FROM DEATH TO LIFE

The alteration of parochial boundaries by Act of Parliament has done away with some curious anomalies that had survived from the first formation of parishes in England—that is to say, done away with them so far as rating is concerned, but not ecclesiastically.

The anomalies to which I refer are the odd, outlying patches, like islets, belonging to one parish, and yet surrounded by others. There are counties in England that have their insulated portions; and the same is very general with regard to parishes. How this came about is not difficult to discover. It was due to the ancient holders of estates, who liked to have their properties united ecclesiastically. There was such a detached patch of parish at Sugden. It was three miles from the parish church; it was encompassed on all sides by the parish of Walmoden; but as the story I am going to tell relates to the time before the rectification of parochial boundaries, the cottagers of this islet were rated as Sugdenian, and for all matters ecclesiastical looked to Sugden as their parish church. If they wished to be married, their banns were called at Sugden; if they were to be buried, double fees were demanded at Walmoden, and, as the cotters were very poor, they went to lay the dust of their kinsfolk at Sugden. Indeed, unless they had been very poor, they would not have lived at Woodman’s Well, as the islet was called, for it was away from the high-road, it was distant from neighbours, it consisted of a hamlet containing two houses and a half.

The half-house was a whole cottage whose roof had fallen in, leaving, however, one end partially covered, in which an old woman, who gathered herbs, told fortunes, and charmed white swellings, kept up a precarious existence under a tottering chimney. She was not alone; she had a daughter. The two cottages were in partial collapse; their thatch was mouldy, rotten, but not broken through, and the wooden casements were decayed, but not in pieces. If the present tenants were to vacate these houses, their owner believed that he would not be able to find others who would take them and give rent for them. They had been erected on lives, and it was probable that when they fell in to the landlord, they would fall in altogether. By law, of course, he could insist on the holder of the property keeping them in repair; but then, precisely, this holder was an old man living a hundred miles away, and was impecunious; consequently his legal right was as good as no right at all.

Those who occupied the cottages were: in the first, a mason and his wife; that is to say, the mason was the tenant in the eye of the law, but his occupancy was casual, and his wife saw but little of him. She was a weakly woman, with one child, a frail little creature of two years, a lovely child with fair hair and blue eyes. The father was fond, very fond of his little Rosie; but he was fonder of good company at the public-house.

In the second house lived a widow, with her son, Jack Weldon; a fine, strapping lad, with an open face, honest brown eyes always on the twinkle, and a flexible mouth that was ever on the quiver with a laugh. His was an irresistible face. You could not look at it without a smile. There was in it nothing grotesque, certainly nothing deformed, but it was inexpressibly comical. The eyes, the mouth, and an upright jet of hair, like the crown of a cockatoo, were mirth-provoking. Jack was infinitely good-natured, very kind to his mother, and a favourite in the hamlet—that is to say, with his neighbours, the mason’s wife and the white-witch. Owing to the temptation of living surrounded by woods and downs, where rabbits multiplied, he was a bit of a poacher, and he kept the two houses and a half supplied with rabbit-meat. Ostensibly and actually he was a ploughboy. His sporting was done at night and on Sundays.

His good-humour, his drollery, would have made Jack a popular man at the public-house; but happily, his tenderness to his mother and his love of sport drew him home when the day’s work was over, and he preferred laying snares in the wood to sitting boozing at the table in the tavern.

Thomas Leveridge was the mason. He was a man good at heart, but weak—weak as water—fond of politics and of argument. Election-time was thought to be not far distant; Thomas had not been home for a fortnight. It is true his work was at a distance of ten miles, and he walked to it on Mondays and returned on Saturdays. But of late he had not been home even for the Sundays; because—well, it was a long trudge, and because—well, his wife was cranky, and because—well, the child had been fretting and crying all night, and he had not enjoyed a good sleep when he was at home.

Thomas Leveridge loved his wife, and he loved his babe, loved his home, but he loved politics better, loved his pleasure better, loved himself most of all.

