“Oh! fields, oh! woods, when, when, shall I be made The happy tenant of your shade!”—Cowley.
Solitude to Amanda was a luxury, as it afforded her opportunities of indulging the ideas on which her heart delighted to dwell; she yet believed she should see Lord Mortimer, and that Lord Cherbury’s sanctioning their attachment would remove the delicate scruples of her father. From soothing his passing hours, beguiling her own with the accomplishments she possessed, and indulging the tender suggestions of hope, a pleasure arose she thought ill exchanged for the trifling gayety of the parties she was frequently invited to; she was never at a loss for amusement within Castle Carberry, or about its domain; the garden became the object of her peculiar care; its situation was romantic, and long neglect had added to its natural wildness. Amanda in many places discovered vestiges of taste, and wished to restore all to primeval beauty. The fruit-trees were matted together, the alleys grass-grown, and the flowers choked with weeds; on one side lay a small wilderness, which surrounded a gothic temple, and on the other green slopes with masses of naked rock projecting through them; a flight of rugged steps, cut in the living rock, led to a cave on the summit of one of the highest, a cross rudely carved upon the wall, and the remains of a matted couch, denoted this having formerly been a hermitage; it overhung the sea, and all[Pg 156] about it were tremendous crags, against which the waves beat with violence. Over a low-arched door was a smooth stone, with the following lines engraved upon it:—
“The pilgrim oft
At dead of night, amid his orisons hears
Aghast the voice of time—disparting towers
Tumbling all precipitate down, dashed
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.”—Dyer.
Under Amanda’s superintending care, the garden soon lost its rude appearance, a new couch was procured for the hermitage, which she ornamented with shells and sea-weeds, rendering it a most delightful recess; the trees were pruned, the alleys cleared of opposing brambles, and over the wall of the gothic temple she hung the flowers she had purchased at St. Catherine’s, in fanciful wreaths.
She often ascended the devious path of the mountain, which stretched beyond Castle Carberry, and beheld the waves glittering in the sunbeams, from which its foliage sheltered her. But no visionary pleasures, no delightful rambles, no domestic avocations made her forgetful to the calls of benevolence; she visited the haunts of poverty, and relieved its necessities to the utmost of her power; the wretchedness so often conspicuous among many of the lower rank, filled her not only with compassion, but surprise, as she had imagined that liberty and a fruitful soil were generally attended with comfort and prosperity. Her father, to whom she communicated this idea, informed her that the indigence of the peasants proceeded in a great degree from the emigration of their land-lords. “Their wealth,” said he, “is spent in foreign lands, instead of enriching those from whence it was drawn; policy should sometimes induce them to visit their estates; the revenue of half a year spent on them would necessarily benefit the poor wretches whose labors have contributed to raise it; and by exciting their gratitude, add inclination to industry, and consequently augment their profits.
“The clouds which are formed by mists and exhalations, return to the places from whence they were drawn in fertilizing showers and refreshing dews, and almost every plant enriches the soil from which it sprung. Nature, indeed, in all her works, is a glorious precedent to man; but while enslaved by dissipation, he cannot follow her example, and what exquisite sources of enjoyment does he lose—to enlighten the toils of labor, to cheer the child of poverty, to raise the drooping head[Pg 157] of merit—oh! how superior to the revels of dissipation, or the ostentation of wealth.
“Real happiness is forsaken for a gaudy phantom called pleasure; she is seldom grasped but for a moment—yet in that moment has power to fix envenomed stings within the breast. The heart which delights in domestic joys, which rises in pious gratitude to heaven, which melts at human woe, can alone experience true pleasure. The fortitude with which the peasants bear their sufferings should cure discontent of its murmurs; they support adversity without complaining, and those who possess a pile of turf against the severity of the winter, a small strip of ground planted with cabbage and potatoes, a cow, a pig, and some poultry, think themselves completely ............