Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

Not

some one of the female servants, or of my aunt, who would say, seeing me look pale, that Maria had been frightening herself with some of those nasty books: so she used to call my favourite volumes, which I would not have parted with, no, not with one of the least of them, if I had had the choice to be made a fine princess and to govern the world. But my aunt was no reader. She used to excuse herself and say that reading hurt her eyes. I have been naughty enough to think that this was only an excuse; for I found that my aunt's weak eyes did not prevent her from poring ten hours a day upon her Prayer-book, or her favourite Thomas à Kempis. But this was always her excuse for not reading any of the books I recommended. My aunt was my father's sister. She had never been married. My father was a good deal older than my mother, and my aunt was ten years older than my father. As I was often left at home with her, and as my serious disposition so well agreed with hers, an intimacy grew up between the old lady and me; and she would often say that she loved only one person in the world, and that was me. that she and my parents were on very bad terms; but the old lady did not feel herself respected enough. The attention and fondness which she showed to me, conscious as I was that I was almost the only being that she felt anything like fondness to, made me love her, as it was natural: indeed I am ashamed to say that I fear I almost loved her better than both my parents put together. But there was an oddness, a silence, about my aunt, which was never interrupted but by her occasional expressions of love to me, that made me stand in fear of her. An odd look from under her spectacles would some. times scare me away, when I have been peering up in her face, to make her kiss me. Then she had a way of muttering to herself, which, though it was good words and religious words that she was mumbling, somehow I did not like. My weak spirits, and the fears I was subject to, always made me afraid of any personal singularity or oddness in any one. I am ashamed, ladies, to lay open so many particulars of our family; but indeed it is necessary to the understanding of what I am going to tell you, of a very great weakness, if not wickedness, which I was guilty of towards my aunt. But I must return to my studies, and tell you what books I found in the closet, and what reading I chiefly admired. There was a great Book of Martyrs, in which I used to read, or rather I used to spell out meanings; for I was too ignorant to make out many words: but there it was written all about those good men who chose to be burnt alive rather than forsake their religion, and become naughty papists. Some words I could make out, some I could not: but I made out enough to fill my little head with vanity; and I used to think I was so courageous I could be burnt too; and I would put my hands upon the flames which were pictured in the pretty pictures which the book had, and feel them. But you know, ladies, there is a great difference between the flames in a picture and real fire and I am now ashamed of the conceit which I had of my own courage, and think how poor a martyr I should have made in those days. Then there was a book not so big, but it had pictures in, it was called Culpepper's Herbal: it was full of pictures of plants and herbs; but I did not much care for that. Then there was Salmon's Modern History, out of which I picked a good deal. It had pictures of Chinese gods, and the great hooded serpent, which ran strangely in my fancy. There were some law books too; but the old English frighted me from reading them. But, above all, what I relished was Stackhouse's History of the Bible, where was the picture of the Ark, and all the beasts getting into it. This delighted me, because it puzzled me and many an aching head have I got with poring into it, and contriving how it might be built, with such and such rooms, to hold all the world, if there should be another flood; and sometimes settling what pretty beasts should be saved, and what should not; for I would have no ugly or deformed beast in my pretty ark. But this was only a piece of folly and vanity, that a little reflection might cure

me of. Foolish girl that I was! to suppose that any creature is really ugly, that has all its limbs contrived with heavenly wisdom, and was doubtless formed to some beautiful end, though a child cannot comprehend it. Doubtless a frog or a toad is not uglier in itself than a squirrel or a pretty green lizard; but we want understanding to see it.

These fancies, ladies, were not so very foolish or naughty perhaps, but that they may be forgiven in a child of six years old; but what I am going to tell, I shall be ashamed of, and repent, I hope, as long as I live. It will teach me not to form rash judgments. Besides the picture of the Ark, and many others which I have forgot, Stackhouse contained one picture which made more impression upon my childish understanding than all the rest. It was the picture of the raising up of Samuel, which I used to call the Witch of Endor picture. I was always very fond of picking up stories about witches. There was a book called Glanvil on Witches, which used to lie about in this closet: it was thumbed about, and showed it had been much read in former times. This was my treasure. Here I used to pick out the strangest stories. My not being able to read them very well, probably made them appear more strange and out of the way to me. But I could collect enough to understand that witches were old women, who gave themselves up to do mischief; how, by the help of spirits as bad as themselves, they lamed cattle, and made the corn not grow; and how they made images of wax to stand for people that had done them any injury, or they thought had done them injury; and how they burnt the images before a slow fire, and stuck pins in them; and the persons which these waxen images represented, however far distant, felt all the pains and torments in good earnest which were inflicted in show upon these images and such al horror I had of these wicked witches, that though I am now better instructed, and look upon all these stories as mere idle tales, and invented to fill people's heads with nonsense, yet I cannot recall to mind the horrors which I then felt, without shuddering, and feeling something of the old fit return.

