“‘About half a mile from St. John’s College is the termination of a natural terrace, with the Cherwell close under it, in some places bright with yellow and red flowers glancing and glowing through the stream, and suddenly in others dark with the shadows of many different trees, in broad, overbending thickets, and with rushes spear-high, and party-coloured flags.
“‘After a walk in Midsummer, the emersion of our hands into the cool and closing grass is surely not the least among our animal delights. I was just seated, and the first sensation of rest vibrated in me gently, as though it were music to the limbs, when I discovered by a hollow in the herbage that another was near. The long meadow-sweet and blooming burnet half concealed from me him whom the earth was about to hide totally and for ever.
“‘Master Batchelor,’ said I, ‘it is ill-sleeping by the water-side.’
“‘No answer was returned. I arose, went to the place, and recognised poor Wellerby. His brow was moist, his cheek was warm. A few moments earlier, and that dismal lake whereunto and wherefrom the waters of life, the buoyant blood, ran no longer, might have received one vivifying ray reflected from my poor casement. I might not indeed have comforted—I have often failed; but there is one who never has; and the strengthener of the bruised reed should have been with us.
“‘Remembering that his mother did abide one mile further on, I walked forward to the mansion, and asked her what tidings she lately had received of her son. She replied that, having given up his mind to light studies, the fellows of the college would not elect him. The master had warned him beforehand to abandon his selfish poetry, take up manfully the quarterstaff of logic, and wield it for St. John’s, come who would into the ring. “‘We want our man,’” said he to me, “‘and your son hath failed us in the hour of need. Madam, he hath been foully beaten in the schools by one he might have swallowed, with due exercise.’”
“‘“I rated him, told him I was poor, and he knew it. He was stung, and threw himself upon my neck, and wept. Twelve days have passed since, and only three rainy ones. I hear he has been seen upon the knoll yonder; but hither he hath not come. I trust he knows at last the value of time, and I shall be heartily glad to see him after this accession of knowledge. Twelve days, it is true, are rather a chink than a gap in time; yet, O gentle sir, they are that chink which makes the vase quite valueless. There are light words which may never be shaken off the mind they fall on. My child, who was hurt by me, will not let me see the marks.”
“‘“Lady,” said I, “none are left upon him. Be comforted! thou shalt see him this hour. All that thy God hath not taken is yet thine.” She looked at me earnestly, and would have then asked something, but her voice failed her. There was no agony, no motion, save in the lips and cheeks. Being the widow of one who fought under Hawkins, she remembered his courage and sustained the shock, saying calmly, “God’s will be done! I pray that he find me as worthy as he findeth me willing to join them.”
“‘Now, in her unearthly thoughts she had led her only son to the bosom of her husband; and in her spirit (which often is permitted to pass the gates of death with holy love) she left them both with their Creator.
“‘The curate of the village sent those who should bring home the body; and some days afterward he came unto me, beseeching me to write the epitaph. Being no friend to stonecutters’ charges, I entered not into biography, but wrote these few words:—
JOANNES WELLERBY,
LITERARUM QUÆSIVIT GLORIAM,
VIDET DEI.’”