Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories (19 page)

I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting, where joy and sorrow were so completely blended—Still he was alive!—he was come home!-he might yet live to comfort and cherish her old age!—Nature, however, was exhausted in him, and if any thing had been wanting to finish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been sufficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again.

The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had returned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assistance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk—he could only look his thanks. His mother was his constant attendant; and he seemed unwilling to be helped by any other hand.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood; that softens the heart and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and despondency—who that has pined on a weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land—but has thought on the mother “that looked on his childhood,” that smoothed his pillow and administered to his helplessness.—Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to her son that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness—nor daunted by danger—nor weakened by worthlessness—nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience—she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment—she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity. And if misfortune overtake him he will be the dearer to her from misfortune—and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace—and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him—

Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sickness and none to soothe, lonely and in prison and none to visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight—if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until he saw her bending over him, when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom and fall asleep with the tranquility of a child—In this way he died.

My first impulse on hearing this humble tale of affliction, was to visit the cottage of the mourner and administer pecuniary assistance, and, if possible comfort. I found, however, on enquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do every thing that the case admitted: and as the poor know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not venture to intrude.

The next Sunday I was at the village church; when to my surprize, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar.

She had made an effort to put on something like mourning for her son; and nothing could be more touching than this struggle between pious affection and utter poverty—A black ribband, or so—a faded black handkerchief—and one or two more such humble attempts to express by outward signs that grief which passes shew—When I looked round upon the storied monuments—the stately hatchments—the cold marble pomp, with which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed pride; and turned to this poor widow bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her god, and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious, though a broken heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief was worth them all.

I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the congregation and they were moved by it. They exerted themselves to render her situation more comfortable, and to lighten her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after she was missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the neighbourhood I heard with a feeling of satisfaction that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known, and friends are never parted.

In a preceding paper I have spoken of an English Sunday in the country and its tranquilizing effect upon the landscape; but where is its sacred influence more strikingly apparent than in the very heart of that great Babel, London? On this sacred day the gigantic monster is charmed into repose. The intolerable din and struggle of the week are at an end. The shops are shut. The fires of forges and manufactories are extinguished; and the sun, no longer obscured by murky clouds of smoke, pours down a sober yellow radiance into the quiet streets. The few pedestrians we meet, instead of hurrying forward with anxious countenances, move leisurely along; their brows are smoothed from the wrinkles of business and care; they have put on their Sunday looks, and Sunday manners, with their Sunday clothes, and are cleansed in mind as well as in person.

And now the melodious clangor of bells from church towers summons their several flocks to the fold. Forth issues from his mansion the family of the decent tradesman; the small children in the advance; then the citizen and his comely spouse, followed by the grown up daughters, with small morocco bound prayerbooks laid in the folds of their pocket-handkerchiefs. The housemaid looks after them from the window, admiring the finery of the family, and receiving, perhaps, a nod and smile from her young mistresses, at whose toilette she has assisted.

Now rumbles along the carriage of some magnate of the city; peradventure an Alderman or a Sheriff; and now the patter of many feet announces a procession of charity scholars in uniforms of antique cut, and each with a prayerbook under his arm.

The ringing of bells is at an end; the rumbling of the carriage has ceased; the pattering of feet is heard no more: the flocks are folded in ancient churches cramped up in bye lanes and comers of the crowded city; where the vigilant beadle keeps watch, like the shepherd's dog, round the threshhold of the sanctuary. For a time every thing is hushed; but soon is heard the deep pervading sound of the organ, rolling and vibrating through the empty lanes and courts; and the sweet chaunting of the choir making them resound with melody and praise. Never have I been more sensible of the sanctifying effect of church music than when I have heard it thus poured forth, like a river of joy through the inmost recesses of this great metropolis, cleansing it, as it were, from all the sordid pollutions of the week; and bearing the poor world worn soul on a tide of triumphant harmony to heaven.

The morning service is at an end. The streets are again alive with the congregations returning to their homes, but soon again relapse into silence. Now comes on the Sunday dinner, which to the city tradesman, is a meal of some importance. There is more leisure for social enjoyment at the board. Members of the family can now gather together, who are separated by the laborious occupations of the week. A school boy may be permitted on that day to come to the paternal home; an old friend of the family takes his accustomed Sunday seat at the board, tells over his well known stories and rejoices young and old with his well known jokes.

On Sunday afternoon the city pours forth its legions to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the sunshine of the parks and rural environs. Satyrists may say what they please about the rural enjoyments of a London citizen on Sunday, but to me there is something delightful in beholding the poor prisoner of the crowded and dusty city enabled thus to come forth once a week and throw himself upon the green bosom of nature. He is like a child restored to the mother's breast; and they who first spread out these noble parks and magnificent pleasure grounds which surround this huge metropolis, have done at least as much for its health and morality as if they had expended the amount of cost in hospitals, prisons and penitentiaries.

A tavern is the rendezvous, the Exchange, the staple of good fellows. I have heard my great grandfather tell, how his great, great grandfather should say, that it was an old proverb when his great grandfather was a child, that “it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine.”

