Part 6 (1/2)

And then for our immortal part! we want No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale: The thought of death sits easy on the man Who has been born and dies among the mountains.

LEONARD.

Your dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts Possess a kind of second life: no doubt You, Sir, could help me to the history Of half these graves?

PRIEST.

For eight-score winters past, With what I've witness'd, and with what I've heard, Perhaps I might; and on a winter-evening, If you were seated at my chimney's nook, By turning o'er these hillocks one by one, We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round; Yet all in the broad highway of the world.

Now there's a grave--your foot is half upon it-- It looks just like the rest; and yet that man Died broken-hearted.

LEONARD.

'Tis a common case.

We'll take another: who is he that lies Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves?

It touches on that piece of native rock Left in the churchyard wall.

PRIEST.

That's Walter Ewbank.

He had as white a head and fresh a cheek As ever were produced by youth and age Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore.

Through five long generations had the heart Of Walter's forefathers o'erflow'd the bounds Of their inheritance, that single cottage-- You see it yonder!--and those few green fields.

They toil'd and wrought, and still, from sire to son, Each struggled, and each yielded as before A little--yet a little--and old Walter, They left to him the family heart, and land With other burthens than the crop it bore.

Year after year the old man still kept up A cheerful mind, and buffeted with bond, Interest, and mortgages; at last he sank, And went into his grave before his time.

Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurred him G.o.d only knows, but to the very last He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale: His pace was never that of an old man: I almost see him tripping down the path With his two grandsons after him;--but you, Unless our landlord be your host to-night, Have far to travel--and on these rough paths Even in the longest day of midsummer--

LEONARD.

But those two orphans!

PRIEST.

Orphans!--such they were-- Yet not while Walter lived:--for, though their parents Lay buried side by side as now they lie, The old man was a father to the boys, Two fathers in one father:--and if tears, Shed when he talk'd of them where they were not, And hauntings from the infirmity of love, Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart, This old man, in the day of his old age, Was half a mother to them.--If you weep, Sir, To hear a stranger talking about strangers, Heaven bless you when you are among your kindred!

Ay--you may turn that way--it is a grave Which will bear looking at.

LEONARD.

These boys--I hope They loved this good old man?--

PRIEST.

They did--and truly: But that was what we almost overlook'd, They were such darlings of each other. For, Though from their cradles they had lived with Walter, The only kinsman near them, and though he Inclined to them, by reason of his age, With a more fond, familiar tenderness, They, notwithstanding, had much love to spare, And it all went into each other's hearts.

Leonard, the elder by just eighteen months, Was two years taller; 'twas a joy to see, To hear, to meet them!--From their house the school Is distant three short miles--and in the time Of storm and thaw, when every water-course And unbridged stream, such as you may have noticed Crossing our roads at every hundred steps, Was swoln into a noisy rivulet, Would Leonard then, when elder boys perhaps Remain'd at home, go staggering through the fords, Bearing his brother on his back. I've seen him On windy days, in one of those stray brooks-- Ay, more than once I've seen him--mid-leg deep, Their two books lying both on a dry stone Upon the hither side; and once I said, As I remember, looking round these rocks And hills on which we all of us were born, That G.o.d who made the great book of the world Would bless such piety--

LEONARD.

It may be then--

PRIEST.

Never did worthier lads break English bread; The finest Sunday that the autumn saw With all its mealy cl.u.s.ters of ripe nuts, Could never keep these boys away from church, Or tempt them to an hour of Sabbath breach.