Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 | Page 6

din? Yet thou,
Nature, on this glorious May-day, rejoicing in all the plenitude of thy
bliss--we call upon thee to bear witness to the intensity of our
never-dying grief! Ye fields, that long ago we so often trode together,
with the wind-swept shadows hovering about our path--Ye streams,
whose murmur awoke our imaginations, as we lay reading, or musing
together in day-dreams, among the broomy braes--Ye woods, where we
started at the startled cushat, or paused, without a word, to hear the
creature's solitary moans and murmurs deepening the far-off hush,
already so profound--Ye moors and mosses, black yet beautiful, with
your peat-trenches overshadowed by the heather-blossoms that scented
the wilderness afar--where the little maiden, sent from the shieling on
errands to town or village in the country below, seemed, as we met her
in the sunshine, to rise up before us for our delight, like a fairy from the
desert bloom--Thou loch, remote in thy treeless solitude, and with
nought reflected in thy many-springed waters but those low pastoral
hills of excessive green, and the white-barred blue of heaven--no
creature on its shores but our own selves, keenly angling in the breezes,
or lying in the shaded sunshine, with some book of old ballads, or
strain of some Immortal yet alive on earth--one and all bear witness to
our undying affection, that silently now feeds on grief! And, oh! what
overflowing thoughts did that shout of ours now awaken from the
hanging tower of the Old Castle--"Wilton, Wilton!" The name of the
long-ago buried faintly and afar-off repeated by an echo!
A pensive shade has fallen across MAY-DAY; and while the sun is
behind those castellated clouds, our imagination is willing to retire into
the saddest places of memory, and gather together stories and tales of
tears. And many such there are, annually sprinkled all round the

humble huts of our imaginative and religious land, even like the
wildflowers that, in endless succession, disappearing and reappearing
in their beauty, Spring drops down upon every brae. And as ofttimes
some one particular tune, some one pathetic but imperfect and
fragmentary part of an old melody, will nearly touch the heart, when it
is dead to the finest and most finished strain; so now a faint and dim
tradition comes upon us, giving birth to uncertain and mysterious
thoughts. It is an old Tradition. They were called the BLESSED
FAMILY! Far up at the head of yonder glen of old was their dwelling,
and in their garden sparkled the translucent well that is the source of the
stream that animates the parish with a hundred waterfalls. Father,
mother, and daughter--it was hard to say which of the three was the
most beloved! Yet they were not native here, but brought with them,
from some distant place, the soft and silvery accents of the pure
English tongue, and manners most gracious in their serene simplicity;
while over a life composed of acts of charity was spread a stillness that
nothing ever disturbed--the stillness of a thoughtful pity for human sins
and sorrows, yet not unwilling to be moved to smiles by the breath of
joy. In those days the very heart of Scotland was
distracted--persecution scattered her prayers--and during the summer
months, families remained shut up in fear within their huts, as if the
snowdrifts of winter had blocked up and buried their doors. It was as if
the shadow of a thunder-cloud hung over all the land, so that men's
hearts quaked as they looked up to heaven--when, lo! all at once, Three
gracious Visitants appeared! Imagination invested their foreheads with
a halo; and as they walked on their missions of mercy, exclaimed--How
beautiful are their feet! Few words was the Child ever heard to speak,
except some words of prayer; but her image-like stillness breathed a
blessing wherever it smiled, and all the little maidens loved her, when
hushed almost into awe by her spiritual beauty, as she knelt with them
in their morning and evening orisons. The Mother's face, too, it is said,
was pale as a face of grief, while her eyes seemed always happy, and a
tone of thanksgiving was in her voice. Her Husband leant upon her on
his way to the grave--for his eye's excessive brightness glittered with
death--and often, as he prayed beside the sick-bed, his cheek became
like ashes, for his heart in a moment ceased to beat, and then, as if
about to burst in agony, sounded audibly in the silence. Journeying on

did they all seem to heaven; yet as they were passing by, how loving
and how full of mercy! To them belonged some blessed power to wave
away the sword that would fain have smitten the Saints. The dewdrops
on the greensward before the cottage door, they suffered not to be