Yes, and within thy beechen breast, Sweet sympathy conceals The characters that once confessed, Thy bark no more reveals.
Thy glossy fane now furrowed o'er, Protects from wandering gaze That name adored, which never more Thy jealous love betrays.
Thy roughened form,—my time-worn cheek, Alike refuse to tell The signs that idlers vainly seek Within this leafy dell.
But when the axe hath laid thee low, And bowed thy graceful head; And me, life's latest mortal foe, Shall number with the dead;
Then in our bosoms' inmost seat, The self same image found, Reveals to view its deep retreat, Fast in the heart-strings bound.
We gazed on each other, and the truth flashed upon our hearts in the same instant. Frederick and I, by a movement imparted from within, darted towards the tree together, and on examination found a part of the once varnished surface, raised into irregular carbuncles, where the bark had closed with time over some letters no longer legible. With much pains, we satisfied ourselves that the initials H. A. C. D. had been interwoven, and cut in the bark from the external face of which, these letters had been carried inward by the process of annual growth. It immediately occurred to us, that our beloved parents had made this a favourite haunt in happier days; and that the undying memory of some faithful mourner had sought again these now almost obliterated characters. Such mourner could have been no other than the dear surviving guardian of our youth; and our tears flowed without restraint, as we read again and again, the stanzas of which we had become accidentally possessed. The first movement of our minds was, as you may suppose, to restore them directly to their author; and it was not without considerable reasoning between ourselves, that either could convince the other of its being better to suppress the verses, and say nothing of the retreat. From mamma's never having communicated any hint relative to this little hermit-cell, it was obvious that she did not wish us to discover its situation; then, the pencilled lines had been lost for some time. She had made no inquiry about them; her memory was able in all probability, to supply them again; and in giving up what manifestly appeared to be mamma's own composition, such explanation might have ensued as would have opened all her wounds afresh, and destroyed ever afterwards the pleasure which she appeared to feel in visiting the sequestered spot which we had discovered. Upon mature deliberation then we agreed to hush up our little adventure, and keep the tender effusion that we had found, till some natural opportunity might occur of giving it back again to its owner.
Time has rolled on, and the gradual influence of its healing power is happily illustrated in the improved condition of our precious charge, (for I consider her as a blessing conferred upon her children, henceforward placed peculiarly in their care); and a moment having arrived in which Frederick agreed with me that we might venture to commence our little scheme, we set to work in the beginning of November, just at the time when the change of weather, and the death of faithful Dapple, that sole companion of our pilgrim's progress, conspired to prevent the discovery of our plan. Poor Tom Collins and his son, who live not far from the scene of our operations, were necessarily let into the secret, for they were manual contributors to the execution of our project; and had this not been the case, I should have still rewarded the former by a confidence, the distinguishing nature of which he knows how to appreciate, in return for a trait of feeling so unlike one's abstract notion of a peasant, and so delicate, that I must tell the anecdote of him, before I proceed with our works at the retreat. One day preparatory to our design, Frederick and I watched an opportunity when mamma was obliged to drive on business to a little town in our neighbourhood, and paid a visit to our favourite spot. We were sitting talking over past, present, and future, when a slight rustling amongst the leaves, announced the approach of some one; and presently poor Tom Collins, on tip-toe, and his finger, in sign of caution, placed upon his lip, stood before us. "Och, then," said he, "its I that am after running to stop your honours from coming down at all, at all, into my misthess's nook. I does be keeping the childer always from this place till the sun does be setting, and then I knows there 'ont be any danger in life of seeing her honour, for becaase she only comes of a morning."
"And Tom," answered I, "why are you so uneasy from the fear of seeing mamma?"
"Och, then, miss, my heart, I'll tell ye, and I never tould it afore, nor wouldn't now, only becaase I never seed any one of quality like, here, only her honour's self; and now if I don't tell, why may be she'd be fretted to think that you and Masther Fred. would find her out in her nook; and I knows very well, that she wouldn't like it, for when it plased God to take my poor boy Darby away from me, I'd covet to be all day moping if I could, down in that very bottom. Why, then, sure enough, it was there I was one Midsummer day, lying down flat on the ground beyont the big holly stump, and thinking heavy enough of Darby, becaase of all days in the year, 'twas his own birth day, when I heard a whispering like, under the baach-tree, so I gets up fair and softly, without making as much stir as a baatle among the laaves; why then mavourneen, what would I see but my misthess on her two knees, upon the could ground, looking up and praying like. Well, there I stood, and I seed her crying like droppings from the ivy beyant; and I heerd the words axing the Lord to make yees good childer, and mark yees to Glory. And then she'd ax Him to make her a good mother, and to keep and to help her all the days of her life; and sure, be the same token, God listened to her prayer, for she's the best of ladies. After that she'd get up, and talk to the tree all as one as if it was a Christian, about my maasther, for I heerd her say, Hinnery, and so I knew well enough who she'd be spaiking of, being that I'd be often that way talking myself to the air, as I may say, about Darby. Well, my heart grew so big, that I thought it would fairly jump out o'me; so with that, I slinged away; and seeing poor Dapple another day fastened behind the rock above, I says to myself, to be sure says I, she's moping there like myself, and so I never would come again till night fall; but when I have time, I does be above, not far off, only she can't see me, be raison I'd like, if any thing would be for going down the clift, to stop 'em till she'd be clear and clane out o' the place for the day. So that's all about it; and she don't be coming so often now, tho' in the main-time 'tis constant at her prayers or writing on a bit of a paper, or reading out of a little book that she does be, whenever she'll come to the lag below."
The eloquence of Demosthenes could not have worked upon our hearts like this simple story. I seized instinctively upon the rough hand of honest Tom, and Frederick did so likewise. We were too full to utter a word, but we each of us resolved that this trait should have its recording angel, and that, however tears might bedew the remembrance of it, they should never blot out the registry. Of this we said nothing, for it would have been a species of sacrilege to sully the purity of such genuine feeling, by making it an apparent cause of any temporal benefit. Oh what a withering breath is praise, and how sickly do the motives of action become, when flattery, that simoon of the heart, has passed over them! We now communicated our embryo purpose to Tom, and told him that we intended proceeding to work on the following day, as it was not likely, that during the winter season, my mother would visit her seat again. Pride and joy took possession of his countenance, as we developed our plan; and had we presented him with a purse of gold, I do not think that the expression of his face could have indicated such happiness as the feeling of being thus distinguished by our confidence, inspired.