Now, unhappily, there was a serious and far-reaching reason why the child had fretted and cried. It was sickening for scarlet fever. This he did not suppose was the case. “Children alway be squealin’ when they teeths,” he said. “They sleeps by day and ’owls o’ nights. ’Tis their natur’. But to me as has to work, it’s discompoging.”

So Thomas Leveridge departed with his bundle on the Monday morning, whistling, went to his work, heard that a dissolution was in the air, was neglectful of his work, got dismissed, went about canvassing throughout the district, and did not receive the letter which had been sent to tell him that his child was dangerously ill. No, nor the second letter to inform him that little Rosie was dead; no, nor the third letter to entreat him to return for the funeral.

What Mrs. Leveridge would have done without the assistance of her neighbours I cannot say. Little Rosie had been her mother’s one joy, one solicitude, one ambition. Neglected by her husband, in a dilapidated house, delicate in health, and weak of body, the poor woman had but one sunbeam to enlighten her life; and that sunbeam was her child, and that light was now darkness.

She was wholly overcome, broken-hearted, despairing. Jack Weldon’s mother came to the aid of the unhappy woman, and saw to everything, and strove to comfort her. Jack ran to announce the death to the relieving officer, ordered the coffin of the carpenter at Sugden, and arranged with the sexton about the grave. He did more: he went to the town where Thomas Leveridge worked, in hopes of finding him; but could learn only that he had been dismissed by his master, and was all over the country drinking and canvassing. Unable to trace him, he had to return to Woodman’s Well.

At this very time Kate Westlake, the white-witch’s daughter appeared, a brown-faced, bright-eyed, pleasant girl, for whom there was not accommodation in the collapsed cottage. She had been in service in a farm; but owing to bad times the farmer had thrown up his tenement, and she had been obliged to leave and look out for a new situation. Meanwhile she came home and found the house she had left practically roofless. Difficulties settle themselves somehow, and this difficulty among others; and this is the way in which it settled itself. Kate went into the cottage of the Leveridges. Mrs. Leveridge needed to have some one with her by night as well as by day, and was very glad to accept the attention and help of the good-natured young girl. Mrs. Weldon could not be always with her; and not only were preparations to be made for the funeral, but also the poor woman’s health and spirits were so shaken that the ordinary household duties were beyond her powers.

The day of the funeral arrived. Little Rosie was placed in her coffin of plain deal. She had been so small, had become so light through sickness, that the coffin was no weight to speak of. The poor mother was without means, the father was nowhere to be found; he was in no club—that is to say, in no benefit club. He was a member of three political clubs, that brought in no benefit at all, but entailed payments. The funeral must be carried out in the most economical manner. Of neighbours there were only the inmates of Woodman’s Well. Owing to the insulated position of this cluster, the population of the circumfluent parish of Walmoden did not regard itself as responsible for sympathy. At a child’s funeral it was not etiquette for ardent spirits to be provided; consequently the funeral arrangements were of the most meagre description, and the number of sympathisers few. Jack was to tuck the little coffin under his arm and carry it to Sugden churchyard, and of mourners there would be but Mrs. Weldon and Kate Westlake. The old witch undertook during their absence to keep company with the bereaved mother, who had not the strength to follow the corpse three miles to its last resting-place.

On the way another woman would fall in, who lived in an old octagonal, abandoned toll-gate, and had a passion for funerals, and went to every interment, whoever it might be that was buried, an acquaintance or a stranger.

The day was lovely. Wood-doves cooed in the coppice, and blackbirds fluted; in the blue sky compact white clouds drifted like icebergs in a still ocean. Jack Weldon had done his best to assume a mourner’s appearance: he had put on a black round cap with crape about it, a black coat, but could not muster other than brown continuations. His mother had hunted up his father’s Sunday pair; but his father had been a short and stout man. These would not fit the length of Jack’s legs, and about the waist would have been double, like a Jaeger jersey.

“We must do what we can,” said the widow; “nobody expects us to do more. I’ll stitch a black crape band round the leg above the knee. Gentlefolks does it on the arm.”

