James Rigg

On Tuesday morn, at half past six o'clock,
I rose and dressed myself, and having shut
The door o' the bed-room still and leisurely,
I walked down stairs. When at the outer-door,
I firmly grasped the key that ere night-fall
Had turned the lock into its wonted niche
Within the brazen implement, that shone
With no unseemly splendour, — mellowed light,
Elicited by touch of careful hand
On the brown lintel ; and the obedient door,
As at a potent necromancer's touch,
Into the air receded suddenly
And gave wide prospect of the sparkling lake,
Just then emerging from the snow-white mist
Like angel's veil slow-folded up to heaven.
And lo ! a vision bright and beautiful
Sheds a refulgent glory o'er the sand,
The sand and gravel of my avenue !
For, standing silent by the kitchen-door,
Tinged by the morning sun, and in its own
Brown natural hide most lovely, two long ears
Upstretching perpendicularly, then
With the horizon levelled — to my gaze
Superb as horn of fabled Unicorn,
Each in its own proportions grander far
Than the frontal glory of that wandering beast,
Child of the desart ! lo ! a beauteous Ass,
With panniers hanging silent at each side ;
Silent as cage of bird whose song is mute,
Though silent yet not empty, filled with bread,
The staff of life, the means by which the soul,
By fate obedient to the powers of sense,
Renews its faded vigour, and keeps up
A proud communion with the eternal heavens.
Fastened to a ring it stood, while at its head
A boy of six years old, as angel bright,
Patted its neck, and to its mouth applied
The harmless thistle that his hand had plucked
From the wild common, melancholy crop.

Not undelightful was that simple sight,
For I at once did recognize that ass
To be the property of one James Rigg,
Who for the last seven years had managed,
By a firm course of daily industry,
A numerous family to support, and clothe
In plain apparel of our shepherd's grey.
On him a heavy and calamitous lot
Had fallen. For working up among the hills
In a slate quarry, while he filled the stone,
Bored by his cunning, with the nitrous grain,
It suddenly exploded, and the flash
Quenched the bright lustre of his cheerful eyes
For ever, so that now they roll in vain
To find the searching light that idly plays
O'er the white orbs, and on the silent cheeks
By those orbs unillumined, calm and still.

Quoth I, I never see thee and thy ass,
My worthy friend, but I, methinks, behold
The might of that unconquerable spirit,
Which, operating in the ancient world
Before the Flood, when fallen man was driven
From paradise, accompanied him to fields
Bare and unlovely, when the sterile earth
Oft mocked the kindly culture of the hand
Of scientific agriculture — mocked
The shepherd's sacrifice, and even denied
A scanty pittance to the fisherman,
Who by the rod or net sought to supply
His natural wants from river or from mere.
Blind were these people to the cunning arts
Of smooth civility — men before the Flood,
And therefore in the scriptures rightly called
Antediluvians !

While thus I spake
With wisdom, that industrious blind old man,
Seemingly flattered by those words of mine,
Which, judging by myself, I scarcely think
He altogether understood, replied,
While the last thistle slowly disappeared
Within the jaws of that most patient beast :
" Master !" quoth he, — and while he spake, his hat
With something of a natural dignity
Was holden in his hand — " Master," quoth he,
" I hear that you and Mrs Wordsworth think
Of going into Scotland ; and I wish
To know if, while the family are from home,
I shall supply the servants with their bread,
For I suppose they will not all be put
Upon board-wages."

Something in his voice,
While thus he spake of simplest articles
Of household use, yet sunk upon my soul,
Like distant thunder from the mountain-gloom
Wakening the sleeping echoes ; so sublime
Was that old man, so plainly eloquent
His untaught tongue ! though something of a lisp,
(Natural defect), and a slight stutter too,
(Haply occasioned by some faint attack,
Harmless, if not renewed, of apoplex),
Rendered his utterance most peculiar,
So that a stranger, had he heard that voice
Once only, and then travelled into lands
Beyond the ocean, had on his return,
Met where they might, have known that curious voice
Of lisp and stutter, yet I ween withal
Graceful, and breathed from an original mind.

