CHAPTER XXXV
THE SEXTON
With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my workagain. It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these proofs ofGod's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, "I will do this,"or even to think, "I will try to do that." My own poor helplessness, andloss of living love to guide me, laid upon my heart a weight from whichit scarcely cared to move. All was buried, all was done with, all hadpassed from out the world, and left no mark but graves behind. What goodto stir anew such sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could moveits mystery?
Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener, broughtme back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right couragewithin me. But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror and interestvividly. It may be remembered that this good man had been my father'sgardener at the time of our great calamity, and almost alone of theShoxford people had shown himself true and faithful. Not that thenatives had turned against us, or been at all unfriendly; so far fromthis was the case, that every one felt for our troubles, and pitied us,my father being of a cheerful and affable turn, until misery hardenedhim; but what I mean is that only one or two had the courage to goagainst the popular conclusion and the convictions of authority.
But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for hismaster, who many and many a time--as he told me--had taken a spade anddug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born, insteadof a fine young nobleman; "and nobody gifted with that turn of mind,likewise very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever be reliedupon to go and shoot his father." Thus reasoned old Jacob, and he alwayshad done so, and meant evermore to abide by it; and the graves whichhe had tended now for nigh a score of years, and meant to tend tillhe called for his own, were--as sure as he stood there in Shoxfordchurch-yard a-talking to me, who was the very image of my father, Godbless me, though not of course so big like--the graves of slaughteredinnocents, and a mother who was always an angel. And the parson mightpreach forever to him about the resurrection, and the right cominguppermost when you got to heaven, but to his mind that was scarcely anycount at all; and if you came to that, we ought to hang Jack Ketch, asmight come to pass in the Revelations. But while a man had got his ownbread to earn, till his honor would let him go to the work-house, andhis duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that vexed him more thanto be told any texts of Holy Scripture. Whatever God Almighty had putdown there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being long the mostancient people, though none the more for that did he like them; andso it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a day's work wortheighteenpence, that could enter into Bible promises. Not that he was atall behindhand about interpretation; but as long as he could fetch andearn, at planting box and doing borders, two shillings and ninepence aday and his beer, he was not going to be on for kingdom come.
I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here wouldbe approved by wise men who had found time to study the subject. But heanswered that whatever their words might be, their doings showed thatthey knew what was the first thing to attend to. And if it ever happenedhim to come across a parson who was as full of heaven outside as hewas inside his surplice, he would keep his garden in order for nothingbetter than his blessing.
I knew of no answer to be made to this. And indeed he seemed to be awarethat his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon his spade,and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the church tower, holdingas he did the position of sexton, and preparing even now to dig a grave.
"I keeps them well away from you," he said, as he began to chop out anew oblong in the turf; "many a shilling have I been offered by mothersabout their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy ring,' as wecalls this little cluster; but not for five golden guineas would I doit, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive, about it. We heard thathe was dead, because it was put in all the papers; and a pleasant placeI keeps for him, to come home alongside of his family. A nicer gravellybit of ground there couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance ofhim occupying it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss."
"Thank you," I answered; "you are certainly most kind; but, Mr. Rigg, Iwould rather wait a little. I have had a very troublesome life thus far,and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would rather not have mypeg driven down just--just at present."
"Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for theircoffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet. Lord bless youfor not knowing what He hath in hand! Now this one you see me a-raisingof the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a fortnight back, and asgood about the chest and shoulders, and three times the color in hercheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright as yourn be. Not aristocratic,you must understand me, miss, being only the miller's daughter, norinstructed to throw her voice the same as you do, which is better thangallery music; but setting these haxidents to one side, a farmer wouldhave said she was more preferable, because more come-at-able, though notin my opinion to be compared--excuse me for making so free, miss, butwhen it comes to death we has a kind of right to do it--and many a youngfarmer, coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, andfar and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the Moonshine,from the name of our little river. She used to call me 'Jacob Diggs,'because of my porochial office, with a meaning of a joke on my parenshalname. Ah, what a merry one she were! And now this is what I has to dofor her! And sooner would I 'a doed it a'most for my own old ooman!"
"Oh, Jacob!" I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore up theground, as if his wife was waiting, "the things you say are quite wrong,I am sure, for a man in your position. You are connected with thischurch almost as much as the clerk is."
"More, miss, ten times more! He don't do nothing but lounge on the frontof his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time oflife go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stickthat makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with theirpocket full of nuts. When I was a boy there was no nuts, except at theproper time of year, a month or two on from this time of speaking; andwe used to crack they in the husk, and make no noise to disturb thecongregation; but now it is nuts, nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts withthree corners to them--all the year round nuts to crack, and me to findout who did it!"
