The Last Man
ever in the wide world seek other than thee? And since in the wide
world thou remainest, why should I complain? Thou and nature are still
true to me. Beneath the shades of night, and through the day, whose
garish light displays our solitude, thou wilt still be at my side, and
even Windsor will not be regretted.”
I had chosen night time for our journey to London, that the change and
desolation of the country might be the less observable. Our only
surviving servant drove us. We past down the steep hill, and entered
the dusky avenue of the Long Walk. At times like these, minute
circumstances assume giant and majestic proportions; the very swinging
open of the white gate that admitted us into the forest, arrested my
thoughts as matter of interest; it was an every day act, never to occur
again! The setting crescent of the moon glittered through the massy
trees to our right, and when we entered the park, we scared a troop of
deer, that fled bounding away in the forest shades. Our two boys
quietly slept; once, before our road turned from the view, I looked
back on the castle. Its windows glistened in the moonshine, and its
heavy outline lay in a dark mass against the sky—the trees near us
waved a solemn dirge to the midnight breeze. Idris leaned back in the
carriage; her two hands pressed mine, her countenance was placid, she
seemed to lose the sense of what she now left, in the memory of what
she still possessed.
My thoughts were sad and solemn, yet not of unmingled pain. The very
excess of our misery carried a relief with it, giving sublimity and
elevation to sorrow. I felt that I carried with me those I best loved;
I was pleased, after a long separation to rejoin Adrian; never again to
part. I felt that I quitted what I loved, not what loved me. The castle
walls, and long familiar trees, did not hear the parting sound of our
carriage-wheels with regret. And, while I felt Idris to be near, and
heard the regular breathing of my children, I could not be unhappy.
Clara was greatly moved; with streaming eyes, suppressing her sobs, she
leaned from the window, watching the last glimpse of her native
Windsor.
Adrian welcomed us on our arrival. He was all animation; you could no
longer trace in his look of health, the suffering valetudinarian; from
his smile and sprightly tones you could not guess that he was about to
lead forth from their native country, the numbered remnant of the
English nation, into the tenantless realms of the south, there to die,
one by one, till the LAST MAN should remain in a voiceless, empty
world.
Adrian was impatient for our departure, and had advanced far in his
preparations. His wisdom guided all. His care was the soul, to move the
luckless crowd, who relied wholly on him. It was useless to provide
many things, for we should find abundant provision in every town. It
was Adrian’s wish to prevent all labour; to bestow a festive appearance
on this funeral train. Our numbers amounted to not quite two thousand
persons. These were not all assembled in London, but each day witnessed
the arrival of fresh numbers, and those who resided in the neighbouring
towns, had received orders to assemble at one place, on the twentieth
of November. Carriages and horses were provided for all; captains and
under officers chosen, and the whole assemblage wisely organized. All
obeyed the Lord Protector of dying England; all looked up to him. His
council was chosen, it consisted of about fifty persons. Distinction
and station were not the qualifications of their election. We had no
station among us, but that which benevolence and prudence gave; no
distinction save between the living and the dead. Although we were
anxious to leave England before the depth of winter, yet we were
detained. Small parties had been dispatched to various parts of
England, in search of stragglers; we would not go, until we had assured
ourselves that in all human probability we did not leave behind a
single human being.
On our arrival in London, we found that the aged Countess of Windsor
was residing with her son in the palace of the Protectorate; we
repaired to our accustomed abode near Hyde Park. Idris now for the
first time for many years saw her mother, anxious to assure herself
that the childishness of old age did not mingle with unforgotten pride,
to make this high-born dame still so inveterate against me. Age and
care had furrowed her cheeks, and bent her form; but her eye was still
bright, her manners authoritative and unchanged; she received her
daughter coldly, but displayed more feeling as she folded her
grand-children in her arms. It is our nature to wish to continue our
systems and thoughts to posterity through our own offspring. The
Countess had failed in this design with regard to her children; perhaps
she hoped to find the next remove in birth more tractable. Once Idris
named me casually—a frown, a convulsive gesture of anger, shook her
mother, and, with voice trembling with hate, she said—“I am of little
worth in this world; the young are impatient to push the old off the
scene; but, Idris, if you do not wish to see your mother expire at your
feet, never again name that person to me; all else I can bear; and now
I am resigned to the destruction of my cherished hopes: but it is too
much to require that I should love the instrument that providence
gifted with murderous properties for my destruction.”
This was a strange speech, now that, on the empty stage, each might
play his part without impediment from the other. But the haughty
Ex-Queen thought as Octavius Cæsar and Mark Antony,
We could not stall together
In the whole world.
The period of our departure was fixed for the twenty-fifth of November.
The weather was temperate; soft rains fell at night, and by day the
wintry sun shone out. Our numbers were to move forward in separate
parties, and to go by different routes, all to unite at last at Paris.