[ocr errors]

This foolish book of witch stories had no pictures in it; but I made up for them out of my own fancy, and out of the great picture of the raising up of Samuel, in Stackhouse. I was not old enough to understand the difference there was between these silly, improbable tales, which imputed such powers to poor old women, who are the most helpless things in the creation, and the narrative in the Bible, which does not say that the witch, or pretended witch, raised up the dead body of Samuel by her own power, but, as it clearly appears, he was permitted by the divine will to appear, to confound the presumption of Saul; and that the witch herself was really as much frightened and confounded at the miracle as Saul himself, not expecting a real appearance, but probably having prepared some juggling, sleight-of-hand tricks, and sham appearance, to deceive the eyes of Saul; whereas neither she, nor any one living, had ever the power to raise the dead to life, but only He who made them from the first. These reasons I might have read in Stackhouse's book itself, if I had been old enough, and have read them in that very book since I was older; but at that time I looked at little beyond the picture.

These stories of witches so terrified me, that my sleep was often broken; and in my dreams I always had a fancy of a witch being in the room with me. I know now that it was only nervousness; but though I can laugh at it now as well as you, ladies, if you knew what I then suffered, you would be thankful that you have had sensible people about you to instruct you, and teach you better. I was let grow up wild, like an ill weed; and thrived accordingly. One night that I had been terrified in my sleep with my imaginations, I got out of bed and crept softly to the adjoining room. My room was next to where my aunt usually sat when she was alone. Into her room I crept for relief from my fears. The old lady was not yet retired to rest, but was sitting with her eyes half open, half closed, her spectacles tottering upon her nose; her head

nodding over her Prayer-book; her lips mumbling the words as she read them, or half read them, in her dozing posture; her grotesque appearance, her oldfashioned dress, resembling what I had seen in that fatal picture in Stackhouse. All this, with the dead time of night, as it seemed to me (for I had gone through my first sleep), all joined to produce a wicked fancy in me, that the form that I had beheld was not my aunt, but some witch. Her mumbling of her prayers confirmed me in this shocking idea. I had read in Glanvil of those wicked creatures reading their prayers backwards; and I thought that this was the operation which her lips were at this time employed about. Instead of flying to her friendly lap for that protection which I had so often experienced when I have been weak and timid, I shrunk back, terrified and bewildered, to my bed, where I lay, in broken sleeps and miserable fancies, till the morning, which I had so much reason to wish for, came. My fancies a little wore away with the light; but an impression was fixed, which could not for a long time be done away. In the daytime, when my father and mother were about the house, when I saw them familiarly speak to my aunt, my fears all vanished; and when the good creature has taken me upon her knees, and shown me any kindness more than ordinary, at such times I have melted into tears, and longed to tell her of what naughty, foolish fancies I had had of her. But when night returned, that figure which I had seen recurred, -the posture, the half-closed eyes, the mumbling and muttering which I had heard. A confusion was in my head, who it was I had seen that night: it was my aunt, and it was not my aunt; it was that good creature, who loved me above all the world, engaged at her good task of devotions,-perhaps praying for some good to me. Again it was a witch, a creature hateful to God and man, reading backwards the good prayers; who would perhaps destroy me. In these conflicts of mind I passed several weeks, till, by a revolution in my fate, I was removed to the house of a female relation of my mother's in a distant part of the county, who had come on a visit to our house, and observing my lonely ways, and apprehensive of the ill effect of my mode of living upon my health, begged leave to take me home to her house to reside for a short time. I went, with some reluctance at leaving my closet, my dark walk, and even my aunt, who had been such a source of both love and terror to me. But I went, and soon found the good effects of a change of scene. Instead of melancholy closets and lonely avenues of trees, I saw lightsome rooms and cheerful faces. I had companions of my own age. No books were allowed me but what where rational or sprightly, that gave me mirth, or gave me instruction. I soon learned to laugh at witch stories; and when I returned, after three or four months' absence, to our own house, my good aunt appeared to me in the same light in which I had viewed her from my infancy, before that foolish fancy possessed me; or rather, I should say, more kind, more fond, more loving than before. It is impossible to say how much good that lady (the kind relation of my mother's that I spoke of) did to me by changing the scene. Quite a new turn of ideas was given to me. became sociable and companionable. My parents soon discovered a change in me; and I have found a similar alteration in them. They have been plainly more fond of me since that change, as from that time I learned to conform myself more to their way of living. I have never since had that aversion to company, and going out with them, which used to make them regard me with less fondness than they would have wished to show. I impute almost all that I had to complain of in their neglect to my having been a little unsociable, uncompanionable mortal. I lived in this manner for a year or two, passing my time between our house and the lady's who so kindly took me in hand, till, by her advice, I was sent to this school; where I have told you, ladies, what, for fear of ridicule, I never ventured to tell any person besides the story of my foolish and naughty fancy.

I

SUSAN YATES.

FIRST TIME OF GOING TO CHURCH.

I WAS born and brought up in a house in which my parents had all their lives resided, which stood in the midst of that lonely tract of land called the Lincolnshire fens. Few families besides our own lived near the spot; both because it was reckoned an unwholesome air, and because its distance from any town or market made it an inconvenient situation. My father was in no very affluent circumstances; and it was a sad necessity which he was put to, of having to go many miles to fetch anything he wanted from the nearest village, which was full seven miles distant, through a sad miry way, that at all times made it heavy walking, and after rain was almost impassable. But he had no horse or carriage of his own.

