That chasm is much the same —
 

LEONARD

 
                                But, surely, yonder —
 

PRIEST

 
  Aye, there indeed, your memory is a friend
  That does not play you false. – On that tall pike,
  (It is the loneliest place of all these hills)
  There were two Springs which bubbled side by side,
  As if they had been made that they might be
  Companions for each other: ten years back,
  Close to those brother fountains, the huge crag
  Was rent with lightning – one is dead and gone,
  The other, left behind, is flowing still. —
  For accidents and changes such as these,
  Why we have store of them! a water-spout
  Will bring down half a mountain; what a feast
  For folks that wander up and down like you,
  To see an acre's breadth of that wide cliff
  One roaring cataract – a sharp May storm
  Will come with loads of January snow,
  And in one night send twenty score of sheep
  To feed the ravens, or a Shepherd dies
  By some untoward death among the rocks:
  The ice breaks up and sweeps away a bridge —
  A wood is fell'd: – and then for our own homes!
  A child is born or christen'd, a field plough'd,
  A daughter sent to service, a web spun,
  The old house cloth is deck'd with a new face;
  And hence, so far from wanting facts or dates
  To chronicle the time, we all have here
  A pair of diaries, one serving, Sir,
  For the whole dale, and one for each fire-side,
  Your's was a stranger's judgment: for historians
  Commend me to these vallies.
 

LEONARD

 
                               Yet your church-yard
  Seems, if such freedom may be used with you,
  To say that you are heedless of the past.
  Here's neither head nor foot-stone, plate of brass,
  Cross-bones or skull, type of our earthly state
  Or emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home
  Is but a fellow to that pasture field.
 

PRIEST

 
  Why there, Sir, is a thought that's new to me.
  The Stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
  If every English church-yard were like ours:
  Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth.
 
 
  We have no need of names and epitaphs,
  We talk about the dead by our fire-sides.
  And then for our immortal part, we want
  No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale:
  The thought of death sits easy on the man
  Who has been born and dies among the mountains:
 

LEONARD

 
  Your dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts
  Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
  You, Sir, could help me to the history
  Of half these Graves?
 

PRIEST

 
  With what I've witness'd; and with what I've heard,
  Perhaps I might, and, on a winter's evening,
  If you were seated at my chimney's nook
  By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,
  We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round,
  Yet all in the broad high-way of the world.
  Now there's a grave – your foot is half upon it,
  It looks just like the rest, and yet that man
  Died broken-hearted.
 

LEONARD

 
                       'Tis a common case,
  We'll take another: who is he that lies
  Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves; —
  It touches on that piece of native rock
  Left in the church-yard wall.
 

PRIEST

 
                               That's Walter Ewbank.
  He had as white a head and fresh a cheek
  As ever were produc'd by youth and age
  Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore.
  For five long generations had the heart
  Of Walter's forefathers o'erflow'd the bounds
  Of their inheritance, that single cottage,
  You see it yonder, and those few green fields.
  They toil'd and wrought, and still, from sire to son,
  Each struggled, and each yielded as before
  A little – yet a little – and old Walter,
  They left to him the family heart, and land
  With other burthens than the crop it bore.
  Year after year the old man still preserv'd
  A chearful mind, and buffeted with bond,
  Interest and mortgages; at last he sank,
  And went into his grave before his time.
  Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurr'd him
  God only knows, but to the very last
  He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale:
  His pace was never that of an old man:
  I almost see him tripping down the path
  With his two Grandsons after him – but you,
  Unless our Landlord be your host to-night,
  Have far to travel, and in these rough paths
  Even in the longest day of midsummer —
 

LEONARD

 
But these two Orphans!
 

PRIEST

 
                          Orphans! such they were —
  Yet not while Walter liv'd – for, though their Parents
  Lay buried side by side as now they lie,
  The old Man was a father to the boys,
  Two fathers in one father: and if tears
  Shed, when he talk'd of them where they were not,
  And hauntings from the infirmity of love,
  Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart,
  This old Man in the day of his old age
  Was half a mother to them. – If you weep, Sir,
  To hear a stranger talking about strangers,
  Heaven bless you when you are among your kindred!
  Aye. You may turn that way – it is a grave
  Which will bear looking at.
 

