THE STORY OF MARGARET.
(Continued from Page 9.)
"I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale, With my accustomed load; in heat and cold, Through many a wood and many an open ground, In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair, Drooping or blythe of heart, as might befal; My best companions now the driving winds,
And now the "trotting brooks" and whispering trees, And now the music of my own sad steps,
With many a short-lived thought that passed between, And disappeared.
I journeyed back this way, When, in the warmth of midsummer, the wheat Was yellow; and the soft and bladed grass, Springing afresh, had o'er the hay-field spread Its tender verdure. At the door arrived, I found that she was absent. In the shade, Where now we sit, I waited her return. Her cottage, then a cheerful object, wore Its customary look,-only, it seemed, The honeysuckle, crowding round the porch, Hung down in heavier tufts; and that bright weed, The yellow stone-crop, suffered to take root Along the window's edge, profusely grew, Blinding the lower panes. I turned aside, And strolled into her garden. It appeared To lag behind the season, and had lost Its pride of neatness. Daisy-flowers and thrift Had broken their trim lines, and straggled o'er The paths they used to deck: carnations, once Prized for surpassing beauty, and no less For the peculiar pains they had required, Declined their languid heads, wanting support. The cumbrous bind-weed, with its wreaths and bells, Had twined about her two small rows of peas, And dragged them to the earth.
Was wasted.-Back I turned my restless steps;
A stranger passed; and, guessing whom I sought, He said that she was used to ramble far.- The sun was sinking in the west; and now
I sate with sad impatience. From within
Her solitary infant cried aloud;
Then, like a blast that dies away self-stilled, The voice was silent. From the bench I rose; But neither could divert nor soothe my thoughts. The spot, though fair, was very desolate-- The longer I remained, more desolate : And, looking round me, now I first observed The corner stones, on either side the porch, With dull red stains discoloured, and stuck o'er With tufts and hairs of wool, as if the sheep, That fed upon the Common, thither came Familiarly; and found a couching-place
Even at her threshold. Deeper shadows fell
From these tall elms; the cottage-clock struck eight;- I turned, and saw her distant a few steps.
Her face was pale and thin-her figure, too, Was changed. As she unlocked the door, she said, 'It grieves me you have waited here so long, But, in good truth, I've wandered much of late; And, sometimes-to my shame I speak-have need Of my best prayers to bring me back again.' While on the board she spread our evening meal, She told me-interrupting not the work Which gave employment to her listless hands--- That she had parted with her elder child; To a kind master on a distant farm Now happily apprenticed.' I perceive You look at me, and you have cause; to-day I have been travelling far; and many days About the fields I wander, knowing this Only, that what I seek I cannot find; And so I waste my time: for I am changed;
And to myself,' said she, 'have done much wrong And to this helpless infant. I have slept
Weeping, and weeping have I waked; my tears Have flowed as if my body were not such As others are; and I could never die. But I am now in mind and in my heart More easy; and I hope,' said she, 'that God Will give me patience to endure the things Which I behold at home.'
Your very soul to see her: evermore
Her eyelids drooped, her eyes were downward cast; And, when she at the table gave me food, She did not look at me. Her voice was low, Her body was subdued. In every act Pertaining to her house-affairs, appeared The careless stillness of a thinking mind Self-occupied; to which all outward things Are like an idle matter. Still she sighed, But yet no motion of the breast was seen, No heaving of the heart. While by the fire We sate together, sighs came on my ear, I knew not how, and hardly whence they came.
