第182章 CHAPTER XL(1)

Friday,the first of August,1834.

Many may remember that day;what a soft,grey,summer morning it was,and how it broke out into brightness;how everywhere bells were ringing,club fraternities walking with bands and banners,school-children having feasts and work-people holidays;how,in town and country,there was spread abroad a general sense of benevolent rejoicing--because honest old England had lifted up her generous voice,nay,had paid down cheerfully her twenty millions,and in all her colonies the negro was free.

Many may still find,in some forgotten drawer,the medal bought by thousands and tens of thousands,of all classes,in copper,silver,or gold--distributed in charity-schools,and given by old people to their grandchildren.I saw Mrs.Halifax tying one with a piece of blue ribbon round little Louise's neck,in remembrance of this day.

The pretty medal,with the slave standing upright,stretching out to Heaven free hands,from which the fetters are dropping--as Ioverheard John say to his wife,he could fancy the freeman Paul would stand in the Roman prison,when he answered to those that loved him,"I HAVE FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT.I HAVE FINISHED MY COURSE.I HAVEKEPT THE FAITH."

Now,with my quickened ears,I often heard John talking quietly to his wife on this wise.

He remained by her side the whole forenoon--wheeling her about in her garden-chair;taking her to see her school-children in their glory on our lawn--to hear the shouts rising up from the people at the mill-yard below.For all Enderley,following the master's example,took an interest,hearty even among hearty hard-working England,in the Emancipation of the Slaves.

We had our own young people round us,and the day was a glorious day,they declared one and all.

John was happy too--infinitely happy.After dinner he carried his wife to her chair beside the weeping ash,where she could smell the late hay in the meadow,and hear the ripple of the stream in the beech-wood--faint,for it was almost dried up now,but pleasant still.Her husband sat on the grass,making her laugh with his quaint sayings--admiring her in her new bonnet,and in the lovely white shawl--Guy's shawl--which Mr.Guy himself had really no time for admiring.He had gone off to the school tea-drinking,escorting his sister and sister-in-law,and another lady,whose eyes brightened with most "sisterly"joy whenever she glanced at her old playfellow.

Guy's "sister"she nevertheless was not,nor was ever likely to be--and I questioned whether,in his secret heart,he had not begun already to feel particularly thankful for that circumstance.

"Ah,mother,"cried the father,smiling,"you'll see how it will end:all our young birds will soon be flown--there will be nobody left but you and me.""Never mind,John;"and stooping over him,she gave him one of her quiet,soft kisses,precious now she was an old woman as they had been in the days of her bloom."Never mind.Once there were only our two selves--now there will be only our two selves again.We shall be very happy.We only need one another.""Only one another,my darling."

This last word,and the manner of his saying it,I can hear if Ilisten in silence,clear as if yet I heard its sound.This last sight--of them sitting under the ash-tree,the sun making still whiter Ursula's white shawl,brightening the marriage ring on her bare hand,and throwing,instead of silver,some of their boyish gold colour into the edges of John's curls--this picture I see with my shut eyes,vivid as yesterday.

I sat for some time in my room--then John came to fetch me for our customary walk along his favourite "terrace"on the Flat.He rarely liked to miss it--he said the day hardly seemed complete or perfect unless one had seen the sun set.Thus,almost every evening,we used to spend an hour or more,pacing up and down,or sitting in that little hollow under the brow of the Flat,where,as from the topmost seat of a natural amphitheatre,one could see Rose Cottage and the old well-head where the cattle drank;our own green garden-gate,the dark mass of the beech-wood,and far away beyond that Nunneley Hill,where the sun went down.

There,having walked somewhat less time than usual,for the evening was warm and it had been a fatiguing day,John and I sat down together.We talked a little,ramblingly--chiefly of Longfield--how I was to have my old room again--and how a new nursery was to be planned for the grandchildren.

"We can't get out of the way of children,I see clearly,"he said,laughing."We shall have Longfield just as full as ever it was,all summer time.But in winter we'll be quiet,and sit by the chimney-corner,and plunge into my dusty desert of books--eh,Phineas?You shall help me to make notes for those lectures I have intended giving at Norton Bury,these ten years past.And we'll rub up our old Latin,and dip into modern poetry--great rubbish,I fear!Nobody like our old friend Will of Avon,or even your namesake,worthy Phineas Fletcher."I reminded him of the "Shepherd's life and fate,"which he always liked so much,and used to say was his ideal of peaceful happiness.

"Well,and I think so still.'Keep true to the dreams of thy youth,'saith the old German;I have not been false to mine.I have had a happy life,thank God;ay,and what few men can say,it has been the very sort of happiness I myself would have chosen.I think most lives,if,while faithfully doing our little best,day by day,we were content to leave their thread in wiser hands than ours,would thus weave themselves out;until,looked back upon as a whole,they would seem as bright a web as mine."He sat,talking thus,resting his chin on his hands--his eyes,calm and sweet,looking out westward--where the sun was about an hour from the horizon.