LEONARD

 
                             These Boys I hope
  They lov'd this good old Man —
 

PRIEST

 
                                 They did – and truly,
  But that was what we almost overlook'd,
  They were such darlings of each other. For
  Though from their cradles they had liv'd with Walter,
  The only kinsman near them in the house,
  Yet he being old, they had much love to spare,
  And it all went into each other's hearts.
  Leonard, the elder by just eighteen months,
  Was two years taller: 'twas a joy to see,
  To hear, to meet them! from their house the School
  Was distant three short miles, and in the time
  Of storm and thaw, when every water-course
  And unbridg'd stream, such as you may have notic'd
  Crossing our roads at every hundred steps,
  Was swoln into a noisy rivulet,
  Would Leonard then, when elder boys perhaps
  Remain'd at home, go staggering through the fords
  Bearing his Brother on his back. – I've seen him,
  On windy days, in one of those stray brooks,
  Aye, more than once I've seen him mid-leg deep,
  Their two books lying both on a dry stone
  Upon the hither side: – and once I said,
  As I remember, looking round these rocks
  And hills on which we all of us were born,
  That God who made the great book of the world
  Would bless such piety —
 

LEONARD

 
It may be then —
 

PRIEST

 
  Never did worthier lads break English bread:
  The finest Sunday that the Autumn saw,
  With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,
  Could never keep these boys away from church,
  Or tempt them to an hour of sabbath breach.
  Leonard and James! I warrant, every corner
  Among these rocks and every hollow place
  Where foot could come, to one or both of them
  Was known as well as to the flowers that grew there.
  Like roe-bucks they went bounding o'er the hills:
  They play'd like two young ravens on the crags:
  Then they could write, aye and speak too, as well
  As many of their betters – and for Leonard!
  The very night before he went away,
  In my own house I put into his hand
  A Bible, and I'd wager twenty pounds,
  That, if he is alive, he has it yet.
 

LEONARD

 
  It seems, these Brothers have not liv'd to be
  A comfort to each other. —
 

PRIEST

 
                             That they might
  Live to that end, is what both old and young
  In this our valley all of us have wish'd,
  And what, for my part, I have often pray'd:
  But Leonard —
 

LEONARD

 
Then James still is left among you —
 

PRIEST

 
  'Tis of the elder Brother I am speaking:
  They had an Uncle, he was at that time
  A thriving man, and traffick'd on the seas:
  And, but for this same Uncle, to this hour
  Leonard had never handled rope or shroud.
  For the Boy lov'd the life which we lead here;
  And, though a very Stripling, twelve years old;
  His soul was knit to this his native soil.
  But, as I said, old Walter was too weak
  To strive with such a torrent; when he died,
  The estate and house were sold, and all their sheep,
  A pretty flock, and which, for aught I know,
  Had clothed the Ewbauks for a thousand years.
  Well – all was gone, and they were destitute.
  And Leonard, chiefly for his brother's sake,
  Resolv'd to try his fortune on the seas.
  'Tis now twelve years since we had tidings from him.
  If there was one among us who had heard
  That Leonard Ewbank was come home again,
  From the great Gavel³, down by Leeza's Banks,
  And down the Enna, far as Egremont,
  The day would be a very festival,
  And those two bells of ours, which there you see
  Hanging in the open air – but, O good Sir!
  This is sad talk – they'll never sound for him
  Living or dead – When last we heard of him
  He was in slavery among the Moors
  Upon the Barbary Coast – 'Twas not a little
  That would bring down his spirit, and, no doubt,
  Before it ended in his death, the Lad
  Was sadly cross'd – Poor Leonard! when we parted,
  He took me by the hand and said to me,
  If ever the day came when he was rich,
  He would return, and on his Father's Land
  He would grow old among us.
 

LEONARD

 
                             If that day
  Should come, 'twould needs be a glad day for him;
  He would himself, no doubt, be as happy then
  As any that should meet him —
 

PRIEST

 
                                Happy, Sir —
 

LEONARD

 
  You said his kindred all were in their graves,
  And that he had one Brother —
 

PRIEST

 
                                That is but
  A fellow tale of sorrow. From his youth
  James, though not sickly, yet was delicate,
  And Leonard being always by his side
  Had done so many offices about him,
  That, though he was not of a timid nature,
  Yet still the spirit of a mountain boy
  In him was somewhat check'd, and when his Brother
  Was gone to sea and he was left alone
  The little colour that he had was soon
  Stolen from his cheek, he droop'd, and pin'd and pin'd;
 

LEONARD

 
But these are all the graves of full grown men!
 

