The Sexton
Mr Escot passed a sleepless night, the ordinary effect of love,
according to some amatory poets, who seem to have composed their
whining ditties for the benevolent purpose of bestowing on others that
gentle slumber of which they so pathetically lament the privation. The
deteriorationist entered into a profound moral soliloquy, in which he
first examined _whether a philosopher ought to be in love?_ Having
decided this point affirmatively against Plato and Lucretius, he next
examined, _whether that passion ought to have the effect of keeping a
philosopher awake?_ Having decided this negatively, he resolved to go
to sleep immediately: not being able to accomplish this to his
satisfaction, he tossed and tumbled, like Achilles or Orlando, first
on one side, then on the other; repeated to himself several hundred
lines of poetry; counted a thousand; began again, and counted another
thousand: in vain: the beautiful Cephalis was the predominant image in
all his soliloquies, in all his repetitions: even in the numerical
process from which he sought relief, he did but associate the idea of
number with that of his dear tormentor, till she appeared to his
mind's eye in a thousand similitudes, distinct, not different. These
thousand images, indeed, were but one; and yet the one was a thousand,
a sort of uni-multiplex phantasma, which will be very intelligible to
some understandings.
He arose with the first peep of day, and sallied forth to enjoy the
balmy breeze of morning, which any but a lover might have thought too
cool; for it was an intense frost, the sun had not risen, and the wind
was rather fresh from north-east and by north. But a lover, who, like
Ladurlad in the Curse of Kehama, always has, or at least is supposed
to have, "a fire in his heart and a fire in his brain," feels a wintry
breeze from N.E. and by N. steal over his cheek like the south over a
bank of violets; therefore, on walked the philosopher, with his coat
unbuttoned and his hat in his hand, careless of whither he went, till
he found himself near the enclosure of a little mountain chapel.
Passing through the wicket, and stepping over two or three graves, he
stood on a rustic tombstone, and peeped through the chapel window,
examining the interior with as much curiosity as if he had "forgotten
what the inside of a church was made of," which, it is rather to be
feared, was the case. Before him and beneath him were the font, the
altar, and the grave; which gave rise to a train of moral reflections
on the three great epochs in the course of the _featherless
biped_,--birth, marriage, and death. The middle stage of the process
arrested his attention; and his imagination placed before him several
figures, which he thought, with the addition of his own, would make a
very picturesque group; the beautiful Cephalis, "arrayed in her bridal
apparel of white;" her friend Caprioletta officiating as bridemaid; Mr
Cranium giving her away; and, last, not least, the Reverend Doctor
Gaster, intoning the marriage ceremony with the regular orthodox
allowance of nasal recitative. Whilst he was feasting his eyes on this
imaginary picture, the demon of mistrust insinuated himself into the
storehouse of his conceptions, and, removing his figure from the
group, substituted that of Mr Panscope, which gave such a violent
shock to his feelings, that he suddenly exclaimed, with an
extraordinary elevation of voice, _Oimoi kakodaimon, kai tris
kakodaimon, kai tetrakis, kai pentakis, kai dodekakis, kai
muriakis!_[9.1] to the great terror of the sexton, who was just
entering the churchyard, and, not knowing from whence the voice
proceeded, _pensa que fut un diableteau_. The sight of the philosopher
dispelled his apprehensions, when, growing suddenly valiant, he
immediately addressed him:--
"Cot pless your honour, I should n't have thought of meeting any pody
here at this time of the morning, except, look you, it was the
tevil--who, to pe sure, toes not often come upon consecrated
cround--put for all that, I think I have seen him now and then, in
former tays, when old Nanny Llwyd of Llyn-isa was living--Cot teliver
us! a terriple old witch to pe sure she was--I tid n't much like
tigging her crave--put I prought two cocks with me--the tevil hates
cocks--and tied them py the leg on two tombstones--and I tug, and the
cocks crowed, and the tevil kept at a tistance. To pe sure now, if I
had n't peen very prave py nature--as I ought to pe truly--for my
father was Owen Ap-Llwyd Ap-Gryffydd Ap-Shenkin Ap-Williams Ap-Thomas
Ap-Morgan Ap-Parry Ap-Evan Ap-Rhys, a coot preacher and a lover of
_cwrw_[9.2]--I should have thought just now pefore I saw your honour,
that the foice I heard was the tevil's calling Nanny Llwyd--Cot pless
us! to pe sure she should have been puried in the middle of the river,
where the tevil can't come, as your honour fery well knows."
