"Elsie told me," whispered Catherine, with a voice of fear, "that the poor old father planted a rose-bush on the grave,—it is strange it should live so long.—She said there was a grave-stone too—ah! there it is!—Let us go away."
As Harriet, bolder than her friend, or affecting to be so, reached forward, to remove the brier from the more lovely plant, in hopes that the rude and thorny veil might conceal other flowers, it yielded to her grasp, and revealed a hollow or sunken place in the ground, at one extremity of which was a rude stone, entirely shapeless and undressed, yet so placed as to mark undeniably the couch of some human clod of the valley. No name, letter, or device of any kind,—no inscription to record the virtues of the dead, no legend to perpetuate the grief of the living,—appeared on the rude monument; and, indeed, however expressive the shape and appearance of the hollow place to those already aware that a grave had been dug in this unsanctified nook, it is scarce probable that a stranger, stumbling upon it by chance, could have believed that in that coarse and dishonoured fragment, his foot pressed upon a funeral stone. It was a singular grave—it was a singular cemetery; and the maidens regarded the brambled pit and the solitary flower with awe, the one because her spirit was especially susceptible of impressions from melancholy objects, and the other because the legend of her companion had invested the place with an interest personal, it might be said, to herself.
How little reflection is expended upon,—yet how much is called for, by the grave,—by the lowliest hillock that is piled over the icy bosom, by the grassiest hollow that has sunk with the mouldering bones of a fellow creature! And in this narrow haven rots the bark that has ploughed the surges of the great vital ocean! in this little den, that the thistle can overshadow in a day's growth, and the molewarp undermine in an hour of labour, is crushed the spirit that could enthrall a world, and dare even a contest with destiny! How little it speaks for the value of the existence, which man endures so many evils to prolong; how much it reduces the significance of both the pomp and wretchedness of being, reducing all its vicissitudes into the indistinguishable identity which infinite distance gives to the stars,—a point without parallax, a speck, an atom! Such is life,—the gasp of a child that inspires the air of existence but once,—a single breath breathed from eternity. But the destiny that comes behind us,—oblivion! It is not enough that we moralize upon the equality of the sepulchre; that the rich man, whose soul is in the ostentation of a marble palace, and his heart in the splendour of the feast, should consider how small a pit must content him, or that the proud, who boast their 'pre-eminence above the beasts,' should know that the shaggy carcass and the lawn-shrouded corse must fatten the earth together. We should teach our vanity the lesson of humiliation that is afforded by the grave; neglecting the mighty mausoleums of those marvellous spirits which fame has rendered immortal, we should turn to the nameless tombs of the million, and in their deserted obscurity, discover the feeble hold which we ourselves must have upon earth and the memory of men. Friendship forgets what the devouring earth has claimed; and even enmity ceases at last to remember the resting place of a foe. Love ourselves as we may, devote our affections to others as we can, yet must our memory perish with us in the grave; and all the immortality we leave to be cherished among friends, is expressed in the distich of a poet, whom the anticipation of enduring renown could not blind to the transitoriness of real remembrance:
| Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay A week, and Arbuthnot a day.1 |
1 SWIFT—On the Death of Dr. Swift.
But there were other thoughts necessarily associated, and other feelings excited by this lonely sepulchre; and while Miss Falconer preserved a moody and painful silence upon its brink, Catherine bent over it, scarce conscious that she bedewed the rose-bush with a tear, or that her own shadow had descended, as it were, into the pit, with an ominous readiness.
It was a delightful evening; the air was full of balmy freshness, the landscape resplendently verdant, and the sky cloudless, save in the west, where the sun was sinking among curtains of gold and pillars of flame; and the solitude and quiet of the whole scene, broken by no sounds, except the ceaseless turmoil of the water-fall, and the plaintive scream of the fishing-eagles, which had deserted their gray perch, to bathe in the pure floods of sunset, that beautified the upper air,—the solitude, quiet, and beauty of every thing around and nigh, were additional arguments for silence.
But silence, long continued, was not consonant to the restless and impatient temper of Miss Falconer; and notwithstanding the indignant incredulity with which she had interrupted her friend's narrative, the same curiosity which compelled the commencement of it, still thirsted for the conclusion. The presence of the dead, however, in so wild, so forlorn, so unblest a spot, where, as it would seem, the shame of proud but humbled hearts had dug the neglected grave, worked powerfully on her feelings; and it was with a hesitating and quivering, though an abrupt voice, that she demanded, after gazing for a long time on the grave,
"Did others,—did any beside this bitter-tongued woman, accuse my father of this thing?"
"I know not," replied Catherine, with accents still more unsteady; "all that I have gathered was from Elsie; and when she speaks of these things, as I mentioned before, she becomes fearfully agitated, so that I have sometimes thought her wits quite unsettled. She never pretended to tell me the whole story; nor indeed would I have been disposed to ask or listen, knowing it would be improper to do so. All these things have come in broken hints and exclamations. What others in the neighbourhood may say or think, I know not, never encouraging any to speak to me on the subject. The step-mother soon followed the daughter,—Elsie says, heart-broken; you may see her tomb in the village church-yard. The old father, too, became another man, gloomy, solitary, and indifferent to his friends, so that the neighbours ceased to visit him. His sons no longer hunted with the young men of the country, but went, as in their war-expeditions, alone; and when others thrust themselves into their company, they quarrelled with them, so that they began to be universally feared and detested. To crown all, as soon as the Revolution burst out, they went over to the enemy; and being distributed among the wild and murderous bands of savages forming on the north-western frontiers, they soon obtained a dreadful notoriety for their deeds of daring and cruelty. Of course, this remarkable defection of the sons caused the unlucky father to be suspected and watched. He was accused, at last, of aiding and abetting them in their treasonable practices; and soon, either from timidity or a consciousness of guilt, he fled, seeking refuge within the royal lines. This was sufficient for his ruin; for after the usual legal preliminaries, he was formally outlawed, as his sons had been before, and his property confiscated. He died soon afterward, either at New York, or in Jamaica, where he had gone to seek his youngest son—the lad he had sent away as a substitute for the daughter."