Jesse Cliffe

by Mary Russell Mitford

A strange contrast formed the old farmer, so gruff and bluff-looking—with his stout square figure, his weather-beaten face, short grey hair, and dark bushy eyebrows—to the slight and graceful child, her aristocratic beauty set off by exactly the same style of paraphernalia that had adorned the young Lady Janes and Lady Marys, Mrs. Dorothy's former charge, and her habitual grace of demeanour adding fresh elegance to the most studied elegancies of the toilet! A strange contrast!—but one which seemed as nothing compared with that which was soon to follow: for Phoebe, happening to be with her grandfather and her great friend and playmate Venus, a jet-black greyhound of the very highest breed, whose fine limbed and shining beauty was almost as elegant and aristocratic as that of Phoebe herself;—the little damsel, happening to be with her grandfather when, instigated by Daniel Thorpe's grumbling accusation of broken fences and I know not what, he was a second time upon the point of warning poor Jesse off the ground—was so moved by the culprit's tattered attire and helpless condition, as he stood twirling, between his long lean fingers, the remains of what had once been a hat, that she interceded most warmly in his behalf.

"Don't turn him off the Moors, grandpapa," said Phoebe, "pray don't! Never mind old Daniel! I'm sure he'll do no harm;—will you, Jesse? Venus likes him, grandpapa; see how she puts her pretty nose into his hand; and Venus never likes bad people. How often I have heard you say that. And I like him, poor fellow! He looks so thin and so pitiful. Do let him stay, dear grandpapa!"

And John Cobham sat down on the bank, and took the pitying child in his arms, and kissed and blessed her, and said, that, since she wished it, Jesse should stay; adding, in a sort of soliloquy, that he hoped she never would ask him to do what was wrong, for he could refuse her nothing.

And Jesse—what did he say to these, the first words of kindness that he had ever heard from human lips? or rather, what did he feel? for beyond a muttered "Thankye," speak he could not, But gratitude worked strongly in the poor boy's heart: gratitude!—so new, so overpowering, and inspired by one so sweet, so lovely, so gentle as his protectress, as far as he was concerned, all-powerful; and yet a mere infant whom he might protect as well as serve! It was a strange mixture of feelings, all good, and all delightful; a stirring of impulses, a quickening of affections, a striking of chords never touched before. Substitute the sacred innocence of childhood for the equally sacred power of virgin purity, and his feelings of affectionate reverence, of devoted service and submission, much resembled those entertained by the Satyr towards "the holy shepherdess," in Fletcher's exquisite drama.*

Our
"Rough thing, who never knew
Manners nor smooth humanity,"

could not have spoken nor have thought such words as those of the satyr; but so far as our English climate and his unfruitful territory might permit, he put much of the poetry into action. Sluggish of intellect, and uncouth of demeanour, as the poor lad seemed, it was quite wonderful how quickly he discovered the several ways in which he might best please and gratify his youthful benefactress.

* That matchless Pastoral, "The Faithful Shepherdess," is
so much less known than talked of, that subjoin the passage
in question. One more beauti can hardly be found in the
wide range of English poetry.
Satyr. Through yon same bending plain That flings his
arms down to the main; And through these thick woods, have I
run, Whose depths have never kiss'd the sun; Since the lusty
Spring began, All to please my master, Pan, Have I trotted
without rest To get him fruit; for at a feast He entertains,
this coming night, His paramour, the Syrinx bright.
[He sees Clorin and stands amazed.
But behold a fairer sight!
By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great, immortal race
Of the Gods; for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty,
Than dull, weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold
And live! Therefore on this mould
Slowly do I bend my knee,
In worship of thy deity.
Deign it, goddess, from my hand
To receive whate'er this land,
From her fertile womb doth send
Of her choice fruits; and but lend
Belief to that the Satyr tells:
Fairer by the famous wells
To this present day ne'er grew,
Never better nor more true.
Here be grapes whose lusty blood
Is the learned poet's good;
Sweeter yet did never crown
The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown
Than the squirrel whose teeth crack 'em.
Deign, oh fairest fair, to take 'em!
For these black-eyed Dryope
Hath often times commanded me,
With my clasped knee to climb;
See how well the lusty time
Hath deck'd their rising cheeks in red,
Such as on your lips is spread.
Here be berries for a queen,
Some be red, and some be green;
These are of that luscious sweet,
The great god Pan himself doth eat;
All these, and what the woods can yield,
The hanging mountain, or the field,
I freely offer, and ere long
Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;
Till when, humbly leave I take,
Lest the great Pan do awake,
That sleeping lies in a deep glade,
Under a broad beech's shade.
I must go,—I must run
Swifter than the fiery sun.
Clorin. And all my fears go with thee!
What greatness or what private hidden power
Is there in me to draw submission
From this rude man and beast? sure I am mortal;
The daughter of a shepherd; he was mortal,
And she that bore me mortal: Prick my hand
And it will bleed; a fever shakes me, and
The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink
Makes me a-cold. My fear says I am mortal.
Yet I hare heard (my mother told it me,
And now I do believe it) if I keep
My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair,
No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend,
Satyr, or other power, that haunts the groves,
Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion
Draw me to wander after idle fires,
Or voices calling me in dead of night
To make me follow, and so tempt me on
Through mire and standing pools to find my swain
Else why should this rough thing, who never knew
Manners nor smooth humanity, whose herds
Are rougher than himself, and more misshapen,
Thus mildly kneel to me? &c. &c.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works,
(Seward's edition,) vol. iii. p. 117—121.
How we track Milton's exquisite Comus in this no less
exquisite pastoral Drama! and the imitation is so beautiful,
that the perception of the plagiarism rather increases than
diminishes the pleasure with which we read either
deathless work. Republican although he were, the great poet
sits a throned king upon Parnassus, privileged to cull
flowers where he listeth in right of his immortal laurel-
crown.

Phoebe loved flowers; and from the earliest tuft of violets ensconced under the sunny southern hedge, to the last lingering sprig of woodbine shaded by some time-hallowed oak, the blossoms of the meadow and the coppice were laid under contribution for her posies.

Phoebe had her own little garden; and to fill that garden, Jesse was never weary of seeking after the roots of such wild plants as he himself thought pretty, or such as he found (one can hardly tell how) were considered by better judges to be worthy of a place in the parterre. The different orchises, for instance, the white and lilac primrose, the golden oxslip, the lily of the valley, the chequered fritillary, which blows so freely along the banks of the Kennett, and the purple campanula which covers with equal profusion the meadows of the Thames, all found their way to Phoebe's flower-plats. He brought her in summer evenings glow-worms enough to form a constellation on the grass; and would spend half a July day in chasing for her some glorious insect, dragon-fly, or bee-bird, or golden beetle, or gorgeous butterfly. He not only bestowed upon her sloes, and dew-berries, and hazel-nuts "brown as the squirrel whose teeth crack 'em," but caught for her the squirrel itself. He brought her a whole litter of dormice, and tamed for her diversion a young magpie, whose first effort at flattery was "Pretty Phoebe!"

But his greatest present of all, most prized both by donor and receiver, (albeit her tender heart smote her as she accepted it, and she made her faithful slave promise most faithfully to take nests no more,) was a grand string of birds' eggs, long enough to hang in festoons round, and round, and round her play-room, and sufficiently various and beautiful to gratify more fastidious eyes than those of our little heroine.