第 20 页

granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged

two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother's

gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.

'God save you, master,' said the old cottager in a thin piping voice;

'are you travelling far?'

'Yes, Sir, a long way'--replied the child; for her grandfather appealed

to her.

'From London?' inquired the old man.

The child said yes.

Ah! He had been in London many a time--used to go there often once,

with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there

last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He

had changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time

and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that

had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not so hearty as he,

neither--no, nothing like it.

'Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,' said the old man, knocking

his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. 'Take a

pinch out o' that box; I don't take much myself, for it comes dear, but

I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye're but a boy to me. I should

have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he'd lived, but they listed him

for a so'ger--he come back home though, for all he had but one poor

leg. He always said he'd be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb

upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true--you

can see the place with your own eyes; we've kept the turf up, ever

since.'

He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said

she needn't be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more.

He didn't wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by

what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and

selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a hearty

meal. The furniture of the room was very homely of course--a few rough

chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little stock of

crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady in bright red,

walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common, coloured scripture

subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an old dwarf

clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright saucepans and a

kettle, comprised the whole. But everything was clean and neat, and as

the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil air of comfort and content

to which she had long been unaccustomed.

'How far is it to any town or village?' she asked of the husband.

'A matter of good five mile, my dear,' was the reply, 'but you're not

going on to-night?'

'Yes, yes, Nell,' said the old man hastily, urging her too by signs.

'Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk till

midnight.'

'There's a good barn hard by, master,' said the man, 'or there's

travellers' lodging, I know, at the Plow an' Harrer. Excuse me, but

you do seem a little tired, and unless you're very anxious to get on--'

'Yes, yes, we are,' returned the old man fretfully. 'Further away,

dear Nell, pray further away.'

'We must go on, indeed,' said the child, yielding to his restless wish.

'We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon. I'm quite ready,

grandfather.'

But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer's gait, that one of

her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman and a mother

too, she would not suffer her to go until she had washed the place and

applied some simple remedy, which she did so carefully and with such a

gentle hand--rough-grained and hard though it was, with work--that the

child's heart was too full to admit of her saying more than a fervent

'God bless you!' nor could she look back nor trust herself to speak,

until they had left the cottage some distance behind. When she turned

her head, she saw that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were

standing in the road watching them as they went, and so, with many

waves of the hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not

without tears, they parted company.

They trudged forward, more slowly and painfully than they had done yet,

for another mile or thereabouts, when they heard the sound of wheels

behind them, and looking round observed an empty cart approaching

pretty briskly. The driver on coming up to them stopped his horse and

looked earnestly at Nell.

'Didn't you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?' he said.

'Yes, sir,' replied the child.

'Ah! They asked me to look out for you,' said the man. 'I'm going

your way. Give me your hand--jump up, master.'

This was a great relief, for they were very much fatigued and could

scarcely crawl along. To them the jolting cart was a luxurious

carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world. Nell had

scarcely settled herself on a little heap of straw in one corner, when

she fell asleep, for the first time that day.

She was awakened by the stopping of the cart, which was about to turn

up a bye-lane. The driver kindly got down to help her out, and

pointing to some trees at a very short distance before them, said that

the town lay there, and that they had better take the path which they

would see leading through the churchyard. Accordingly, towards this

spot, they directed their weary steps.

CHAPTER 16

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