Night and Morning | Page 8

duties. The
emotions, therefore, of the Active Man were easily aroused within him.
But if this comparison between his past and present life rendered him
restless and disturbed, how much more deeply and lastingly was he
affected by a contrast between his own future and that of his friend!
Not in those points where he could never hope equality--wealth and
station--the conventional distinctions to which, after all, a man of
ordinary sense must sooner or later reconcile himself--but in that one
respect wherein all, high and low, pretend to the same rights--rights
which a man of moderate warmth of feeling can never willingly
renounce--viz., a partner in a lot however obscure; a kind face by a
hearth, no matter how mean it be! And his happier friend, like all men
full of life, was full of himself--full of his love, of his future, of the
blessings of home, and wife, and children. Then, too, the young bride
seemed so fair, so confiding, and so tender; so formed to grace the
noblest or to cheer the humblest home! And both were so happy, so all
in all to each other, as they left that barren threshold! And the priest felt
all this, as, melancholy and envious, he turned from the door in that
November day, to find himself thoroughly alone. He now began
seriously to muse upon those fancied blessings which men wearied
with celibacy see springing, heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks
afterwards a notable change was visible in the good man's exterior. He
became more careful of his dress, he shaved every morning, he

purchased a crop-eared Welsh cob; and it was soon known in the
neighbourhood that the only journey the cob was ever condemned to
take was to the house of a certain squire, who, amidst a family of all
ages, boasted two very pretty marriageable daughters. That was the
second holy day-time of poor Caleb --the love-romance of his life: it
soon closed. On learning the amount of the pastor's stipend the squire
refused to receive his addresses; and, shortly after, the girl to whom he
had attached himself made what the world calls a happy match: and
perhaps it was one, for I never heard that she regretted the forsaken
lover. Probably Caleb was not one of those whose place in a woman's
heart is never to be supplied. The lady married, the world went round as
before, the brook danced as merrily through the village, the poor
worked on the week-days, and the urchins gambolled round the
gravestones on the Sabbath,--and the pastor's heart was broken. He
languished gradually and silently away. The villagers observed that he
had lost his old good-humoured smile; that he did not stop every
Saturday evening at the carrier's gate, to ask if there were any news
stirring in the town which the carrier weekly visited; that he did not
come to borrow the stray newspapers that now and then found their
way into the village; that, as he sauntered along the brookside, his
clothes hung loose on his limbs, and that he no longer "whistled as he
went;" alas, he was no longer "in want of thought!" By degrees, the
walks themselves were suspended; the parson was no longer visible: a
stranger performed his duties.
One day, it might be some three years and more after the fatal visit I
have commemorated--one very wild rough day in early March, the
postman, who made the round of the district, rang at the parson's bell.
The single female servant, her red hair loose on her neck, replied to the
call.
"And how is the master?"
"Very bad;" and the girl wiped her eyes.
"He should leave you something handsome," remarked the postman,
kindly, as he pocketed the money for the letter.
The pastor was in bed--the boisterous wind rattled clown the chimney
and shook the ill-fitting casement in its rotting frame. The clothes he
had last worn were thrown carelessly about, unsmoothed, unbrushed;
the scanty articles of furniture were out of their proper places; slovenly

discomfort marked the death-chamber. And by the bedside stood a
neighbouring clergyman, a stout, rustic, homely, thoroughly Welsh
priest, who might have sat for the portrait of Parson Adams.
"Here's a letter for you," said the visitor.
"For me!" echoed Caleb, feebly. "Ah--well--is it not very dark, or are
my eyes failing?" The clergyman and the servant drew aside the
curtains and propped the sick man up: he read as follows, slowly, and
with difficulty:
"DEAR, CALEB,--At last I can do something for you. A friend of mine
has a living in his gift just vacant, worth, I understand, from three to
four hundred a year: pleasant neighbourhood--small parish. And my
friend keeps the hounds!--just the thing for you. He is, however, a very
particular sort