In that time of trouble and of unexampled events, the mind received
impressions in a different manner from what it had ever done before. The
stern gloom that hung over the future, the hazard upon which life was
suspended, the close contact with universal death, and the desperate
struggle by which it was staved off, gave to all things a new character;
and the scene of the last chapter was but one of the series of deadly
and dreadful excitements which were now the habit of every day. The
solemn frame of mind which it induced in Ellen, was of a piece with the
solemn nature of their existence; and she could talk of it with her
husband at any time, and not disturb the natural bent which their
conversation took. They searched the immediate neighbourhood for the
habitation of the unhappy mother and her family; and the marks of her
footsteps on the dust of the soil enabled them to trace her to Hope, a
village in the plain, two miles, or rather more, from the Peak. She and
her husband had used the church for their habitation, and it seemed had
employed the same kind of precaution as Paulett to defend it and conceal
that it was their dwelling. One entrance only was left, and the other
apertures blocked up; but all care was useless now, for death had set
them free from pain and fear. On a bed beside the altar lay the body of
a man, over which as spread a cloak of fur and velvet, which in the
lifetime of the world would have been most precious. His eyes were
decently closed, the curtains of the bed drawn round him, and the pillow
which supported his head was marked with the pressure of another head,
and with moisture which could have been only the tears of his wife. The
floor of the church was in confusion, like the dwelling of one too much
distracted with trouble to attend to what did not relate to it; but
there was corn which had served for food, and fuel heaped on the stone
which had been a hearth--there was the drawing of a lovely woman and of
a beautiful place: but these were cast into a corner, probably by the
irritable hand of despair. On a table stood empty cups, which had long,
perhaps, been dry--the glass of one had been shivered, and the fragments
lay on the floor; there were also a few books, neglected and covered
with dust. In the churchyard were the marks of three recent graves--one
of them had a stone at its head, on which was carved with care the name
of Alfred, and the soil was fenced and supported with sticks, so as to
preserve its shape over the body--probably it was that of the first
child whom the parents had committed to dust. Another was more hastily
prepared, and no superfluous labour had been bestowed on it. This must
be the last, when heart and health were both failing. Paulett and Ellen
kneeled and prayed beside them, and rejoiced that the mother, too, was
at rest after the long misery of this scene. They returned to their
cave, and, under the shadow of the rock near the old course of the
brook, laid both mother and child, covering their bodies with stones,
and thinking more of the probable reunion, in some unknown scene, of
the spirits of that family, than of the distance which separated their
graves on this earth.
And now, with good store of diamonds, and with increasing skill and
success in the resolution of them into water, both Paulett and Ellen
looked upon the lives of all as safe for the present, and their thoughts
were at liberty to wander to some other subject. They believed that they
and their children were alone in the world, for every sign of life from
other countries, as well as their own, had ceased. It was very long
since any human tidings had come, and though, after men had done with
each other, birds continued their migrations, these had now long been
over, and the years passed away without bringing or sending a single
wing. The course of the seasons, too, was strange and unnatural. It
seemed as if the earth performed its usual course in the heavens, and
kept its place and functions in the movements of the planets; days and
nights varied in their length according to the season, and the heat of
the sun was at one time of the year great and at another weak: but much
that depended hitherto upon the constitution of the globe was suspended.
There were no clouds in the sky, no dews dropping from the air, no
reproduction in the earth. It seemed decayed and dying of old age. Yet
Paulett said, a new existence would, perhaps, arise on this same scene,
and from these same elements. Once before, the earth had been reduced to
eight persons by the action of water; and now the absence of the same
element had brought it to four. Charles and Alice might be the destined
parents of a new race, and those names that were so familiar now, might
become the venerable appellations of the founders of the third race of
man. Ellen smiled and shook her head, looking at the boy and girl, who
were building a house of pebbles; and both parents listened for a while
to what they were saying. Charles recollected the house he had dwelt in
before the great shipwreck of human life drove then to the cavern; and
he was teaching Alice that there were rooms below and rooms above, and
that he had heard how people like their father had carried great stones,
and put them one on another to make these rooms. Alice persisted in
making her house one hollow cavern; and the other she called Charles's
house, and did not understand his recommendation.
