OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES, AND, GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE
FIRST TIME, FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER’S BUSINESS.
OLIVER, being left to himself in the undertaker’s shop, set the lamp
down on a workman’s bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling
of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he was will
be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels,
which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like
that a cold tremble came over him every time his eyes wandered in
the direction of the dismal object, from which he almost expected to
see some frightful form slowly rear its head to drive him mad with
terror. Against the wall were ranged in regular array a long row of
elm boards cut into the same shape, and looking in the dim light like
high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches-pockets.
Coffin-plates, elm chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black
cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was
ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff
neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by
four black steeds approaching in the distance. The shop was close and
hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The
recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust,
looked like a grave.
Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver.
He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and
desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The
boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no
recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and
well-remembered face sunk heavily into his heart. But his heart _was_
heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow
bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be laid in a calm
and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving
gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him
in his sleep.
Oliver was awakened in the morning by a loud kicking at the outside
of the shop-door, which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was
repeated in an angry and impetuous manner about twenty-five times; and,
when he began to undo the chain, the legs left off their volleys, and a
voice began.
“Open the door, will yer?” cried the voice which belonged to the legs
which had kicked at the door.
“I will, directly, sir,” replied Oliver, undoing the chain, and turning
the key.
“I suppose yer the new boy, a’n’t yer?” said the voice, through the
key-hole.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver.
“How old are yer?” inquired the voice.
“Ten, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Then I’ll whop yer when I get in,” said the voice; “you just see if
I don’t, that’s all, my work’us brat!” and having made this obliging
promise, the voice began to whistle.
Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very
expressive monosyllable just recorded, bears reference, to entertain
the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be,
would redeem his pledge most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a
trembling hand, and opened the door.
For a second or two Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street,
and over the way, impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had
addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off to warm
himself, for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy sitting on a post
in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter, which he
cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then
consumed with great dexterity.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Oliver, at length: seeing that no other
visitor made his appearance; “did you knock?”
“I kicked,” replied the charity-boy.
“Did you want a coffin, sir?” inquired Oliver, innocently.
At this the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce, and said that Oliver
would stand in need of one before long, if he cut jokes with his
superiors in that way.
“Yer don’t know who I am, I suppose, Work’us?” said the charity-boy,
in continuation; descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with
edifying gravity.
“No sir,” rejoined Oliver.
“I’m Mister Noah Claypole,” said the charity-boy, “and you’re under
me. Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!” With this,
Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop
with a dignified air, which did him great credit. It is difficult
for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy
countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more
especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red
nose and yellow smalls.
Oliver having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in
his efforts to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a
small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during
the day, was graciously assisted by Noah, who, having consoled him
with the assurance that “he’d catch it,” condescended to help him.
Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after, and, shortly afterwards, Mrs
Sowerberry appeared; and Oliver having “caught it,” in fulfilment
of Noah’s prediction, followed that young gentleman down stairs to
breakfast.
“Come near the fire, Noah,” said Charlotte. “I saved a nice little
piece of bacon for you from master’s breakfast. Oliver, shut that door
at Mister Noah’s back, and take them bits that I’ve put out on the
cover of the bread-pan. There’s your tea; take it away to that box, and
drink it there, and make haste, for they’ll want you to mind the shop.
D’ye hear?”
“D’ye hear, Work’us?” said Noah Claypole.
“Lor, Noah!” said Charlotte, “what a rum creature you are! Why don’t
you let the boy alone?”
“Let him alone!” said Noah. “Why every body lets him alone enough, for
the matter of that. Neither his father nor mother will ever interfere
with him: all his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh,
Charlotte? He! he! he!”
“Oh, you queer soul!” said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in
which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully
at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering upon the box in the coldest
corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially
reserved for him.
Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was
he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents,
who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a
drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg and a diurnal pension of
twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the
neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public
streets with the ignominious epithets of “leathers,” “charity,” and
the like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But now that fortune
had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could
point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This
affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful
thing human nature sometimes is, and how impartially the same amiable
qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.
Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker’s some three weeks or a
month, and Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, the shop being shut up, were taking
their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after
several deferential glances at his wife, said,
“My dear—” He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up
with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.
“Well,” said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.
“Nothing, my dear, nothing,” said Mr. Sowerberry.
“Ugh, you brute!” said Mrs. Sowerberry.
“Not at all, my dear,” said Mr. Sowerberry humbly. “I thought you
didn’t want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say——”
“Oh, don’t tell me what you were going to say,” interposed Mrs.