Adrian and his division, consisting in all of five hundred persons,
were to take the direction of Dover and Calais. On the twentieth of
November, Adrian and I rode for the last time through the streets of
London. They were grass-grown and desert. The open doors of the empty
mansions creaked upon their hinges; rank herbage, and deforming dirt,
had swiftly accumulated on the steps of the houses; the voiceless
steeples of the churches pierced the smokeless air; the churches were
open, but no prayer was offered at the altars; mildew and damp had
already defaced their ornaments; birds, and tame animals, now homeless,
had built nests, and made their lairs in consecrated spots. We passed
St. Paul’s. London, which had extended so far in suburbs in all
direction, had been somewhat deserted in the midst, and much of what
had in former days obscured this vast building was removed. Its
ponderous mass, blackened stone, and high dome, made it look, not like
a temple, but a tomb. Methought above the portico was engraved the _Hic
jacet_ of England. We passed on eastwards, engaged in such solemn talk
as the times inspired. No human step was heard, nor human form
discerned. Troops of dogs, deserted of their masters, passed us; and
now and then a horse, unbridled and unsaddled, trotted towards us, and
tried to attract the attention of those which we rode, as if to allure
them to seek like liberty. An unwieldy ox, who had fed in an abandoned
granary, suddenly lowed, and shewed his shapeless form in a narrow
door-way; every thing was desert; but nothing was in ruin. And this
medley of undamaged buildings, and luxurious accommodation, in trim and
fresh youth, was contrasted with the lonely silence of the unpeopled
streets.
Night closed in, and it began to rain. We were about to return
homewards, when a voice, a human voice, strange now to hear, attracted
our attention. It was a child singing a merry, lightsome air; there was
no other sound. We had traversed London from Hyde Park even to where we
now were in the Minories, and had met no person, heard no voice nor
footstep. The singing was interrupted by laughing and talking; never
was merry ditty so sadly timed, never laughter more akin to tears. The
door of the house from which these sounds proceeded was open, the upper
rooms were illuminated as for a feast. It was a large magnificent
house, in which doubtless some rich merchant had lived. The singing
again commenced, and rang through the high-roofed rooms, while we
silently ascended the stair-case. Lights now appeared to guide us; and
a long suite of splendid rooms illuminated, made us still more wonder.
Their only inhabitant, a little girl, was dancing, waltzing, and
singing about them, followed by a large Newfoundland dog, who
boisterously jumping on her, and interrupting her, made her now scold,
now laugh, now throw herself on the carpet to play with him. She was
dressed grotesquely, in glittering robes and shawls fit for a woman;
she appeared about ten years of age. We stood at the door looking on
this strange scene, till the dog perceiving us barked loudly; the child
turned and saw us: her face, losing its gaiety, assumed a sullen
expression: she slunk back, apparently meditating an escape. I came up
to her, and held her hand; she did not resist, but with a stern brow,
so strange in childhood, so different from her former hilarity, she
stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. “What do you do here?” I
said gently; “Who are you?”—she was silent, but trembled violently.—“My
poor child,” asked Adrian, “are you alone?” There was a winning
softness in his voice, that went to the heart of the little girl; she
looked at him, then snatching her hand from me, threw herself into his
arms, clinging round his neck, ejaculating—“Save me! save me!” while
her unnatural sullenness dissolved in tears.
“I will save you,” he replied, “of what are you afraid? you need not
fear my friend, he will do you no harm. Are you alone?”
“No, Lion is with me.”
“And your father and mother?—”
“I never had any; I am a charity girl. Every body is gone, gone for a
great, great many days; but if they come back and find me out, they
will beat me so!”
Her unhappy story was told in these few words: an orphan, taken on
pretended charity, ill-treated and reviled, her oppressors had died:
unknowing of what had passed around her, she found herself alone; she
had not dared venture out, but by the continuance of her solitude her
courage revived, her childish vivacity caused her to play a thousand
freaks, and with her brute companion she passed a long holiday, fearing
nothing but the return of the harsh voices and cruel usage of her
protectors. She readily consented to go with Adrian.
In the mean time, while we descanted on alien sorrows, and on a
solitude which struck our eyes and not our hearts, while we imagined
all of change and suffering that had intervened in these once thronged
streets, before, tenantless and abandoned, they became mere kennels for
dogs, and stables for cattle:—while we read the death of the world upon
the dark fane, and hugged ourselves in the remembrance that we
possessed that which was all the world to us—in the meanwhile—-
We had arrived from Windsor early in October, and had now been in
London about six weeks. Day by day, during that time, the health of my
Idris declined: her heart was broken; neither sleep nor appetite, the
chosen servants of health, waited on her wasted form. To watch her
children hour by hour, to sit by me, drinking deep the dear persuasion
that I remained to her, was all her pastime. Her vivacity, so long
assumed, her affectionate display of cheerfulness, her light-hearted
tone and springy gait were gone. I could not disguise to myself, nor
could she conceal, her life-consuming sorrow. Still change of scene,
and reviving hopes might restore her; I feared the plague only, and she