Here let me be permitted to relate,
For sake of those few readers who prefer
A simple picture of the heart to all
Poetic imagery from earth or heaven
Drawn by the skill of bard ; — let me, I say,
For sake of such few readers, be permitted
To tell, in plain and ordinary verse,
What James Rigg first experienced in his soul,
Standing amid the silence of the hills,
With both the pupils of his eyes destroyed.

When first the loud explosion through the sky
Sent its far voice, and from the trembling rocks
That with an everlasting canopy
O'ershadow Stickle-Tarn the echoes woke,
So that the mountain-solitude was filled
With sound, as with the air ! He stood awhile,
Wondering from whence that tumult might proceed,
And all unconscious that the blast had dimmed
His eyes for ever, and their smiling blue
Converted to a pale and mournful grey.
Was it, he thought, some blast the quarrymen
Blasted at Conniston, or in that vale,
Called from its huge and venerable yew,
Yewdale ? (though other etymologists
Derive that appellation from the sheep,
Of which the female in our English tongue
Still bears the name of ewe.) Or did the gun
Of fowler, wandering o'er the heathery wilds
In search of the shy gor-cock, yield that voice
Close to his ear, so close that through his soul
It rolled like thunder ? Or had news arrived
Of Buonaparte's last discomfiture
By the Bold Russ, and that great heir of fame
Blucher, restorer of the thrones of kings?
And upon Lowood bowling-green did Laker,
Glad of expedient to beguile the hours,
Slow moving before dinner, did he fire,
In honour of that glorious victory,
The old two-pounder by the wind and rain
Rusted, and seemingly to him more old
Than in reality it was, though old,
And on that same green lying since the days
Of the last landlord, Gilbert Ormathwaite,
Name well-remembered all the country round,
Though twenty summer suns have shed their flowers
On the green turf that hides his mortal dust ?

Or was it, thought he, the loud signal-gun
Of pleasure-boat, on bright Winander's wave,
Preparing 'gainst some new antagonist
To spread her snowy wings before the wind,
Emulous of glory and the palmy wreath
Of inland navigation ? Graceful sport !

It next perhaps occurred to him to ask
Himself, or some one near him, if the sound
Was not much louder than those other sounds,
Fondly imagined by him, — and both he,
And that one near him, instantly replied
Unto himself, that most assuredly
The noise proceeded from the very stone
Which they two had so long been occupied
In boring, and that probably some spark,
Struck from the gavelock 'gainst the treacherous flint,
Had fallen amid the powder, and so caused
The stone t' explode, as gunpowder will do,
With most miraculous force, especially
When close rammed down into a narrow bore,
And covered o'er with a thin layer of sand
To exclude the air ; else otherwise the grain,
Escaping from the bore, would waste itself
In the clear sky, and leave the bored stone
Lying unmoved upon the verdant earth,
Like some huge creature stretched in lazy sleep
Amid the wilderness, or lying dead
Beneath the silence of the summer sun.

This point established, he was gently led
By the natural progress of the human soul,
Aspiring after truth, nor satisfied
Till she hath found it, wheresoever hid,
(Yea even though at the bottom of a well),
To inquire if any mischief had been done
By that explosion ; and while thus he stood
Inquiring anxiously of all around,
A small sharp boy, whose task it was to bring
His father's breakfast to him 'mid the hills,
Somewhat about eleven years of age,
Though less than some lads at the age of eight,
Exclaimed — " Why, father, do you turn the white
Of your eyes up so ?" At these simple words
Astonishment and horror struck the souls
Of all the quarry men, for they descried,
Clear as the noon-day, that James Rigg had lost
His eye-sight, yea, his very eyes were lost,
Quenched in their sockets, melted into air,
A moisture mournful as the cold dim gleam
Of water sleeping in some shady wood,
Screened from the sunbeams and the breath of heaven.

On that he lifted up his hardened hands,
Hardened by sun, and rain, and storm, and toil,
Unto the blasted eye-balls, and awhile
Stood motionless as fragment of that rock
That wrought him all his woe, and seemed to lie,
Unwitting of the evil it had done,
Calm and serene, even like a flock of sheep
Scattered in sunshine o'er the Cheviot hills.

I ween that, as he stood in solemn trance,
Tears flowed for him who wept not for himself,
And that his fellow-quarrymen, though rude
Of soul and manner, not untouchingly
Deplored his cruel doom, and gently led
His footsteps to a green and mossy rock ,
By sportive nature fashioned like a chair,
With seat, back, elbows, — a most perfect chair
Of unhewn living rock ! There, hapless man,
He moved his lips, as if he inly prayed,
And clasped his hands, and raised his sightless face
Unto the smiling sun, who walked through heaven
Regardless of that fatal accident,
By which a man was suddenly reduced
From an unusual clear long-sightedness
To utter blindness — blindness without hope,
So wholly were the visual nerves destroyed.

" I wish I were at home !" he slowly said,
" For though I ne'er must see that home again,
I yet may hear it, and a thousand sounds
Are there to gladden a poor blind man's heart."

He uttered truth, — lofty, consoling truth !
Thanks unto gracious Nature, who had framed
So wondrously the structure of the soul,
That though it live on outward ministry
Of gross material objects, by them fed
And nourished, even as if the external world
Were the great wet-nurse of the human race,
Yet of such food deprived, she doth not pine
And fret away her mystic energies
In fainting inanition ; but, superior
To the food she fed on, in her charge retains
Each power, and sense, and faculty ; and lives,
Cameleon-like, upon the air serene
Of her own bright imaginative will,
Desiderating nothing that upholds,
Upholds and magnifies, but without eyes
Sees — and without the vestige of an ear
Listens, and listening, hears — and without sense
Of touch (if haply from the body's surface
Have gone the sense of feeling) keenly feels,
And in despite of nose abbreviate
Smells like a wolf, — wolf, who for leagues can snuff
The scent of carrion, bird by fowler killed,
Killed but not found, or little vernal kid
Yeaned in the frost, and soon outstretched in death,
White as the snow that serves it for a shroud.

Therefore James Rigg was happy, and his face
Soon brightened up with smiles, and in his voice
Contentment spoke most musical ; so when
The doctor ordered his most worthy wife
To loose the bandage from her husband's eyes,
He was so reconciled unto his lot,
That there almost appeared to him a charm
Tn blindness — so that, had his sight returned,
I have good reason to believe his happiness
Had been thereby -scarcely at all increased.

While thus confabulating with James Rigg,
Even at that moment when such silence lay
O'er all my cottage, as, by mystic power
Belonging to the kingdom of the ear,
O'erthrew at once all old remembrances —
Even at that moment, over earth, and air,
The waving forest, and the sleeping lake,
And the far sea of mountains that uplifted
Its stately billows through the clear blue sky,
Came such a sound, as if from her dumb trance
Awakened Nature, starting suddenly,
Were jealous of insulted majesty,
And sent through continent and trembling isle
Her everlasting thunders. Such a crash
Tore the foundations of the earth, and shook
The clouds that slumbered on the breast of heaven
It was the parlour-bell that suddenly
An unknown hand had rung. I cast my eyes
Up the long length of bell-rope, and I saw
The visible motion of its iron tongue ;
By Heaven I saw it tingling ! Fast at first,
O most unearthly fast, then somewhat slower,
Next very slow indeed, until some four
Or half-a-dozen minutes at the most,
By Time's hand cut from off the shortened hour,
It stopped quite of itself — and idly down
Like the sear leaf upon the autumnal bough
Dangled!