Sowerberry. “I am nobody; don’t consult me, pray. _I_ don’t want to
intrude upon your secrets.” And, as Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave
an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences.
“But, my dear,” said Sowerberry, “I want to ask your advice.”
“No, no, don’t ask mine,” replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting
manner: “ask somebody else’s.” Here there was another hysterical laugh,
which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very common and
much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very
effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging as a special
favour to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to
hear, and, after a short altercation of less than three quarters of an
hour’s duration, the permission was most graciously conceded.
“It’s only about young Twist, my dear,” said Mr. Sowerberry. “A very
good-looking boy that, my dear.”
“He need be, for he eats enough,” observed the lady.
“There’s an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,” resumed
Mr. Sowerberry, “which is very interesting. He would make a delightful
mute, my dear.”
Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable
wonderment. Mr. Sowerberry remarked it, and, without allowing time for
any observation on the good lady’s part, proceeded.
“I don’t mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but
only for children’s practice. It would be very new to have a mute in
proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it that it would have a superb
effect.”
Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way,
was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been
compromising her dignity to have said so under existing circumstances,
she merely inquired with much sharpness why such an obvious suggestion
had not presented itself to her husband’s mind before. Mr. Sowerberry
rightly construed this as an acquiescence in his proposition; it was
speedily determined that Oliver should be at once initiated into the
mysteries of the profession, and, with this view, that he should
accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being
required.
The occasion was not long in coming; for, half an hour after breakfast
next morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop, and supporting his cane
against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book, from
which he selected a small scrap of paper, which he handed over to
Sowerberry.
“Aha!” said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance;
“an order for a coffin, eh?”
“For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,” replied Mr.
Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book, which, like
himself, was very corpulent.
“Bayton,” said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr.
Bumble; “I never heard the name before.”
Bumble shook his head as he replied, “Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry,
very obstinate; proud, too, I’m afraid, sir.”
“Proud, eh?” exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer.—“Come, that’s too
much.”
“Oh, it’s sickening,” replied the beadle; “perfectly antimonial, Mr.
Sowerberry.”
“So it is,” acquiesced the undertaker.
“We only heard of them the night before last,” said the beadle; “and we
shouldn’t have known anything about them then, only a woman who lodges
in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for
them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He
had gone out to dinner; but his ’prentice, which is a very clever lad,
sent ’em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, off-hand.”
“Ah, there’s promptness,” said the undertaker.
“Promptness, indeed!” replied the beadle. “But what’s the consequence;
what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband
sends back word that the medicine won’t suit his wife’s complaint, and
so she shan’t take it—says she shan’t take it, sir. Good, strong,
wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish
labourers and a coalheaver only a week before—sent ’em for nothing,
with a blackin-bottle in,—and he sends back word that she shan’t take
it, sir.”
As the flagrant atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble’s mind in full
force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed
with indignation.
“Well,” said the undertaker, “I ne—ver—did——”
“Never did, sir!” ejaculated the beadle,—“no, nor nobody never did;
but, now she’s dead, we’ve got to bury her, and that’s the direction,
and the sooner it’s done the better.”
Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a
fever of parochial excitement, and flounced out of the shop.
“Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you,”
said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the
street.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of
sight during the interview, and who was shaking from head to foot at
the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble’s voice. He needn’t
have taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble’s glance, however;
for that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the
white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the
undertaker had got Oliver upon trial, the subject was better avoided,
until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all
danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be
thus effectually and legally overcome.
“Well,” said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, “the sooner this job
is done the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your
cap, and come with me.” Oliver obeyed, and followed his master on his
professional mission.
They walked on for some time through the most crowded and densely
inhabited part of the town, and then striking down a narrow street
more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused
to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses
on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by
people of the poorest class, as their neglected appearance would have
sufficiently denoted without the concurrent testimony afforded by the
squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies
half doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements
had shop-fronts; but they were fast closed, and mouldering away: only
the upper rooms being inhabited. Others which had become insecure from
age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street by huge
beams of wood which were reared against the walls, and firmly planted
in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as
the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough
boards which supplied the place of door and window were wrenched from
their positions to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of
a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy; the very rats which
here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with
famine.
There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver
and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the
dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid,
the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs, and
stumbling against a door on the landing, rapped at it with his knuckles.
It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker
at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the
apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in, and Oliver
followed him.
There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching mechanically
over the empty stove. An old woman, too had drawn a low stool to
the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged
children in another corner; and in a small recess opposite the door
there lay upon the ground something covered with an old blanket.
Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes towards the place, and crept
involuntarily closer to his master; for though it was covered up, the
boy _felt_ that it was a corpse.
The man’s face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly,
and his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman’s face was wrinkled, her two
remaining teeth protruded over her under lip, and her eyes were bright
and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man,—they
seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.
“Nobody shall go near her,” said the man, starting fiercely up, as the
undertaker approached the recess. “Keep back! d—n you, keep back, if
you’ve a life to lose.”
“Nonsense! my good man,” said the undertaker, who was pretty well used
to misery in all its shapes,—“nonsense!”
“I tell you,” said the man, clenching his hands, and stamping furiously
on the floor,—“I tell you I won’t have her put into the ground. She
couldn’t rest there. The worms would worry—not eat her,—she is so
worn away.”
The undertaker offered no reply to this raving, but producing a tape
from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.
“Ah!” said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at
the feet of the dead woman; “kneel down, kneel down—kneel round her
every one of you, and mark my words. I say she was starved to death.
I never knew how bad she was till the fever came upon her, and then
her bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor
candle; she died in the dark—in the dark. She couldn’t even see her
children’s faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged
for her in the streets, and they sent me to prison. When I came back,
she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they
starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it,—they
starved her!”—He twined his hands in his hair, and with a loud scream
rolled grovelling upon the floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam gushing
from his lips.
The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had
hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that
passed, menaced them into silence, and having unloosened the man’s
cravat, who still remained extended on the ground, tottered towards the
undertaker.
“She was my daughter,” said the old woman, nodding her head in the
direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer, more
ghastly than even the presence of death itself.—“Lord, Lord!—well, it
_is_ strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should
be alive and merry now, and she lying there so cold and stiff! Lord,
Lord!—to think of it;—it’s as good as a play—as good as a play!”
As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment,
the undertaker turned to go away.
“Stop, stop!” said the old woman in a loud whisper. “Will she be buried
to-morrow—or next day—or to-night? I laid her out, and I must walk,
you know. Send me a large cloak—a good warm one, for it is bitter
cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind: send
some bread—only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some
bread, dear?” she said eagerly, catching at the undertaker’s coat, as
he once more moved towards the door.
“Yes, yes,” said the undertaker, “of course; anything, everything.” He
disengaged himself from the old woman’s grasp, and, dragging Oliver
after him, hurried away.
The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a
half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble
himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode, where
Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the
workhouse, who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been
thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man: and the bare coffin
having been screwed down, was hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers,
and carried into the street.
“Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady,” whispered
Sowerberry in the old woman’s ear; “we are rather late, and it won’t do
to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men,—as quick as you like.”
Thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden, and the
two mourners kept as near them as they could. Mr. Bumble and Sowerberry
walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs were not
so long as his master’s, ran by the side.
There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had
anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the
churchyard in which the nettles grew, and the parish graves were made,
the clergyman had not arrived, and the clerk, who was sitting by the
vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it
might be an hour or so before he came. So they put the bier down on
the brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the
damp clay with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys, whom
the spectacle had attracted into the churchyard, played a noisy game
at hide-and-seek among the tomb-stones, or varied their amusements by
jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr. Sowerberry and
Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him,
and read the paper.
At length, after the lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble,
and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave;
and immediately afterwards the clergyman appeared, putting on his
surplice as he came along. Mr. Bumble then threshed a boy or two, to
keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of
the burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his
surplice to the clerk, and ran away again.
“Now, Bill,” said Sowerberry to the grave-digger, “fill up.”
It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full that the
uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The grave-digger
shovelled in the earth, stamped it loosely down with his feet,
shouldered his spade, and walked off, followed by the boys, who
murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon.
“Come, my good fellow,” said Bumble, tapping the man on the back, “they
want to shut up the yard.”
The man, who had never once moved since he had taken his station by
the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who
had addressed him, walked forward for a few paces, and fell down in
a swoon. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the
loss of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off) to pay him any
attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him, and when he came
to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed
on their different ways.
“Well, Oliver,” said Sowerberry, as they walked home, “how do you like
it?”
“Pretty well, thank you, sir,” replied Oliver, with considerable
hesitation. “Not very much, sir.”
“Ah, you’ll get used to it in time, Oliver,” said Sowerberry. “Nothing
when you _are_ used to it, my boy.”
Oliver wondered in his own mind whether it had taken a very long time
to get Mr. Sowerberry used to it; but he thought it better not to ask
the question, and walked back to the shop, thinking over all he had
seen and heard.