By this method the snuff-coloured continuations of Jack were given a suitably lugubrious expression. If they were not black, they tried to look funereal.

“After all,” said Mrs. Weldon, “you don’t expect for babies what you do for grown-ups.”

So the procession started, and augmented itself on the way by the contingent from the toll-gate.

The woman from the latter was of an age agreeable with that of Mrs. Weldon. The way was long. It comported with the occasion to move slowly.

That two old women, both naturally prone to gossip, should walk all the way in silence, was not to be expected; and they were soon in full flow of conversation, carried on in an undertone.

But if it was impossible for two old women to walk three miles in silence, so was it impossible for two young people to do so.

Jack ought to have led the way, followed by Kate; but Jack was burdened, and lagged accordingly, and Kate had an impulsive spirit, and therefore forged ahead.

“I say, Jack,” said Kate, “be Rosie terrible heavy?”

“Weighs no more than a feather,” answered he. “Poor mite, she wasted away to nothing at all.”

“I asked because I thought you seemed tired.”

“I tired?”

“Well, you look hot.”

“Hot I be—it is the weather. I’m perspiring wonderful, and can’t get at my pocket-handkerchief—it is in the pocket next the coffin.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll wipe your face,” said the girl. “But you must stand still and stoop.”

Jack halted, bowed, and Kate passed her white cambric pocket-handkerchief over his face.

“Thank y’,” said the bearer. “It’s terrible refreshing, and smells beautiful.”

“That’s scent I put on it,” explained the girl.

Meanwhile the old women were in lively converse. The black strip round Jack’s leg had started them; they diverged to the scandal of Thomas Leveridge being away when his child died, and not being present at the funeral.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Mrs. Weldon, “men are monsters. They’ve no more feelings than have traction engines. I wish we could get along without them.”

“But Jack?”

“Ah! Jack is a good son. I’m not speaking of lads, but of married men. There is poor Mrs. Leveridge, left without a shilling; and whatever she would have done had not Jack caught her a rabbit, I do not know. It all comes of politics.”

“You’re right there,” said the woman from the toll-gate; “when they get politics into their heads, it’s worse than beer. They can get the better of liquor with a good sleep, but of politics”—she shook her head and sighed. “I’ll tell y’ what it is,” continued Mrs. Weldon. “It’s our own faults that the men get that rampageous. We give in to them too much. My husband never went after ale or politics; but then I taught him his duty from the beginning.”

“That’s it—it all comes of beginning well,” said the toll-gate mourner. “It’s the same with dogs and with poultry. Lor’ bless you, if I didn’t take the stick to my cochin-china, he’d be all over the kitchen.”

“I’d never advise any girl to marry,” said Mrs. Weldon.

“Nor I neither,” was the reply; “it’s a pity they won’t take advice—they are that wilful.”

Both couples were interrupted in their respective conversations by a rattle of wheels, shouts, a waving of colours, and up came a light cart occupied by a couple of men, one driving, both vociferating, one brandishing a whip, the other waving a parti-coloured sheet attached to a stick. The cart was drawn by a donkey with coloured rosettes, and was urged forward by the whip, at the end of which was a favour, accentuated with a bunch of thorns. The donkey, stung by the thorns, frightened by the yells, was galloping, and the banner was streaming in the air.

“Hurrah! Vote for Popjoy!” yelled the man with the flag as he flourished it over his head, and, swinging round the corner, the donkey came almost against the bearer with the coffin, and swerved so suddenly that the banner-bearer lost his balance, and was precipitated from the cart into the road, and fell at the feet of Jack Weldon.

“What are you doing there?” shouted the fallen man. “I’ll have a law passed to get the likes of you transported for life!”

He tried to rise, but found that he could not, and began to swear.

Then Mrs. Weldon pushed forward.

“Thomas!” she cried, in a voice harsh with indignation, “do you know where you be? and to whom you speak, you ill-conditioned tadpole?”

“I know well enough. I’m on the road—and I’ve hurt my leg somehow.”

“Do you know what you be?” again exclaimed Mrs. Weldon.

“I should think I did. I’m a free and enlightened elector.”

