Oldal 56 [56]
OCR
30 teen 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; 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. Olliver was afraid to look at either her or the manyrzthey 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! ae you, keep back, if you’ve a life to Ég “Nonsense! my good man,” said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes,—“ nonsense !” “T 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 starved to death. 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 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 unloosed 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 itselfi— Lord, Lord !—well, it és 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 tomorrow—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; the bare coffin having been screwed down, was then hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried down stairs 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
