The Old Curiosity Shop

Chapter 17

Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and
claiming fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her.
At sight of the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she
started up in alarm, wondering how she had been moved from the
familiar chamber in which she seemed to have fallen asleep last
night, and whither she had been conveyed. But, another glance
around called to her mind all that had lately passed, and she
sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.

It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked
out into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with
her feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer
than in others, that she might not tread upon the graves. She felt
a curious kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the
dead, and read the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a
great number of good people were buried there), passing on from one
to another with increasing interest.

It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the
cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of
some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in
the air. First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as
it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by
chance as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but
talking to himself. Another answered, and he called again, but
louder than before; then another spoke and then another; and each
time the first, aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case
more strongly. Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs
lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and
from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey
church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose
and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all
this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on
fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirised the
old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the moss and
turf below, and the strife in which they had worn away their lives.

Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came
down, and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than
perfect silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to
grave, now stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which
had started from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and
now peeping through one of the low latticed windows into the
church, with its worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of
whitened-green mouldering from the pew sides and leaving the naked
wood to view. There were the seats where the poor old people sat,
worn spare, and yellow like themselves; the rugged font where
children had their names, the homely altar where they knelt in
after life, the plain black tressels that bore their weight on
their last visit to the cool old shady church. Everything told of
long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in the porch was
frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age.

She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had
died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she
heard a faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble
woman bent with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of
that same grave and asked her to read the writing on the stone. The
old woman thanked her when she had done, saying that she had had
the words by heart for many a long, long year, but could not see
them now.

'Were you his mother?' said the child.

'I was his wife, my dear.'

She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty! Ah, true! It was
fifty-five years ago.

'You wonder to hear me say that,' remarked the old woman, shaking
her head. 'You're not the first. Older folk than you have wondered
at the same thing before now. Yes, I was his wife. Death doesn't
change us more than life, my dear.'

'Do you come here often?' asked the child.

'I sit here very often in the summer time,' she answered, 'I used
to come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago,
bless God!'

'I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,' said the
old woman after a short silence. 'I like no flowers so well as
these, and haven't for five-and-fifty years. It's a long time, and
I'm getting very old.'

Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener
though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and
moaned and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when
she first came to that place, a young creature strong in love and
grief, she had hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to
be. But that time passed by, and although she continued to be sad
when she came there, still she could bear to come, and so went on
until it was pain no longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she
had learned to like. And now that five-and-fifty years were gone,
she spoke of the dead man as if he had been her son or grandson,
with a kind of pity for his youth, growing out of her own old age,
and an exalting of his strength and manly beauty as compared with
her own weakness and decay; and yet she spoke about him as her
husband too, and thinking of herself in connexion with him, as she
used to be and not as she was now, talked of their meeting in
another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and she, separated
from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of that comely
girl who seemed to have died with him.

The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave,
and thoughtfully retraced her steps.

The old man was by this time up and dressed. Mr Codlin, still
doomed to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing
among his linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the
previous night's performance; while his companion received the
compliments of all the loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to
separate him from the master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in
importance to that merry outlaw, and loved him scarcely less. When
he had sufficiently acknowledged his popularity he came in to
breakfast, at which meal they all sat down together.

'And where are you going to-day?' said the little man, addressing
himself to Nell.

'Indeed I hardly know--we have not determined yet,' replied the child.

'We're going on to the races,' said the little man. 'If that's your
way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together. If
you prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we
shan't trouble you.'

'We'll go with you,' said the old man. 'Nell--with them, with them.'

The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must
shortly beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place
than where crowds of rich ladies and gentlemen were assembled
together for purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to
accompany these men so far. She therefore thanked the little man
for his offer, and said, glancing timidly towards his friend, that
if there was no objection to their accompanying them as far as the
race town--

'Objection!' said the little man. 'Now be gracious for once, Tommy,
and say that you'd rather they went with us. I know you would. Be
gracious, Tommy.'

'Trotters,' said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very
greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes;
'you're too free.'

'Why what harm can it do?' urged the other. 'No harm at all in this
particular case, perhaps,' replied Mr Codlin; 'but the principle's
a dangerous one, and you're too free I tell you.'

'Well, are they to go with us or not?'

'Yes, they are,' said Mr Codlin; 'but you might have made a favour
of it, mightn't you?'

The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually
merged into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the
prefatory adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason
of the small size of his legs. Short Trotters however, being a
compound name, inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the
gentleman on whom it had been bestowed was known among his
intimates either as 'Short,' or 'Trotters,' and was seldom accosted
at full length as Short Trotters, except in formal conversations
and on occasions of ceremony.

Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the
remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer
calculated to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with
great relish to the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and
butter, strongly impressed upon his companions that they should do
the like. Mr Codlin indeed required no such persuasion, as he had
already eaten as much as he could possibly carry and was now
moistening his clay with strong ale, whereof he took deep draughts
with a silent relish and invited nobody to partake--thus again
strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of mind.

Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and
charging the ale to the company generally (a practice also
savouring of misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and
equal parts, assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the
other to Nelly and her grandfather. These being duly discharged and
all things ready for their departure, they took farewell of the
landlord and landlady and resumed their journey.

And here Mr Codlin's false position in society and the effect it
wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for
whereas he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as 'master,'
and had by inference left the audience to understand that he
maintained that individual for his own luxurious entertainment and
delight, here he was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of
that same Punch's temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders
on a sultry day and along a dusty road. In place of enlivening his
patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his
quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here
was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and
drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck,
and not one of his social qualities remaining.

Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals
with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally. Short led
the way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not
extensive) tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his
shoulder-blade. Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either
hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.

When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house
of good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and
carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to
Punches and their consorts. If people hurried to the windows, Mr
Codlin pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and
concealing Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes
and performed an air. Then the entertainment began as soon as might
be; Mr Codlin having the responsibility of deciding on its length
and of protracting or expediting the time for the hero's final
triumph over the enemy of mankind, according as he judged that the
after-crop of half-pence would be plentiful or scant. When it had
been gathered in to the last farthing, he resumed his load and on
they went again.

Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and
once exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the
collector, being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to
have it to himself. There was one small place of rich promise in
which their hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the
play having gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling
wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the beadle, for
which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but they
were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a
troop of ragged children shouting at their heels.

They made a long day's journey, despite these interruptions, and
were yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky. Short
beguiled the time with songs and jests, and made the best of
everything that happened. Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his
fate, and all the hollow things of earth (but Punch especially),
and limped along with the theatre on his back, a prey to the
bitterest chagrin.

They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads
met, and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery
and seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal
eyes and disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when
two monstrous shadows were seen stalking towards them from a
turning in the road by which they had come. The child was at first
quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt giants--for such they
looked as they advanced with lofty strides beneath the shadow of
the trees--but Short, telling her there was nothing to fear, blew
a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a cheerful shout.

'It's Grinder's lot, an't it?' cried Mr Short in a loud key.

'Yes,' replied a couple of shrill voices.

'Come on then,' said Short. 'Let's have a look at you. I thought it
was you.'

Thus invited, 'Grinder's lot' approached with redoubled speed and
soon came up with the little party.

Mr Grinder's company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young
gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who
used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his
back a drum. The public costume of the young people was of the
Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young
gentleman wore over his kilt a man's pea jacket reaching to his
ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old
cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head. Their
Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr
Grinder carried on his instrument.

'Bound for the races, I see,' said Mr Grinder coming up out of
breath. 'So are we. How are you, Short?' With that they shook hands
in a very friendly manner. The young people being too high up for
the ordinary salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion.
The young gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on
the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her tambourine.

'Practice?' said Short, pointing to the stilts.

'No,' returned Grinder. 'It comes either to walkin' in 'em or
carryin' of 'em, and they like walkin' in 'em best. It's wery
pleasant for the prospects. Which road are you takin'? We go the
nighest.'

'Why, the fact is,' said Short, 'that we are going the longest way,
because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on. But
three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and
if you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.'

'Where's your partner?' inquired Grinder.

'Here he is,' cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face
in the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of
countenance not often seen there; 'and he'll see his partner boiled
alive before he'll go on to-night. That's what he says.'

'Well, don't say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted
to something pleasanter,' urged Short. 'Respect associations,
Tommy, even if you do cut up rough.'

'Rough or smooth,' said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little
footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of
his legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to
exhibit them to popular admiration, 'rough or smooth, I won't go
further than the mile and a half to-night. I put up at the Jolly
Sandboys and nowhere else. If you like to come there, come there.
If you like to go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without
me if you can.'

So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately
presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at
a jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.

Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was
fain to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his
morose companion. After lingering at the finger-post for a few
minutes to see the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the
bearer of the drum toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes
upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and hastened with all speed
to follow Mr Codlin. With this view he gave his unoccupied hand to
Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would soon be at the
end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the old man
with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards
their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as
the moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.