The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and

  expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles. Indeed,

  his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously

  disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it

  broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which

  were perfectly audible to them every one.

  'This first boy, schoolmaster,' said the bachelor, 'is John Owen;

  a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too

  thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far. That boy, my

  good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his

  parents of their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you

  come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by

  the finger-post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry,

  you'll never forget it. It's beautiful!'

  John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession

  of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.

  'Now, look at that lad, sir,' said the bachelor. 'You see that

  fellow? Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn,

  blessed with a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover

  with a good voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the

  best among us. Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll

  never die in his bed; he's always falling asleep in sermon-time--

  and to tell you the truth, Mr Marton, I always did the same at his

  age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution

  and I couldn't help it.'

  This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the

  bachelor turned to another.

  'But if we talk of examples to be shunned,' said he, 'if we come to

  boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows,

  here's the one, and I hope you won't spare him. This is the lad,

  sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair. This is a

  swimmer, sir, this fellow--a diver, Lord save us! This is a boy,

  sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with

  his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man's dog, who was being

  drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master

  stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his

  guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir,'

  added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, 'directly I heard of

  it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn't the least

  idea that it came from me. '

  Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another,

  and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying,

  for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting

  emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart

  and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example.

  Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable

  by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an

  admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings,

  or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the

  schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he

  could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.

  Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so

  many assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the

  schoolmaster parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits,

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  and deemed himself one of the happiest men on earth. The windows

  of the two old houses were ruddy again, that night, with the

  reflection of the cheerful fires that burnt within; and the

  bachelor and his friend, pausing to look upon them as they returned

  from their evening walk, spoke softly together of the beautiful

  child, and looked round upon the churchyard with a sigh.

  CHAPTER 53

  Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her

  household tasks, and put everything in order for the good

  schoolmaster (though sorely against his will, for he would have

  spared her the pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a

  little bundle of keys with which the bachelor had formally invested

  her on the previous day, and went out alone to visit the old

  church.

  The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the

  fresh scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense.

  The neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful

  sound; the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by

  Good Spirits over the dead. Some young children sported among the

  tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces. They had an

  infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child's grave,

  in a little bed of leaves. It was a new grave--the resting-place,

  perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek and patient in its

  illness, had often sat and watched them, and now seemed, to their

  minds, scarcely changed.

  She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child

  answered that that was not its name; it was a garden--his

  brother's. It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens,

  and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed

  them. When he had done speaking, he looked at her with a smile,

  and kneeling down and nestling for a moment with his cheek against

  the turf, bounded merrily away.

  She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through

  the wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning

  on a crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her

  good morrow.

  'You are better?' said the child, stopping to speak with him.

  'Ay surely,' returned the old man. 'I'm thankful to say, much

  better.'

  'YOU will be quite well soon.'

  'With Heaven's leave, and a little patience. But come in, come

  in!'

  The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step,

  which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way

  into his little cottage.

  'It is but one room you see. There is another up above, but the

  stair has got harder to climb o' late years, and I never use it.

  I'm thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.'

  The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him--one of his

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  trade too--could talk of time so easily. He saw her eyes

  wandering to the tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.

  'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in

  making graves.'

  'Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.'

  'And well you might. I am a gardener. I dig the ground, and plant

  things that are to live and grow. My works don't all moulder away,

  and rot in the earth. You see that spade in the centre?'

  'The very old one--so notched and worn? Yes.'

  'That's the sexton's spade, and it's a well-used one, as you see.

  We're healthy people here, but it
has done a power of work. If it

  could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an

  unexpected job that it and I have done together; but I forget 'em,

  for my memory's a poor one. --That's nothing new,' he added

  hastily. 'It always was.'

  'There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,' said

  the child.

  'Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the

  sexton's labours as you think.'

  'No!'

  'Not in my mind, and recollection--such as it is,' said the old

  man. 'Indeed they often help it. For say that I planted such a

  tree for such a man. There it stands, to remind me that he died.

  When I look at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his

  time, it helps me to the age of my other work, and I can tell you

  pretty nearly when I made his grave.'

  'But it may remind you of one who is still alive,' said the child.

  'Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives,

  then,' rejoined the old man; 'wife, husband, parents, brothers,

  sisters, children, friends--a score at least. So it happens that

  the sexton's spade gets worn and battered. I shall need a new one

  --next summer.'