The church, which belonged to the parish in which our house was situated, stood in this village; and its distance being, as I said before, seven miles from our house, made it quite an impossible thing for my mother or me to think of going to it. Sometimes, indeed, on a fine dry Sunday, my father would rise early, and take a walk to the village, just to see how goodness thrived, as he used to say; but he would generally return tired and the worse for his walk. It is scarcely possible to explain to any one who has not lived in the fens what difficult and dangerous walking it is. A mile is as good as four, I have heard my father say, in those parts. My mother, who in the early part of her life had lived in a more civilized spot, and had been used .o constant church-going, would often lament her situation. It was from her I early imbibed a great curiosity and anxiety to see that thing which I had heard her call a church, and so often lament that she could never go to. I had seen houses of various structures, and had seen in pictures the shapes of ships and boats, and palaces and temples, but never rightly anything that could be called a church, or that could satisfy me about its form. Sometimes I thought it must be like our house and sometimes I fancied it must be more like the house of our neighbour, Mr. Sutton, which was bigger and handsomer than ours. Sometimes I thought it was a great hollow cave, such as I have heard my father say the first inhabitants of the earth dwelt in. Then I thought it was like a waggon or a cart, and that it must be something movable. The shape of it ran in my mind strangely; and one day I ventured to ask my mother, what was that foolish thing that she was always longing to go to, and which she called a church. Was it anything to eat or drink, or was it only like a great huge plaything, to be seen and stared at?—I was not quite five years of age when I made this inquiry.

This question, so oddly put, made my mother smile: but, in a little time, she put on a more grave look, and informed me that a church was nothing that I had supposed it; but it was a great building, far greater than any house which I had seen, where men and women and children came together twice a day, on Sundays, to hear the Bible read, and make good resolutions for the week to come. She told me that the fine music which we sometimes heard in the air, came from the bells of St. Mary's church, and that we never heard it but when the wind was in a particular point. This raised my wonder more than all the rest; for I had somehow conceived that the noise which I heard

was occasioned by birds up in the air, or that it was made by the angels, whom (so ignorant I was till that time) I had always considered to be a sort of birds : for, before this time, I was totally ignorant of anything like religion; it being a principle of my father, that young heads should not be told too many things at once, for fear they should get confused ideas, and no clear notions of anything. We had always indeed so far observed Sundays, that no work was done upon that day; and upon that day I wore my best muslin frock, and was not allowed to sing or to be noisy; but I never understood why that day should differ from any other. We had no public meetings: indeed the few straggling houses which were near us would have furnished but a slender congregation; and the loneliness of the place we lived in, instead of making us more sociable, and drawing us closer together, as my mother used to say it ought to have done, seemed to have the effect of making us more distant and averse to society than other people. One or two good neighbours indeed we had, but not in numbers to give me an idea of church attendance.

But now my mother thought it high time to give me some clearer instruction in the main points of religion; and my father came readily into her plan. I was now permitted to sit up half an hour later on a Sunday evening, that I might hear a portion of Scripture read, which had always been their custom ; though, by reason of my tender age, and my father's opinion on the impropriety of children being taught too young, I had never till now been an auditor. I was taught my prayers, and those things which you, ladies, I doubt not, had the benefit of being instructed in at a much earlier age.

The clearer my notions on these points became, they only made me more passionately long for the privilege of joining in that social service from which it seemed that we alone, of all the inhabitants of the land, were debarred : and when the wind was in that point which favoured the sound of the distant bells of St. Mary's to be heard over the great moor which skirted our house, I have stood out in the air to catch the sounds, which I almost devoured and the tears have come in my eyes, when sometimes they seemed to speak to me, almost in articulate sounds, to come to church, and because of the great moor which was between me and them I could not come; and the too tender apprehensions of these things has filled me with a religious melancholy. With thoughts like these, I entered into my seventh year.

And now the time was come when the great moor was no longer to separate me from the object of my wishes and of my curiosity. My father having some money left him by the will of a deceased relation, we ventured to set up a sort of a carriage: no very superb one, I assure you, ladies; but in that part of the world it was looked upon with some envy by our poorer neighbours. The first party of pleasure which my father proposed to take in it was to the village where I had so often wished to go; and my mother and I were to accompany him for it was very fit, my father observed, that little Susan should go to church, and learn how to behave herself; for we might some time or other have occasion to live in London, and not always be confined to that out-of-theway spot.

It was on a Sunday morning that we set out, my little heart beating with almost breathless expectation. The day was fine, and the roads were as good as they ever are in those parts. I was so happy and so proud. I was lost in dreams of what I was going to see. At length the tall steeple of St. Mary's church came in view. It was pointed out to me by my father as the place from which that music had come which I have heard over the moor, and had fancied to be angels singing. I was wound up to the highest pitch of delight at having visibly presented to me the spot from which had proceeded that unknown friendly music; and when it began to peal, just as we approached the village, it seemed to speak, "Susan is come," as plainly as it used to invite me to come when I heard it over the moor. I pass over our alighting at the

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »