Читать книгу The Clergyman's Widow - Барбара Хофланд - Страница 4

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In the spring of the year 1793, as a young Englishman was picking his way through the streets of Lisbon, his attention was excited by a gentleman who was slowly walking on the other side of the street, supported by his cane. His dress and appearance were those of an English clergyman, and his apparent weakness induced the young man to believe he was one of the many who resort to the climate of Portugal, to ward off the effects of a disease at once the most hopeless and the most flattering with which human nature is afflicted—a disorder which seems peculiarly to seize on the most amiable and lovely of our species, and to single out the beautiful and excellent as its prey—a circumstance which gives to its subject an immediate interest in every bosom alive to the claims of humanity; and the youth who was now gazing intently on the fine features, and sighing over the broken form he contemplated, was calculated, in no common degree, to feel the purest sympathies, the best charities of the heart.

These strangers were just going to take advantage of the crossing which was made over the dirty street, now rendered impassable at any other part by the late fall of a heavy shower, when a tall Galician, loaded with a trunk on his shoulders, rudely pushed past the feeble invalid, in such a manner that he would have been completely overthrown in the mud, if the young man springing forward, had not seized his arm and helped him on his feet, while, with indignation flashing in his eye, he turned to chastise the insolence of the Galician.

'Patienza!' said the fellow, and stalked off.

'Patience, my young friend,' said the clergyman, with a placid smile, 'is indeed a virtue we must all practise in this country, and, as far as I am concerned in this affair, I shall rejoice in obeying its dictates, since the accident has given me the pleasure of hearing the voice of a countryman, the first I have happened to meet with since my landing.'

Mr. H——, the young man, replied, that the circumstance was not less pleasing to himself; and observing that the streets were very disagreeable to delicate people, offered the gentleman his arm, which was thankfully accepted; and turning back with him, he saw his new acquaintance safe to his lodgings, which he observed with pain were by no means suitable for the complaint under which he laboured.

It was impossible for a reflective mind not to see at once that the interesting invalid had to contend with the evils of confined circumstances, in addition to the sufferings of bodily infirmity; he was alone too—he had neither a servant to administer to his wants, nor a wife or daughter to alleviate his sorrows; he was, indeed, a stranger in a strange land; ignorant of the language, shocked with the conduct, disgusted with the manners of all around him, he seemed alone in the world, an isolated and deserted being, cut off from the society he was evidently calculated to adorn, and most probably from a scene where every benevolent propensity of his nature had been daily exercised.

While thoughts like these were passing in the mind of the youth, the good man on his part was surveying his guest with looks of fond and grateful approbation; and after taking a restorative medicine, for which it was evident he had great occasion, he informed him that his name was Gardiner; he was a clergyman who possessed a small living in Devonshire; that in going to baptize a sick child at some distance during the night, in the preceding autumn, he had caught a cold, which had fallen on his lungs; that after various applications, all medicine appearing ineffectual, he had been induced to try the celebrated air of Lisbon—'And who knows,' said he, faintly smiling as he spoke, 'who knows but it may restore me: I have only been three weeks in this place, and I sometimes fancy my cough is abated, and my fever less violent; and these favourable symptoms I communicated to my poor wife this morning.'

'But, my good sir,' interrupted H——, 'is it not a pity but Mrs. Gardiner had accompanied you?'

'The thing was impossible, sir; my poor wife is far advanced in her pregnancy: besides,' added he, in a tremulous tone, and his eyes glistening as he spoke, with a tear that could not be restrained, 'there were other reasons. I have already five children, and this sickness of mine has pressed very hard upon our little store; for my family would not rest without obtaining the best advice for me; and though the young man who has for some time done my duty accepts but a very slender pittance for his services, yet every thing, you know, adds to expence we are ill provided to bear: but you,' added he, 'you are young, and cannot be supposed to understand these things. Come and see me to-morrow, and I will try to amuse you better.'

Deeply penetrated with sympathy and awakened affection, the young man took his leave, perceiving that a chord was awakened in the heart of this tender parent, which vibrated too strongly for his feeble frame to bear. On his retiring, the good man sought repose where alone he could find it—in the consolations of that religion which had been his guide through life, and was his hope in death: with humble confidence he devoted not only his own soul to the hands of a merciful Redeemer, but the safety of those so exquisitely endeared to him, that their welfare appeared infinitely dearer than his own; for them he had lived, and still wished to live; and if ever he lifted up his eyes to God, to implore prolonged existence, for their sakes he looked—for them he implored, but, with the submission of his Great Master, concluded every orison with, 'not my will, but thine be done.'

Mr. Gardiner had attached himself early in life to a very amiable orphan, whose helpless situation had first excited his pity, whose good conduct secured his esteem, and whose many amiable qualities, on a further acquaintance, engaged his fondest affection: uniting the utmost simplicity of manners with a sound judgment and an active mind, Maria Benson appeared uncommonly calculated to fulfil the duties of a country pastor's wife; and as soon as the gift of a small living, to which a little farm was attached, became Mr. Gardiner's lot, he married her, and proved her power of fulfilling them to the full extent.

They had at this period been married fifteen years, and in that time she had been the mother of seven children: two fine boys their pious parents had consigned to the dust; but three fine girls and two infant sons were still their precious companions. To educate those pledges of a love which increased with time, agreeable to their rank in society, and their very bounded prospects, was a task of no little difficulty; but it fell on those who knew how to discharge it faithfully; their good father had been their only preceptor, their mother their only governess, at such times as the many cares of her household allowed her to attend them; at others, the ancient schoolmistress of the village supplied her place.

The situation of Mr. Gardiner was such as to call forth every benevolent exertion; his parish was extensive, but its inhabitants poor; and he found them ignorant, stubborn, and though not always ill-natured, yet uniformly ill-bred: mild by nature, and patient through principle, he applied himself with gentle diligence to cultivate the sterile mind, and soften the stony heart; with some difficulty he prevailed on the peasantry to suffer him to instruct their youth, for a few of the first years of his residence—a task in which his Maria took her share: with such happy effects was this care attended, that when the claims of his own family obliged him to relinquish this charge, the inhabitants of his village were become willing and able to maintain a schoolmaster respectably; and so much was he beloved for his exertion, and revered for his steady exercise of every Christian virtue, that at the time of his departure for Lisbon, not a being existed within the circle of his duties, who did not feel they were parting with a father and a friend: in every house there were prayers offered for the restoration of their minister: some were lamenting the teacher who had instructed them; others, the friend whose counsel and good offices had assisted them: and all, the compassionate comforter, who, like the angel of pity, at one time or other, had soothed their afflictions, and wiped away their tears.

But this simple and affectionate people had offered not only prayers and blessings for their good rector's restoration; some of them knew very well the state of his finances, and would, according to their own bounded power, have given more substantial proofs of their attachment; but this the delicacy of superior minds shrank from receiving; and one thing after another was parted with out of the farming stock, to procure the means of making the wished-for voyage, till nearly all was gone: and one neighbour, whose only son Mrs. Gardiner had nursed through a fever, was obliged to insist on her accepting a cow, till his reverence came back; and another, whom the good pastor had rescued from the horrors of a lawsuit, declared, if she would not accept his wheat, 'he zhould think her main cruel, zo he zhould.'

To glance on the feelings of such a wife and such a parent, at the moment of departing on such an awful occasion, is impossible; those who have suffered similar privations will see it all, and sympathize with it; the thoughtless and unfeeling are unworthy of the picture: it is therefore sufficient to say, that after a tedious and uninteresting voyage, in which his disorder gained ground, Mr. Gardiner arrived at Lisbon, with not one friendly voice to greet him on the shore, nor, indeed, any voice whose language he understood; that with some difficulty he procured wretched lodgings, where the filthiness of the inhabitants, and their execrable cooking, opposed to the neatness of his own comfortable home, and the sweetness of those morsels prepared by the hand of her he loved, destroyed the little appetite he had, and thus hastened the approach of that hour which had long hung suspended, though inevitable: and the sense of his forlorn situation, added to the consciousness of what they were suffering for him, whose sufferings were most painful to them, hung on his spirits, and increased the consuming fever that preyed on life.

Under these circumstances, the meeting which took place between him and his countryman, as we have seen, appeared a blessing of such consequence as to call for especial gratitude to Heaven; and the good man laid not his sleepless head on his pillow that night, till he thanked his Heavenly Father for this precious prospect of consolation, which fell like 'manna in the wilderness.'