This bitter disappointment caused Oliver much sorrow
and grief, even in the midst of his happiness; for he
had comforted himself many times during his illness, with
thinking of all that Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin
would say to him: and what delight it would be to tell
them how many long days and nights he had passed in
reflecting on what they had done for him, and in
wailing his cruel separation from them. The hope
of eventually clearing himself with them, too, and ex-
plaining how he had been forced away, had buoyed him
up, and sustained him, under many of his recent trials;
and now, the idea that they should have gone so far,
and carried with them the belief that he was an impostor
and a robber – a belief which might remain uncontra-
dicted to his dying day – was almost more than he
could bear.
The circumstance occasioned no alteration, however,
in the behaviour of his benefactors. After another fort-
night, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun, and
every tree and flower was putting forth its young leaves
and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting
the house at Chertsey, for some months. Sending the
plate, which had so excited the Jew's cupidity, to the
banker's; and leaving Giles and another servant in care
of the house, they departed to a cottage at some distance
in the country, and took Oliver with them.
Who can describe the pleasure and delight, the peace
of mind and soft tranquility, the sickly boy felt in the
balmy air, and among the green hills and rich woods
of an island village! Who can tell how scenes of peace
and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers
in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness,
deep into their jaded hearts! Men who have lived in
crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who
have never wished for change; men to whom custom
has indeed been second nature, and who have come
almost to love each brick and stone that formed the
narrow boundaries of their daily walks; even they,
with the hand of death upon them, have been known
to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature's face;
and, carried, far from the scenes of their old pains and
pleasures, have seemed to pass at once into a new state
of being. Crawling forth, from day to day, to some
green sunny spot, they have had such memories wak-
ened up within them by the sight of sky, and hill, and
plain, and glistening water, that a foretaste of heaven
itself has soothed their quick decline, and they have
sunk into their tombs, as peacefully as the sun, whose
setting they watched from their lonely chamber-window
but a few hours before, faded from their dim and feeble
sight! The memories which peaceful country scenes
call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and
hopes. Their gentle influence may teach us how to
weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we loved:
may purify our thoughts, and bear down before it old
enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers,
in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed
consciousness of having held such feelings long before,
in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn
thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride
and worldliness beneath it.
