Possess a kind of second life: no doubt 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's 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? PRIEST. That's Walter Ewbank. He had as white a head and fresh a cheek With his two grandsons after him :-but you, But those two orphans LEONARD. PRIEST. Orphans !-Such they were Yet not while Walter lived :-for, though their parents Lay buried side by side as now they lie, Two fathers in one father: and if tears, Shed when he talk'd of them where they were not, Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart, Was half a mother to them.-If you weep, sir, To hear a stranger talking about strangers, Heaven bless you when your 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, 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 Was distant three short miles-and in the time Of storm and thaw, when every watercourse 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 That God who made the great book of the world LEONARD. It may be then- Never did worthier lads break English bread; The finest Sunday that the autumn saw, LEONARD. It seems, these brothers have not lived to be PRIEST. That they might Live to such end, is what both old and young, And what, for my part, I have often pray'd: LEONARD. Then James still is left among you? "Tis of the elder brother I am speaking: A pretty flock, and which, for aught I know, Had clothed the Ewbanks for a thousand years :- And Leonard, chiefly for his brother's sake, Resolved to try his fortune on the seas. "Tis now twelve years since we had tidings from him. That Leonard Ewbank was come home again, From the Great Gavel,* down by Leeza's banks, The Great Gavel, so called, I imagine, from its resemblance to the gable end of a house, is one of the highest of the Cumberland mountains. It stands at the head of the several vales of Ennerdale, Wastdale, and Borrowdale. The Leeza is a river which flows into the Lake of Ennerdale: on issuing from the lake, it changes its name, and is called the End, Eyne, or Enna. It falls into the sea a little below Egremont. And down the Enna, far as Egremont, And those two bells of ours, which there you see- Upon the Barbary coast.-'Twas not a little Was sadly cross'd-Poor Leonard! when we parted, LEONARD. If that day Should come, 'twould needs be a glad day for him; As any that should meet him PRIEST. Happy! Sir LEONARD. You said his kindred all were in their graves, And that he had one brother PRIEST. That is but A fellow tale of sorrow. From his youth That, though he was not of a timid nature, Yet still the spirit of a mountain boy In him was somewhat check'd; and when his brother Was gone to sea, and he was left alone, The little colour that he had was soon Stolen from his cheek; he droop'd, and pined, and pined— LEONARD. But these are all the graves of full-grown men ! PRIEST. Ay, sir, that pass'd away: we took him to us; He was the child of all the dale-he lived Three months with one, and six months with another; And wanted neither food, or clothes, nor love : And many, many happy days were his. But, whether blithe or sad, 'tis my belief And, when he lived beneath our roof, we found That often, rising from his bed at night, He in his sleep would walk about, and sleeping I judged you most unkindly. LEONARD. But this youth, How did he die at last? PRIEST. One sweet May morning (It will be twelve years since when spring returns) Like some vast building made of many crags; That rises like a column from the vale, Whence by our shepherds it is call'd THE PILLAR. And told them that he there would wait for them; Which at that time was James's home, there learn'd The morning came, and still he was unheard of: LEONARD. And that then is his grave? Before his death Ay, that he did PRIEST. LEONARD. And all went well with him? PRIEST. If he had one, the youth had twenty homes. LEONARD. And you believe, then, that his mind was easy?— E |