MOTHER BOMBIE.

 

It is a pious custom in some Catholic countries to honour the memory of saints, by votive lights burnt before their pictures. The popularity of a saint, therefore, may be known by the number of these offerings. One perhaps is left to moulder in the darkness of his little chapel; another may have a solitary lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine of some beatified father of renown. The wealthy devotee brings his huge luminary of wax, the eager zealot his seven branched candlestick, and even the mendicant pilgrim is by no means satisfied that sufficient light is thrown upon the deceased, unless he hang up his little lamp of smoking oil. The consequence is, that in the eagerness to enlighten they are often apt to obscure; and I have occasionally seen an unlucky saint, almost smoked out of countenance by the officiousness of his followers.

In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakespeare. Every writer considers it his bounden duty to light up some portion of his character or works, and to rescue some merit from oblivion. The commentator, opulent in words, produces vast tomes of dissertations; the common herd of editors send up mists of obscurity from their notes at the bottom of each page, and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rush light of eulogy or research, to swell the cloud of incense and of smoke.

As I honour all established usages of my brethren of the quill, I thought it but proper to contribute my mite of homage to the memory of the illustrious bard. I was for some time, however, sorely puzzled in what way I should discharge this duty. I found myself anticipated in every attempt at a new reading; every doubtful line had been explained a dozen different ways and perplexed beyond the reach of elucidation; and as to fine passages, they had all been amply praised by previous admirers; nay, so completely had the bard of late been overlarded with panegyrick by a great German critick, that it was difficult now to find even a fault that had not been argued into a beauty.

In this perplexity I was one morning turning over his pages, when I casually opened upon the comic scenes of Henry the Fourth, and was in a moment completely lost in the mad cap revelry of the Boar's head Tavern. So vividly and naturally are these scenes of humour depicted, and with such force and consistency are the characters sustained, that they become mingled up in the mind with the facts and personages of real life. To few readers does it occur that these are all ideal creations of a poet's brain, and that, in sober truth, no such knot of merry roysters ever enlivened the dull neighbourhood of East cheap.

For my part I love to give myself up to the illusions of poetry. A Hero of fiction who never existed, is just as valuable to me as a hero of history who existed a thousand years since; and, if I may be excused such an insensibility to the common ties of human nature, I would not give up fat Jack, for half the great men of ancient chronicle. What have the heroes of yore done for me, or men like me?—They have conquered countries of which I do not enjoy an acre—or they have gained laurels of which I do not inherit a leaf—or they have furnished examples of hairbrained prowess, which I have neither the opportunity nor the inclination to follow. But old Jack Falstaff!—kind Jack Falstaff!—sweet Jack Falstaff!—has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment; he has added vast regions of wit and good humour, in which the poorest man may revel; and has bequeathed a never failing inheritance of jolly laughter to make mankind merrier and better to the latest posterity.

A thought suddenly struck me—“I will make a pilgrimage to East cheap,” said I, closing the book, “and see if the old Boar's head Tavern still exists. Who knows but I may light upon some legendary traces of Dame Quickly and her guests; at any rate, there will be a kindred pleasure in treading the halls once vocal with their mirth, to that the toper enjoys, in smelling to the empty cask, once filled with generous wine.”

The resolution was no sooner formed than put in execution. I forbear to treat of the various adventures and wonders I encountered in my travels—of the haunted regions of Cock-lane-of the faded glories of Little Britain and the parts adjacent; what perils I ran in Cateaton Street and Old Jewry; of the renowned Guildhall and its two stunted Giants, the pride and wonder of the city and the terror of all unlucky urchins—and how I visited London Stone and struck my staff upon it in imitation of that arch rebel Jack Cade.

Let it suffice to say, that I at length arrived in merry East cheap, that ancient region of wit and wassail, where the very names of the streets relished of good cheer, as Pudding Lane bears testimony even at the present day. For East cheap says old Stow, “was always famous for its convivial doings. The cookes cried hot ribbes of beef rosted, pies well baked and other victuals: there was clattering of pewter pots, harpe, pipe and sawtrie.” Alas! how sadly is the scene changed since the roaring days of Falstaff and old Stow. The mad cap royster has given place to the plodding tradesman—the clattering of pots and the sound of “harp and sawtry” to the din of carts and the accursed dinging of the dustman's bell; and no song is heard save haply the strain of some syren from Billingsgate chaunting the eulogy of deceased mackrel.

I sought in vain for the ancient abode of Dame Quickly. The only relique of it is a boar's head carved in relief in stone, which formerly served as the sign, but at present is built into the parting line of two houses which stand on the scite of the renowned old Tavern.

For the history of this little empire of good fellowship I was referred to a Tallow chandler's widow opposite, who had been born and brought up on the spot, and was looked up to as the indisputable chronicler of the neighbourhood. I found her seated in a little back parlour, the window of which looked out upon a yard about eight feet square, laid out as a flower garden; while a glass door opposite afforded a distant peep of the street through a vista of soap and tallow candles: the two views which comprised in all probability her prospects of life, and the little world in which she had lived, and moved, and had her being, for the better part of a century.