PRIEST

 
  Aye, Sir, that pass'd away: we took him to us.
  He was the child of all the dale – he liv'd
  Three months with one, and six months with another:
  And wanted neither food, nor clothes, nor love,
  And many, many happy days were his.
  But, whether blithe or sad, 'tis my belief
  His absent Brother still was at his heart.
  And, when he liv'd beneath our roof, we found
  (A practice till this time unknown to him)
  That often, rising from his bed at night,
  He in his sleep would walk about, and sleeping
  He sought his Brother Leonard – You are mov'd!
  Forgive me, Sir: before I spoke to you,
  I judg'd you most unkindly.
 

LEONARD

 
                            But this youth,
  How did he die at last?
 

PRIEST

 
                          One sweet May morning,
  It will be twelve years since, when Spring returns,
  He had gone forth among the new-dropp'd lambs,
  With two or three companions whom it chanc'd
  Some further business summon'd to a house
  Which stands at the Dale-head. James, tir'd perhaps,
  Or from some other cause remain'd behind.
  You see yon precipice – it almost looks
  Like some vast building made of many crags,
  And in the midst is one particular rock
  That rises like a column from the vale,
  Whence by our Shepherds it is call'd, the Pillar.
  James, pointing to its summit, over which
  They all had purpos'd to return together,
  Inform'd them that he there would wait for them:
  They parted, and his comrades pass'd that way
  Some two hours after, but they did not find him
  At the appointed place, a circumstance
  Of which they took no heed: but one of them,
  Going by chance, at night, into the house
  Which at this time was James's home, there learn'd
  That nobody had seen him all that day:
  The morning came, and still, he was unheard of:
  The neighbours were alarm'd, and to the Brook
  Some went, and some towards the Lake; ere noon
  They found him at the foot of that same Rock
  Dead, and with mangled limbs. The third day after
  I buried him, poor Lad, and there he lies.
 

LEONARD

 
  And that then is his grave! – Before his death
  You said that he saw many happy years?
 

PRIEST

 
Aye, that he did —
 

LEONARD

 
And all went well with him —
 

PRIEST

 
If he had one, the Lad had twenty homes.
 

LEONARD

 
And you believe then, that his mind was easy —
 

PRIEST

 
  Yes, long before he died, he found that time
  Is a true friend to sorrow, and unless
  His thoughts were turn'd on Leonard's luckless fortune,
  He talk'd about him with a chearful love.
 

LEONARD

 
He could not come to an unhallow'd end!
 

PRIEST

 
  Nay, God forbid! You recollect I mention'd
  A habit which disquietude and grief
  Had brought upon him, and we all conjectur'd
  That, as the day was warm, he had lain down
  Upon the grass, and, waiting for his comrades
  He there had fallen asleep, that in his sleep
  He to the margin of the precipice
  Had walk'd, and from the summit had fallen head-long,
  And so no doubt he perish'd: at the time,
  We guess, that in his hands he must have had
  His Shepherd's staff; for midway in the cliff
  It had been caught, and there for many years
  It hung – and moulder'd there.
 
 
                                The Priest here ended —
  The Stranger would have thank'd him, but he felt
  Tears rushing in; both left the spot in silence,
  And Leonard, when they reach'd the church-yard gate,
  As the Priest lifted up the latch, turn'd round,
  And, looking at the grave, he said, "My Brother."
  The Vicar did not hear the words: and now,
  Pointing towards the Cottage, he entreated
  That Leonard would partake his homely fare:
  The other thank'd him with a fervent voice,
  But added, that, the evening being calm,
  He would pursue his journey. So they parted.
 
 
  It was not long ere Leonard reach'd a grove
  That overhung the road: he there stopp'd short,
  And, sitting down beneath the trees, review'd
  All that the Priest had said: his early years
  Were with him in his heart: his cherish'd hopes,
  And thoughts which had been his an hour before.
  All press'd on him with such a weight, that now,
  This vale, where he had been so happy, seem'd
  A place in which he could not bear to live:
  So he relinquish'd all his purposes.
  He travell'd on to Egremont; and thence,
  That night, address'd a letter to the Priest
  Reminding him of what had pass'd between them.
  And adding, with a hope to be forgiven,
  That it was from the weakness of his heart,
  He had not dared to tell him, who he was.
 
 
  This done, he went on shipboard, and is now
  A Seaman, a grey headed Mariner.