الفصل الفصل 16 · 第16章

The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the path

began, and, as the rain falls upon the just and unjust alike, it shed

its warm tint even upon the resting-places of the dead, and bade them

be of good hope for its rising on the morrow. The church was old and

grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning

the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble

men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths

less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some

which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms

of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to

executors and mourning legatees.

The clergyman’s horse, stumbling with a dull blunt sound among the

graves, was cropping the grass; at once deriving orthodox consolation

from the dead parishioners, and enforcing last Sunday’s text that this

was what all flesh came to; a lean ass who had sought to expound it

also, without being qualified and ordained, was pricking his ears in an

empty pound hard by, and looking with hungry eyes upon his priestly

neighbour.

The old man and the child quitted the gravel path, and strayed among

the tombs; for there the ground was soft, and easy to their tired feet.

As they passed behind the church, they heard voices near at hand, and

presently came on those who had spoken.

They were two men who were seated in easy attitudes upon the grass, and

so busily engaged as to be at first unconscious of intruders. It was

not difficult to divine that they were of a class of itinerant

showmen--exhibitors of the freaks of Punch--for, perched cross-legged

upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of that hero himself, his

nose and chin as hooked and his face as beaming as usual. Perhaps his

imperturbable character was never more strikingly developed, for he

preserved his usual equable smile notwithstanding that his body was

dangling in a most uncomfortable position, all loose and limp and

shapeless, while his long peaked cap, unequally balanced against his

exceedingly slight legs, threatened every instant to bring him toppling

down.

In part scattered upon the ground at the feet of the two men, and in

part jumbled together in a long flat box, were the other persons of the

Drama. The hero’s wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the doctor, the

foreign gentleman who not being familiar with the language is unable in

the representation to express his ideas otherwise than by the utterance

of the word ‘Shallabalah’ three distinct times, the radical neighbour

who will by no means admit that a tin bell is an organ, the

executioner, and the devil, were all here. Their owners had evidently

come to that spot to make some needful repairs in the stage

arrangements, for one of them was engaged in binding together a small

gallows with thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black

wig, with the aid of a small hammer and some tacks, upon the head of

the radical neighbour, who had been beaten bald.

They raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were

close upon them, and pausing in their work, returned their looks of

curiosity. One of them, the actual exhibitor no doubt, was a little

merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who seemed to have

unconsciously imbibed something of his hero’s character. The

other--that was he who took the money--had rather a careful and

cautious look, which was perhaps inseparable from his occupation also.

The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and

following the old man’s eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the

first time he had ever seen a Punch off the stage. (Punch, it may be

remarked, seemed to be pointing with the tip of his cap to a most

flourishing epitaph, and to be chuckling over it with all his heart.)

‘Why do you come here to do this?’ said the old man, sitting down

beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.

‘Why you see,’ rejoined the little man, ‘we’re putting up for to-night

at the public-house yonder, and it wouldn’t do to let ‘em see the

present company undergoing repair.’

‘No!’ cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, ‘why not, eh?

why not?’

‘Because it would destroy all the delusion, and take away all the

interest, wouldn’t it?’ replied the little man. ‘Would you care a

ha’penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know’d him in private and

without his wig?--certainly not.’

‘Good!’ said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets, and

drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. ‘Are you going to show ‘em

to-night? are you?’

‘That is the intention, governor,’ replied the other, ‘and unless I’m

much mistaken, Tommy Codlin is a calculating at this minute what we’ve

lost through your coming upon us. Cheer up, Tommy, it can’t be much.’

The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive

of the estimate he had formed of the travellers’ finances.

To this Mr Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as he

twitched Punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box, ‘I don’t

care if we haven’t lost a farden, but you’re too free. If you stood in

front of the curtain and see the public’s faces as I do, you’d know

human natur’ better.’

‘Ah! it’s been the spoiling of you, Tommy, your taking to that branch,’

rejoined his companion. ‘When you played the ghost in the reg’lar

drama in the fairs, you believed in everything--except ghosts. But now

you’re a universal mistruster. I never see a man so changed.’

‘Never mind,’ said Mr Codlin, with the air of a discontented

philosopher. ‘I know better now, and p’raps I’m sorry for it.’

Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised

them, Mr Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his

friend:

‘Look here; here’s all this judy’s clothes falling to pieces again.

