CHAPTER V. 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 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, 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 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 “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 “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,” 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 “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 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. 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 “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 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 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 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 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 “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 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 “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,” 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. |