"I am perfectly aware of it," said Mr Escot.
"True, true," continued the sexton; "put to pe sure, Owen Thomas of
Morfa-Bach will have it that one summer evening--when he went over to
Cwm Cynfael in Meirionnydd, apout some cattles he wanted to puy--he
saw a strange figure--pless us!--with five horns!--Cot save us!
sitting on Hugh Llwyd's pulpit, which, your honour fery well knows, is
a pig rock in the middle of the river----"
"Of course he was mistaken," said Mr Escot.
"To pe sure he was," said the sexton. "For there is no toubt put the
tevil, when Owen Thomas saw him, must have peen sitting on a piece of
rock in a straight line from him on the other side of the river, where
he used to sit, look you, for a whole summer's tay, while Hugh Llwyd
was on his pulpit, and there they used to talk across the water! for
Hugh Llwyd, please your honour, never raised the tevil except when he
was safe in the middle of the river, which proves that Owen Thomas, in
his fright, did n't pay proper attention to the exact spot where the
tevil was."
The sexton concluded his speech with an approving smile at his own
sagacity, in so luminously expounding the nature of Owen Thomas's
mistake.
"I perceive," said Mr Escot, "you have a very deep insight into
things, and can, therefore, perhaps, facilitate the resolution of a
question, concerning which, though I have little doubt on the subject,
I am desirous of obtaining the most extensive and accurate
information."
The sexton scratched his head, the language of Mr Escot not being to
his apprehension quite so luminous as his own.
"You have been sexton here," continued Mr Escot, in the language of
Hamlet, "man and boy, forty years."
The sexton turned pale. The period Mr Escot named was so nearly the
true one, that he began to suspect the personage before him of being
rather too familiar with Hugh Llwyd's sable visitor. Recovering
himself a little, he said, "Why, thereapouts, sure enough."
"During this period, you have of course dug up many bones of the
people of ancient times."
"Pones! Cot pless you, yes! pones as old as the 'orlt."
"Perhaps you can show me a few."
The sexton grinned horribly a ghastly smile. "Will you take your Pible
oath you ton't want them to raise the tevil with?"
"Willingly," said Mr Escot, smiling; "I have an abstruse reason for
the inquiry."
"Why, if you have an _obtuse_ reason," said the sexton, who thought
this a good opportunity to show that he could pronounce hard words as
well as other people; "if you have an _obtuse_ reason, that alters the
case."
So saying he led the way to the bone-house, from which he began to
throw out various bones and skulls of more than common dimensions, and
amongst them a skull of very extraordinary magnitude, which he swore
by St David was the skull of Cadwallader.
"How do you know this to be his skull?" said Mr Escot.
"He was the piggest man that ever lived, and he was puried here; and
this is the piggest skull I ever found: you see now----"
"Nothing can be more logical," said Mr Escot. "My good friend will you
allow me to take this skull away with me?"
"St Winifred pless us!" exclaimed the sexton, "would you have me
haunted py his chost for taking his plessed pones out of consecrated
cround? Would you have him come in the tead of the night, and fly away
with the roof of my house? Would you have all the crop of my carden
come to nothing? for, look you, his epitaph says,
"He that my pones shall ill pestow,
Leek in his cround shall never crow."
"You will ill bestow them," said Mr Escot, "in confounding them with
those of the sons of little men, the degenerate dwarfs of later
generations; you will well bestow them in giving them to me: for I
will have this illustrious skull bound with a silver rim, and filled
with mantling wine, with this inscription, NUNC TANDEM: signifying
that that pernicious liquor has at length found its proper receptacle;
for, when the wine is in, the brain is out."
Saying these words, he put a dollar into the hands of the sexton, who
instantly stood spellbound by the talismanic influence of the coin,
while Mr Escot walked off in triumph with the skull of Cadwallader.