some way or other, by this ever to be regretted, never to be forgotten, loss.