ENGLISH THE FIRESIDE. A TALE OF THE PAST. BY JOHN MILLS, Esq. AUTHOR OF THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN,' THE STAGE IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 1844. THE ENGLISH FIRESIDE. CHAPTER I. "O amiable, lovely death! Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, Thou hate and terror to prosperity, And I will kiss thy detestable bones : Come grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st, O, come to me!" It was the holy day set apart for rest-rest from all manner of work. Sinking and swelling in the gentle breeze, the bells announced that the hour for prayer was approaching, when the peer and the peasant were to bend the knee in common to the altar of grace and of mercy. Yes, "when two or three are gathered together in thy name, thou will grant their requests;" and the same ear is turned to the humblest sup VOL. III. B plicant as to him whose shoe latchets he might be deemed unworthy to unfasten. And surely there never was a spot so formed by nature for the repose and last, long sleep of death. The church was surrounded by a thick grove of towering elms, effectually screening it from view, beyond the boundary of the burial ground, and throwing their deep dark shades over the daisy-speckled mounds, where some ancient, sturdy yew trees dotted here and there. The turf, too, was soft, mossy, and green, and not a blade of that tall, rank grass, which springs from noisome corruption, was seen to be mingled with it. Time-worn, old, and grey, many a stone, raised to the memory of those long since crumbled into that dust from which they sprung, now no longer told the brief sojourn between the ingress and the egress of the grinning wreck of mortality slumbering beneath, "forgetful of the world and by the world forgotten." No, even. |