The Man of Feeling | Page 2

was none of his, the birds were gone: the curate showed me the spot
where they had lain basking, at the root of an old hedge.
I stopped and cried Hem! The curate is fatter than I; he wiped the sweat
from his brow.
There is no state where one is apter to pause and look round one, than
after such a disappointment. It is even so in life. When we have been
hurrying on, impelled by some warm wish or other, looking neither to
the right hand nor to the left--we find of a sudden that all our gay hopes

are flown; and the only slender consolation that some friend can give us,
is to point where they were once to be found. And lo! if we are not of
that combustible race, who will rather beat their heads in spite, than
wipe their brows with the curate, we look round and say, with the
nauseated listlessness of the king of Israel, "All is vanity and vexation
of spirit."
I looked round with some such grave apophthegm in my mind when I
discovered, for the first time, a venerable pile, to which the enclosure
belonged. An air of melancholy hung about it. There was a languid
stillness in the day, and a single crow, that perched on an old tree by
the side of the gate, seemed to delight in the echo of its own croaking.
I leaned on my gun and looked; but I had not breath enough to ask the
curate a question. I observed carving on the bark of some of the trees:
'twas indeed the only mark of human art about the place, except that
some branches appeared to have been lopped, to give a view of the
cascade, which was formed by a little rill at some distance.
Just at that instant I saw pass between the trees a young lady with a
book in her hand. I stood upon a stone to observe her; but the curate sat
him down on the grass, and leaning his back where I stood, told me,
"That was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of the name of
WALTON, whom he had seen walking there more than once.
"Some time ago," he said, "one HARLEY lived there, a whimsical sort
of man I am told, but I was not then in the cure; though, if I had a turn
for those things, I might know a good deal of his history, for the
greatest part of it is still in my possession."
"His history!" said I. "Nay, you may call it what you please," said the
curate; for indeed it is no more a history than it is a sermon. The way I
came by it was this: some time ago, a grave, oddish kind of a man
boarded at a farmer's in this parish: the country people called him The
Ghost; and he was known by the slouch in his gait, and the length of his
stride. I was but little acquainted with him, for he never frequented any
of the clubs hereabouts. Yet for all he used to walk a-nights, he was as
gentle as a lamb at times; for I have seen him playing at teetotum with
the children, on the great stone at the door of our churchyard.
"Soon after I was made curate, he left the parish, and went nobody
knows whither; and in his room was found a bundle of papers, which
was brought to me by his landlord. I began to read them, but I soon

grew weary of the task; for, besides that the hand is intolerably bad, I
could never find the author in one strain for two chapters together; and
I don't believe there's a single syllogism from beginning to end."
"I should be glad to see this medley," said I. "You shall see it now,"
answered the curate, "for I always take it along with me a- shooting."
"How came it so torn?" "'Tis excellent wadding," said the curate.--This
was a plea of expediency I was not in a condition to answer; for I had
actually in my pocket great part of an edition of one of the German
Illustrissimi, for the very same purpose. We exchanged books; and by
that means (for the curate was a strenuous logician) we probably saved
both.
When I returned to town, I had leisure to peruse the acquisition I had
made: I found it a bundle of little episodes, put together without art,
and of no importance on the whole, with something of nature, and little
else in them. I was a good deal affected with some very trifling
passages in it; and had the name of Marmontel, or a Richardson, been
on the title-page--'tis odds that I should have wept: