Francesca Carrara/Chapter 91
CHAPTER XXXII.
"That day, the first of a re-union,
Which was to teem with lip communion."
Wordsworth.
Evelyn was soon in the depths of the forest after his parting with his mistress. If her image did not entirely occupy his mind, it at least reigned paramount over every other conjured up by the scene. And herein lies the difference between the love of man and that of woman. In his active and hurried career, it is impossible that love should hold the lonely and undivided empire it does over an existence of which it is at once the occupation and the resource. It is in solitude that the imagination exercises its gigantic power; and where are a woman's feelings nurtured but in solitude? The one passes so few hours alone, the other passes so many. What impassioned thoughts, how much of that poetry which first creates and then colours the future, haunt the lonely mornings and the long evenings, when the tapestry grows almost mechanically beneath the hand, but when the mind is wholly given up to the heart! A young girl has rarely any thing to call forth that romance inherent in every nature but the idea of her lover; and what a world of deep and beautiful feeling is lavished there! Every reverie in which she indulges is a poem, filled with the fanciful, the true, and yet the unreal.
But, however deeply and entirely a man may love, he can only yield to its influence the hurried moment, the occasional thought. Every day brings its toil and its struggle; and to meet these demands his mind must give its utmost energies. He cannot pass weeks, months—ay, and years—the eye fixed upon its daily task, but the fancies wandering far, far away. His soul must be in its labour: all the active paths in life are his own, and he must bring to their mastery, hope, thought, patience, and strength; he may turn sometimes to the flowers on the way-side, but the great business of life must be for ever before him. The heart which a woman could utterly fill were unworthy to be her shrine. His rule over her is despotic and unmodified; but her power over him must be shared with a thousand other influences.
Francesca herself would more than have pardoned—she would have sympathised with—the memories of pain and regret that flung a deeper shadow on his path than even the ancient branches that swung mournfully above.
He was oppressed by a nameless terror in his soul—he seemed conscious of the actual presence of that inexorable destiny whose iron rule is over this world; in whose tyranny there is no pity, and from whose decree there is no escape. Toys that we are in that cruel and gigantic hand, we think, plan, resolve, and execute,—when, lo! some slight circumstance defeats our utmost wisdom; or else the issue of our effort has been the very reverse of our hope. And yet we boast, "the soul to do, the will to dare," while every hour that passes by mocks us with our infirmity, and every event laughs our purposes to scorn.
He was now pursuing the very paths that had been haunted by his youthful dreams: how had their generous hopes been disappointed—how had their best efforts failed! What a lesson of human inconsistency was graved on the last few years! England had been laid desolate as by a foreign war—the best blood in the country poured forth like water—noble feelings wasted, evil ones called from their hiding-places by impunity—battles fought on the harvest-field—lives spared by the sword demanded by the scaffold,—and for what? The tumult was over, and all things returned to their old place; and the abuse remained without remedy, and the wrong without redress. Ah! if the doctrine of amelioration be true, what a mighty debt does the future owe to the past! And alas for those who have gone before! Methinks the struggle has been but ill repaid.
Evelyn pursued his way through the forest, often pausing to note its familiar beauty. The sky was of that faint blue which, together with the thin white clouds flitting over it, indicate a change about to take place in the atmosphere, as if the present calm were too spiritual to last. The germ, not the leaf, was on the bough: but the boughs alone cast a deep shadow around, save when some fair glade was filled with moonlight, and the ground shone silvery and tremulous; for the beam on the long grass had an effect like water.
More than once, through an opening in the outskirt, he caught sight of a shadowy outline on the air, and knew the turrets of his old ancestral halls. "How many of my fathers," thought he, "Have dwelt there in glad security, while I, the last of their name, wander proscribed on a soil once their own! Ah, Francesca! we could have been very happy to have dwelt beloved within those walls, with no wider circle of usefulness than our own tenantry, and our hopes bounded by our daily horizon."
His path now led into the deeper recesses of the wood—silent and solitary depths of shade, known but by few. His passing parted the near branches, and startled the deer from their slumber amid the wild flowers. He could see the timid creatures darting away, the moonlight glittering on their horns, till they vanished amid the darker shade which rested on the far-off and hidden dells.