You haven’t got a needle and thread I suppose?’

The little man shook his head, and scratched it ruefully as he

contemplated this severe indisposition of a principal performer.

Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly:

‘I have a needle, Sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me

try to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could.’

Even Mr Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable.

Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her

task, and accomplishing it to a miracle.

While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an

interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her

helpless companion. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and

inquired whither they were travelling.

‘N--no further to-night, I think,’ said the child, looking towards her

grandfather.

‘If you’re wanting a place to stop at,’ the man remarked, ‘I should

advise you to take up at the same house with us. That’s it. The long,

low, white house there. It’s very cheap.’

The old man, notwithstanding his fatigue, would have remained in the

churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had remained there too.

As he yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous assent, they all

rose and walked away together; he keeping close to the box of puppets

in which he was quite absorbed, the merry little man carrying it slung

over his arm by a strap attached to it for the purpose, Nelly having

hold of her grandfather’s hand, and Mr Codlin sauntering slowly behind,

casting up at the church tower and neighbouring trees such looks as he

was accustomed in town-practice to direct to drawing-room and nursery

windows, when seeking for a profitable spot on which to plant the show.

The public-house was kept by a fat old landlord and landlady who made

no objection to receiving their new guests, but praised Nelly’s beauty

and were at once prepossessed in her behalf. There was no other

company in the kitchen but the two showmen, and the child felt very

thankful that they had fallen upon such good quarters. The landlady

was very much astonished to learn that they had come all the way from

London, and appeared to have no little curiosity touching their farther

destination. The child parried her inquiries as well as she could, and

with no great trouble, for finding that they appeared to give her pain,

the old lady desisted.

‘These two gentlemen have ordered supper in an hour’s time,’ she said,

taking her into the bar; ‘and your best plan will be to sup with them.

Meanwhile you shall have a little taste of something that’ll do you

good, for I’m sure you must want it after all you’ve gone through

to-day. Now, don’t look after the old gentleman, because when you’ve

drank that, he shall have some too.’

As nothing could induce the child to leave him alone, however, or to

touch anything in which he was not the first and greatest sharer, the

old lady was obliged to help him first. When they had been thus

refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty stable where the

show stood, and where, by the light of a few flaring candles stuck

round a hoop which hung by a line from the ceiling, it was to be

forthwith exhibited.

And now Mr Thomas Codlin, the misanthrope, after blowing away at the

Pan’s pipes until he was intensely wretched, took his station on one

side of the checked drapery which concealed the mover of the figures,

and putting his hands in his pockets prepared to reply to all questions

and remarks of Punch, and to make a dismal feint of being his most

intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most

unlimited extent, of knowing that he enjoyed day and night a merry and

glorious existence in that temple, and that he was at all times and

under every circumstance the same intelligent and joyful person that

the spectators then beheld him. All this Mr Codlin did with the air of

a man who had made up his mind for the worst and was quite resigned;

his eye slowly wandering about during the briskest repartee to observe

the effect upon the audience, and particularly the impression made upon

the landlord and landlady, which might be productive of very important

results in connexion with the supper.

Upon this head, however, he had no cause for any anxiety, for the whole

performance was applauded to the echo, and voluntary contributions were

showered in with a liberality which testified yet more strongly to the

general delight. Among the laughter none was more loud and frequent

than the old man’s. Nell’s was unheard, for she, poor child, with her

head drooping on his shoulder, had fallen asleep, and slept too soundly

to be roused by any of his efforts to awaken her to a participation in

his glee.

The supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet would

not leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed. He, happily

insensible to every care and anxiety, sat listening with a vacant smile

and admiring face to all that his new friend said; and it was not until

they retired yawning to their room, that he followed the child up

stairs.

It was but a loft partitioned into two compartments, where they were to

rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had hoped for

none so good. The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged

that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many

nights. She hastened to him, and sat there till he slept.

There was a little window, hardly more than a chink in the wall, in her

room, and when she left him, she opened it, quite wondering at the

silence. The sight of the old church, and the graves about it in the

moonlight, and the dark trees whispering among themselves, made her

more thoughtful than before. She closed the window again, and sitting

down upon the bed, thought of the life that was before them.

She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone,

they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and an

emergency might come when its worth to them would be increased a

hundred fold. It would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it

unless their case was absolutely desperate, and no other resource was

left them.

Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and

going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.