“Look up, Thomas Leveridge, from where you lie, stopping your little Rosie on the way to her grave.”

“Ah!” threw in the woman from the toll-gate, “if you, her own father, won’t come home to see your own sick and dying child, we, who’re no relations, must bury her without consideration of you.”

Then up came the companion of the prostrate man, who by this time had mastered the ass.

“I say, Thomas Leveridge! what’s to be done?” he asked.

The man on the road did not answer at once; he looked with glazed eyes and quivering mouth at the little chest. He tried to speak, but he could not. He tried to raise himself, but was powerless.

“Shall we get you into the cart?” asked his comrade.

“Ay,” answered Leveridge; “take me home. I can’t go nowhere else. Poor Marianne!”

Some hours later the little funeral party returned to Woodman’s Well, without the deal chest, walking at an accelerated pace—or rather, let me say that the old women walked fast; the young mourners lagged. Eventually they got home, and Jack entered the cottage of the Leveridges. Without a word he ascended the rickety staircase. It was strewn with scraps of coloured paper, on which were stray letters of the exhortation, “Vote for Popjoy!”

He might have been following a paper-chase; for at intervals along the road, down the lane, these coloured scraps had shown the way to the cottage. They had fallen from the hand of the injured man as he had been conveyed home, and on his way had torn the posters, and strewn them.

On the bed in the upper chamber lay Thomas Leveridge. A surgeon had already been there, and had pronounced the hip dislocated and a bone broken. He had replaced the joint and had spliced the bone. Leveridge was condemned to occupy his bed for some weeks. Beside him sat his wife, with red eyes and pale cheeks; on the floor was a cradle, empty; and she, inadvertently, was rocking it with her foot. Her heart was too full for words.

Jack looked at the man. Leveridge had turned his face to the wall, and was breathing hard; and at intervals a convulsive movement interrupted his long-drawn inspirations. He put up his hand to lay hold of the coverlet and draw it over his shoulder, and it shook—he could catch hold of nothing.

Jack did not speak. He thought: Let him cry, it will do him good. Tears will wash out his fault; and a fault it was in him to neglect home, even for his political party. Home claims first duties, then come others. If we begin the other way on, we are setting a steeple weathercock downwards, and laying the foundations in the clouds.

Presently Leveridge turned his face round, but would not let the light shine on his eyes; therefore he moved it on the pillow to where it was crossed by the shadow of his wife. Then he sighed and said, “Such a child as was my Rosie! There is no angel in heaven like her. Dear me! I was all for patching of the Constitution, and never mended up my own house. I am a mason, and did not put a bit of plaster to that crack in the wall; and the wind blew in on my little Rosie, and the draught killed her. I’m sure if I were dying——”

“You are not dying,” said his wife; “you are only laid by for a bit.”

“Ay,” said Thomas, “I’m tied to home by my leg, and serve me right; and now I can’t go to the poll.” He began to kick about.

“You must not do that,” said Mrs. Leveridge. “The doctor said you were to lie still.”

“I can’t help it, Marianne,” said the mason. “I’m real hearty glad I can’t go to the poll. It just serves me right, and touches me where I’m most tender. When I think of what I have done in leaving you alone, and my Rosie ill, I feel that ashamed as I’d like to dive under the bedclothes and never come up no more. Now look here, Jack. You are not a married man, nor thinking of it.”

“No,” said Jack, retreating a step; “I’m rather too young, thank you kindly.”

“No offence, it was well meant,” said the mason. “What I was going to say to you——But there, I hear your name called below. Run and see who wants you.”

The young man descended the stairs. At the foot stood Kate with a newspaper in her hand.

“Were you calling me?” asked Jack.

“I wanted to know if you’d be so very good as to go over the advertisements with me,” said Kate timidly. “I am a poor scholar; and I want to know if there is something in the paper that might suit me.”

“I’ll do it,” said Jack. He took the newspaper and spread it out on the kitchen table under the latticed window. “Let’s see—what do you want?”

“Go right through, if you please.”