His course now lay along a little brook, which rippled on its way, singing like a child out of the gladness of its own heart; and he listened, for his ear was caught by the sweet low music which the pebbles made amid those tiny waves. Suddenly there came the faint echo of some unusual sound,—it grew more distinct as he drew nearer, and at last he could distinguish the union of many voices chanting a grave and solemn air, whose melody came strange and sweet on the midnight wind. He could soon hear the words—they were those of the twenty-third Psalm; and the beautiful expression of entire confidence in the Almighty eye that was to watch over their safety, and in the Almighty hand that was to guide, came like a rebuke to the questioning discontent of his previous mood. What were the few passing bubbles of this life in the boundless eternity whose balance is hidden far from human eye?
Evelyn paused on the top of a hanging bank, which enabled him to command the scene below. Some twenty or thirty men and women were gathered in the ill-omened dell, which took its name from Rufus's Stone. Most of the faces were familiar to him, and all wore the same exalted and earnest expression, as every eye was upraised to the moonlit heaven, and every lip joined in the sacred song. In the midst stood one who leant exhausted against a tree—listening intent, but lacking power to swell the solemn strain. He was so wan, so altered, that Evelyn at first could scarcely recognise Major Johnstone.
It was obvious that this was one of those meetings held by the stricter sect of the Puritans, who, debarred from the free exercise of their religious observances, were fain to congregate in the lone forest and the silent night, and render up that worship whose danger was the best proof of its sincerity. There was not a stir nor a sound save that harmonious chant, which rose as if ascending, a worthy offering, to the Heaven above. The forest was like a mighty cathedral: the arches of the dark boughs were motionless like marble, while the pale moonlight kindled the glorious roof—a temple consecrated by the Eternal to his worship!
The young exile felt his spirit grow calm, and the beatings of his heart more still, as he listened to a hymn so often heard in boyhood, and never without reverence.
The notes died away in the distance; a light breeze sprang up and ruffled the leaves, as if the natural unrest of that vast wilderness had only been hushed by the influence of that calm and holy song. The voice of prayer now arose, and the group knelt, with folded hands and bowed faces, on the earth. Evelyn could hear the supplications for help in their present trouble, while some implored a blessing on what seemed a great and painful enterprise.
Evelyn was now convinced that he saw a band of those determined emigrants whom he had before heard were about to quit that country whose rulers, with short-sighted policy, would have persecuted them to the death, or else forced them into hypocrisy,—as if the sincere and the conscientious were not the very sinews of their country, or as if any form or ceremony could justify the interference of man between man and his God!
The government of Charles soon departed from its early moderation. The Puritans were obnoxious in every point of view—both as regarded the past, with which revenge, both public and private, had a long and bitter reckoning, and on account of the pure severity of their manners, in such contrast to the licence gaining ground every hour, and which, if it did not pay the homage of hypocrisy, at least yielded the acknowledgment of inveterate dislike. Moreover, their uncompromising adherence to what they believed to be matter of conscience, was a perpetual reproach on the time-serving expediency of a court, which looked not beyond immediate indulgence and present convenience.
Fine, imprisonment, and contumely, met the more rigid at every turn; and many began to loosen the ties which bound them to their native soil, and look to a dwelling beyond the ocean, where at least they might worship their God in peace. For this they met amid the forest boughs, instead of beneath the ivyed roof and within the white walls of churches, which had become places of insult to their belief; and a brief hour was snatched from night and sleep to pass in prayer and praise.
But the present time had a duty beside its religious offices. The group now assembled in that lonely dell assembled there for the last time. Never more would that accustomed atmosphere be filled with the voice of their thanksgiving—never more would those wild flowers yield to their knees bent in prayer!—other and mightier forests would echo their sacred song, and a strange herbage be pressed in their hour of adoration. Even now, the vessel rocked upon the waters, and in three days those pilgrims would be on their way to America. The everlasting Shepherd, who had guided his chosen people through the wilderness, his hand would be over them as well, and the broad Atlantic would yield at last another Canaan of peace and rest.
Evelyn saw many whom he knew well, and only waited till the service was completed to speak to them. But the assembly had hardly risen from their last act of silent prayer, when Major Johnstone addressed them. At first his voice was almost inaudible; but soon the spirit mastered the body, and his hollow but distinct tones gained a supernatural strength. His face was colourless, his large and sunken eyes gleamed with a strange and lurid light; his thin hand upraised shone in the moonlight—so emaciated was it, and so wan. The damps glistened visibly on his brow, and there was not a listener but felt that he was in the presence of death.