I took my rounds along this road again Ere on its sunny bank the primrose flower Peeped forth, to give an earnest of the spring. I found her sad and drooping: she had learned
No tidings of her husband; if he lived,
She knew not that he lived; if he were dead,
She knew not he was dead. She seemed the same In person and appearance; but her house
Bespake a sleepy hand of negligence;
The floor was neither dry nor neat, the hearth Was comfortless, and her small lot of books, Which in the cottage-window, heretofore Had been piled up against the corner panes In seemly order, now, with straggling leaves
Lay scattered here and there, open or shut, As they had chanced to fall. Her infant Babe Had from its Mother caught the trick of grief, And sighed among its playthings. Once again I turned towards the garden-gate, and saw More plainly still, that poverty and grief Were now come nearer to her: weeds defaced The hardened soil, and knots of withered grass; No ridges there appeared of clear black mold, No winter greenness; of her herbs and flowers, It seemed the better part were gnawed away Or trampled into earth; a chain of straw, Which had been twined about the slender stem Of a young apple-tree, lay at its root, The bark was nibbled round by truant sheep. Margaret stood near, her infant in her arms, And, noting that my eye was on the tree, She said, 'I fear it will be dead and gone Ere Robert come again.' Towards the house Together we returned; and she inquired If i had any hope:-but for her babe And for her little orphan boy, she said, She had no wish to live, that she must die Of sorrow. Yet I saw the idle loom Still in its place; his Sunday garments hung Upon the self-same nail; his very staff Stood undisturbed behind the door.
In bleak December, I retraced this way, She told me that her little babe was dead, And she was left alone. She now, released From her maternal cares, had taken up
The employment common through these wilds, and gained By spinning hemp, a pittance for herself;
And for this end had hired a neighbour's boy To give her needful help. That very time Most willingly she put her work aside, And walked with me along the miry road, Heedless how far; and in such piteous sort That any heart had ached to hear her, begged That wheresoe'er I went, I still would ask For him whom she had lost. We parted then- Our final parting; for from that time forth Did many seasons pass ere I returned
From their first separation, nine long years,
She lingered in unquiet widowhood;
A Wife and Widow. Needs must it have been A sore heart-wasting! I have heard, my Friend,
That in yon arbour oftentimes she sate
Alone, through half the vacant Sabbath day; And, if a dog passed by, she still would quit The shade, and look abroad. On this old bench For hours she sate; and evermore her eye Was busy in the distance, shaping things
That made her heart beat quick. You see that path,
Now faint, the grass has crept o'er is grey line; There, to and fro, she paced through many a day Of the warm summer, from a belt of hemp That girt her waist, spinning the long drawn thread With backward steps. Yet ever as there passed A man whose garments showed the soldier's red, Or crippled mendicant in sailor's garb,
The little child who sate to turn the wheel Ceased from his task; and she with faltering voice Made many a fond inquiry; and when they, Whose presence gave no comfort, were gone by, Her heart was still more sad. And by yon gate, That bars the traveller's road, she often stood, And when a stranger horseman came, the latch Would lift, and in his face look wistfully: Most happy, if, from aught discovered there Of tender feeling, she might dare repeat
The same sad question. Meanwhile her poor Hut Sank to decay; for he was gone, whose hand, At the first nipping of October frost,
Closed up each chink, and with fresh bands of straw Chequered the green-grown thatch. And so she lived Through the long winter, reckless and alone; Until her house by frost, and thaw, and rain, Was sapped; and while she slept, the nightly damps Did chill her breast; and in the stormy day Her tattered clothes were ruffled by the wind, Even at the side of her own fire. Yet still She loved this wretched spot, nor would for worlds Have parted hence; and still that length of road, And this rude bench, one torturing hope endeared, Fast rooted at her heart: and here, my Friend,- In sickness she remained; and here she died; Last human tenant of these ruined walls!"
THE extent of the influence of political systems will be forciby illustrated to us in a concise recollection of the records of political society.
It is an old observation, that the history of mankind is little else than a record of crimes. Though the evils that arise to us from the structure of the material universe are neither trivial nor few, yet the history of political society sufficiently shows that man is of all other beings the most formidable enemy to man. Among the various schemes that he has formed to destroy and plague his kind, war is the most terrible. Satiated with petty mischief and the nauseous detail of crimes, he rises in this instance to a project that lays nations waste, and thins the population of the world. Man directs the murderous engine against the life of his brother; he invents with indefatigable care refinements in destruction; he proceeds in the midst of gaiety and pomp to the execution of his horrid purpose; whole ranks of sensitive beings, endowed with the most admirable faculties, are mowed down in an instant; they perish by inches in the midst of agony and neglect, lacerated with every variety of method that can give torture to the frame.
This is indeed a tremendous scene!
Are we permitted to console ourselves under the spectacle of its evils, by the rareness with which it occurs, and the
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