“‘Messrs. Hampton will sell by auction this day that desirable——’”

“No, Jack, I’m not going to stand that.”

“‘Tenders are invited for new offices.’”

“That’s hardly in my way.”

“‘Three thousand gentlemen’s cast-off suits, overcoats, boots——’”

“No, I shouldn’t know what to do with them all.”

“‘Electrical engineering. A vacancy for an articled pupil.’”

Kate hesitated. “I don’t quite understand. I can feed pigs, bake, and milk. Is it anything to do with that?”

“No; as far as I can make out, it has to do with electioneering.”

“Then I’ll have nothing to say to it. Go on to the next.”

“‘Bake,’ you said. Then here goes. ‘Wanted at once, a man well up in smalls. State salary.’”

“But I’m not a man. Is there nothing that will suit me?”

“Here is something new,” said Jack, and he began to laugh. “‘Matrimony.—Bachelor, tall, handsome, healthy, good social position, possessing gold mines, and £2000 per annum, wishes to meet with a lady with view to marriage. Send full particulars. State age. Send photo. Thoroughly genuine.’”

“That’s the situation for me, to a hair! Do answer, Jack. I’m twenty-one.”

“But the photo?”

“I have none.”

“Then what is the good of answering? There will be such a run on this gentleman.”

“You think so, Jack?”

“Sure of it.”

“But not such desirable females as me.”

“There’s no photo,” said the young man sternly.

“But I can get myself photygraphed.”

“And by that time he will be caught up.”

“You think so?”

“Sure of it.”

“It is very hard to find a place.”

“I don’t quite know what you want. Here are a pair of roller-skates advertised, and here is a light phaeton.”

“No,” said Kate decidedly. “That’s not matrimonial, and it’s matrimonial I like: read another.”

“There is no other.”

“Then read over the first again.”

Jack did so. Kate mused.

“Look here, Jack,” said she. “Write for me and give a good description; and say I’ll be photygraphed the first opportunity.”

“That’s no good—he’ll think you colour yourself too high.”

“But if you describe me, Jack.”

“Well—here goes. Bright eyes, rosy cheeks, with a little dimple just at the corner of the mouth, and dark hair that shines, and lips—” Jack threw down the paper on the floor, put his foot on it, and burst forth with, “Drat it! If it’s matrimonial you want, come along with me back to Sugden to the parson, and we’ll ask him to read the banns next Sunday. But perhaps you’re too tired?”

“I—I tired? Bless you, I could run all the way.”

After a few weeks Thomas Leveridge was able to get about; and though he could not go at once to a distance for work, he was able to do small jobs near home. The squire came to Woodman’s Well. Complaints had been made by the sanitary officer that the cottages were ruinous and unhealthy.

“I’ll tell you what,” said he to Leveridge, “I will have them put into thorough repair and send the bill to old Rumage, who’s got the life-rights. If he won’t pay, then the cottages are mine.”

“And may I do them up?”

“Most assuredly.”

“That is famous,” said the mason; “then I shall have time to whitewash and make sweet before the wedding.”

“Wedding? What wedding? I thought there had been a burial—that the place was insanitary, and that——”

“Well, sir, out of Death cometh Life. A funeral sometimes leads to a marriage.”

A year and a day had passed since this conversation; then there issued from two houses at Woodman’s Well two little parties on their way to the parish church.

But this time no little coffin was carried to the graveyard; on the contrary, two lusty little infants were being conveyed to the baptismal font; and the parties issued respectively from the cottage of the Leveridges and from that of the Weldons. And as both parties arrived at the toll-gate, the woman who inhabited the toll-house issued forth, to act as sponsor to both babes.

And as she walked along she said to old Mrs. Weldon, “Who ever would have thought it, last time us two went this way?”

“Who ever would?” answered Mrs. Weldon; “but Jack might have gone far and fared worse.”

“And then—Thomas Leveridge?”

“He’s taken to caring for home first, and politics come second only.”

“Well, well! The last time we were here together it was to a burying; but it is true, that sayin’ of Scriptur’, ‘From Death we have passed to Life.’”