  The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with

  his age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in

  earnest.

  'Ah!' he said, after a brief silence. 'People never learn. They

  never learn. It's only we who turn up the ground, where nothing

  grows and everything decays, who think of such things as these--

  who think of them properly, I mean. You have been into the

  church?'

  'I am going there now,' the child replied.

  'There's an old well there,' said the sexton, 'right underneath the

  belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well. Forty year ago, you had only

  to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of

  the windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water.

  By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after

  that, a second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or

  the bucket swung tight and empty at the end. In ten years' time,

  the water fell again, and a third knot was made. In ten years

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  more, the well dried up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your

  arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord, you'll hear it, of

  a sudden, clanking and rattling on the ground below; with a sound

  of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into your

  mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.'

  'A dreadful place to come on in the dark!' exclaimed the child, who

  had followed the old man's looks and words until she seemed to

  stand upon its brink.

  'What is it but a grave!' said the sexton. 'What else! And which

  of our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring

  subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life? Not

  one!'

  'Are you very old yourself?' asked the child, involuntarily.

  'I shall be seventy-nine--next summer.'

  'You still work when you are well?'

  'Work! To be sure. You shall see my gardens hereabout. Look at

  the window there. I made, and have kept, that plot of ground

  entirely with my own hands. By this time next year I shall hardly

  see the sky, the boughs will have grown so thick. I have my winter

  work at night besides.'

  He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and

  produced some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made

  of old wood.

  'Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to

  them,' he said, 'like to buy these keepsakes from our church and

  ruins. Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here

  and there; sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long

  preserved. See here--this is a little chest of the last kind,

  clasped at the edges with fragments of brass plates that had

  writing on 'em once, though it would be hard to read it now. I

  haven't many by me at this time of year, but these shelves will be

  full--next summer.'

  The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards

  departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old

  man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one

  stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and,

  while he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in

  word and deed to deem himself immortal. But her musings did not

  stop here, for she was wise enough to think that by a good and

  merciful adjustment this must be human nature, and that the old

  sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of all

  mankind.

  Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to

  find the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on

  a scrap of yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a

  hollow sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the

  echoes that it raised in closing, made her start.

  If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more

  strongly, because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond,

  and through which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what

  was the deep impression of finding herself alone in that solemn

  building, where the very light, coming through sunken windows,

  seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent of earth and mould,

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  seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser

  particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered

  pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was the broken

  pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing on

  the pilgrims' steps, had trodden out their track, and left but

  crumbling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the

  sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately

  tomb on which no epitaph remained--all--marble, stone, iron,

  wood, and dust--one common monument of ruin. The best work and the

  worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least

  imposing--both of Heaven's work and Man's--all found one common

  level here, and told one common tale.

  Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were

  effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded

  hands--cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars--

  girded with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived.

  Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of

  mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty

  hooks. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained

  their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect. Thus

  violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and

  bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who

  worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.

  The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the st
ark

  figures on the tombs--they made it more quiet there, than

  elsewhere, to her fancy--and gazing round with a feeling of awe,

  tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at

  rest. She took a Bible from the shelf, and read; then, laying it

  down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that

  would come--of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant, upon the

  sleeping forms--of the leaves that would flutter at the window,

  and play in glistening shadows on the pavement--of the songs of

  birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors--of the sweet

  air, that would steal in, and gently wave the tattered banners

  overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! Die who

  would, it would still remain the same; these sights and sounds

  would still go on, as happily as ever. It would be no pain to

  sleep amidst them.

  She left the chapel--very slowly and often turning back to gaze

  again--and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower,

  opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where

  she looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had

  left, or caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells. At length

  she gained the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top.

  Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the

  fields and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the

  bright blue sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke,

  that, coming from among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the

  green earth; the children yet at their gambols down below--all,

  everything, so beautiful and happy! It was like passing from death

  to life; it was drawing nearer Heaven.

  The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked

  the door. As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy

  hum of voices. Her friend had begun his labours only on that day.

  The noise grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come

  trooping out and disperse themselves with merry shouts and play.

  'It's a good thing,' thought the child, 'I am very glad they pass

  the church.' And then she stopped, to fancy how the noise would

  sound inside, and how gently it would seem to die away upon the

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  ear.

  Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel,

  and in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the