"Charles is taking the part already of a teacher, in whom remains the
traditionary knowledge of an old world," said Paulett; "and Alice
represents the new inhabitants, who have their own rude copies of
natural objects, but who will be open to the training of the learned
man."
"The learned man will be their father," said Ellen; "they will gladly
take their notions from him."
"Yes; but if it should be so destined, the first generation must work
hard merely to live--they must be very long ignorant of every thing
except a paternal government, and such habitations as can be raised or
appropriated most easily. They will be children in comparison to Charles
all their lives, if we can but succeed in giving him the ideas of the
age we have lived in. Fancy them, Ellen, increased to perhaps fifty
inhabitants before he dies, a very old man, coming round his chair to
hear of the wonderful steam-engine, and the use of the telescope, and to
learn the art of printing, and the list of different languages which
Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, used; and what lions were, and
horses."
"Or tell them how he and Alice escaped from the great drought," said
Ellen. "But, alas! it is far more likely he and she will perish in it,
and then of what use is this knowledge to him?"
"Why--his soul. 'It is a thing immortal like thyself;' and if what he
knows is of no use here, it will be useful elsewhere."
"What!" said Ellen, smiling--"are there railroads and telescopes in
another world?"
"For aught I can tell. At all events, the powers that contrive them here
may contrive something from the same principles hereafter."
"But we can tell nothing about the other world," said Ellen.
"Nay, this is _another world_ to the stars; and, if we know nothing
about our destiny, the only way we have to judge is by what we actually
are, and tend to be, now. So, while life remains, I will teach my boy
all I know, and go on as a man of this world ought to do; then we shall
be ready for every thing."
Accordingly, Paulett every day carried on his son's education, as far as
the boy's age permitted, and instructed him in all that he would have
learned had the world been as it was formerly. Only, like a man in a
shipwreck looking forward to a desert island as his best hope, he dwelt
most upon what would be usefullest, supposing Charles (being preserved)
to have to provide for the physical necessities of a new race of man.
Next in order came science and arts; and it was easier to make him feel
the merits of these than of the exploits of men, especially when they
consisted of valour, and of the deeds of conquerors; for the heroic
virtues seemed to take a new character in the present circumstances of
the world; and whereas they used to kindle and blaze in personal danger,
and at the sound of the applause of men, they now burned brightly in the
endurance of a world's dissolution, which, with all its terrors and
prolonged impressions, must be met by the calm, self-sustaining spirit,
rising superior to the greatest excess of physical injury. The boy's
soul replied to the call upon it. He learned to look on the dangers
before him, and to consider the possibility of escape with quiet
calculation of chances. He inured himself to privation readily, and
eagerly tried to spare his mother and Alice from it. He and his father,
hand in hand, walked over the desolate land, realizing the idea that
they were in fact spirits, superior to all physical things, and divided
from spirits and their sphere only by their frail connexion with a body.
They talked of virtue and duty, and how good it was to dwell in these
painful bodies, since they were the place wherein virtue was practised
and duty learned; and the father taught the son that the opportunities
occurred, not only in enduring the dissolution of the frame of present
things, and in the untiring exertion to aid and support life in those
who were of weaker sex than they, but in abiding with even and cheerful
temper the vexations of every day, and in adorning as far as possible,
as well as preserving, life. The mother was heroic, good, and patient,
too. She brought her children, night and morning, to the mouth of the
cavern, and there they all kneeled by Paulett, who prayed aloud with
them and for them. Then Ellen made ready their meal, which must all be
prepared without water, and which consisted of the stores from former
harvests, of which there was abundance laid up in various houses; and
the little Alice, who could run at her mother's side, learned to be
useful in some matters, and patient and obedient. Charles played with
her and taught her; and he himself, mere child as he was, grew merry in
his play, and earnest; and many a time the profound silence of the earth
was broken by the hearty laugh of children, which would ring out through
the cavern, and reverberate against its walls. They grew, and were
perfect and beautiful in shape; their minds developed, and talents and
virtues filled them. They were types of man and woman--the one bold and
protecting, the other seeking for affection and defence. They flourished
when means appeared inadequate to their support; and, amid a paralysed
world, it was in them only that body and spirit seemed to unfold.