"But, Mr. Rigg," I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind thanin body, "is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all the nuts ona Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?"
"My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few. But not of aSaturday more than any other day."
"Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any saleof nuts except to good boys of high principles. And has it not happenedsometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on their nuts, and boughtthem again at your shop on a Monday? I mean, of course, when your dutyhas compelled you to empty the pockets of a boy in church."
Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up naturallyby my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as I had spokenI became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought to my mind that Ihad promised not even to whisper it; and now I had told it to the man ofall men! But Jacob appeared to have been quite deaf, and diligently wenton digging. And I said "good-evening," for the grave was for the morrow;and he let me go nearly to the stile before he stuck his spade into theground and followed.
"Excoose of my making use," he said, "of a kind of a personal reference,miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh me believe youmust be sharp inside--more than your father, the poor Captain, were, asall them little grass buttons argueth. Now, miss, if I thought you hadhead-piece enough to keep good counsel and ensue it, maybe I could tellyou a thing as would make your hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups,and your heart a'most bust them there braids of fallallies."
"Why, what in the world do you mean?" I asked, being startled by the oldman's voice and face.
"Nothing, m
iss, nothing. I was only a-joking. If you bain't come to nomore discretion than that--to turn as white as the clerk's smock-frockof a Easter-Sunday--why, the more of a joke one has, the better, tobring your purty color back to you. Ah! Polly of the mill was the maidfor color--as good for the eyesight as a chaney-rose in April. Well,well, I must get on with her grave; they're a-coming to speak the goodword over un on sundown."
He might have known how this would vex and perplex me. I could not bearto hinder him in his work--as important as any to be done by man forman--and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave him there,and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to tell. So I quietlysaid, "Then I will wish you a very good evening again, Mr. Rigg, as youare too busy to be spoken with." And I walked off a little way, havingmet with men who, having begun a thing, needs must have it out, andfully expecting him to call me back. But Jacob only touched his hat, andsaid, "A pleasant evening to you, ma'am."
Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did. I did nothesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and demandingof Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any thing ornothing; for I was not to be played with about important matters, likethe boys in the church who were cracking nuts.
"Lord! Lord, now!" he said, with his treddled heel scraping the shoulderof his shining spade; "the longer I live in this world, the fitter Igrow to get into the ways of the Lord. His ways are past finding out,saith King David: but a man of war, from his youth upward, hath nochance such as a gardening man hath. What a many of them have I foundout!"
"What has that got to do with it!" I cried. "Just tell me what it wasyou were speaking of just now."
"I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss," he answered, in theprime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only, not becausehe wanted it, "how little us knows of the times and seasons and thegenerations of the sons of men. There you stand, miss, and here stand I,as haven't seen your father for a score of years a'most; and yet therecomes out of your eyes into mine the very same look as the Captain usedto send, when snakes in the grass had been telling lies about me cominglate, or having my half pint or so on. Not that the Captain was a hardman, miss--far otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of thewomen be. But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a madeyou come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyeslike--Selah!"
"You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not," I answered, quitegently, being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried tohurry him; "but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg, tome, your master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking. Is this theplace to joke with me?"
I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a footwithout stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man, callousas he might be, could not help feeling for--a pinch of snuff. Thishe found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, and took it verycarefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and thus, being fullyself-assured again, he stood, with his feet far apart and his head onone side, regarding me warily. And I took good care not to say anotherword.
"You be young," he said at last; "and in these latter days no wisdom isordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always in the mouthsof them as is themselves ordained. But you have a way of keeping yourchin up, miss, as if you was gifted with a stiff tongue likewise. Andwhatever may hap, I has as good mind to tell 'e."
"That you are absolutely bound to do," I answered, as forcibly as Icould. "Duty to your former master and to me, his only child--and toyourself, and your Maker too--compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me everything you know."
"Then, miss," he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a low,hoarse voice, "as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by all thismurdered family, I knows the man who done it!"
He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips, and thespade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I became as firmas the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of fluttering, grew assteadfast as a glacier. Then, for the first time, I knew that God hadnot kept me living, when all the others died, without fitting me alsofor the work there was to do.
"Come here to the corner of the tower, miss," old Jacob went on, in hisexcitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket. "Wherewe stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of them bigtombstones. And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may be a-watchingof us while here we stand."
I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if onlyI could see him once. But the place was as silent as its graves; andI followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress. Here he went intoa deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip from the roof; andbeing, both in his clothes and self, pretty much of that same color,he was not very easy to discern from stone when the light of day wasdeclining.
"This is where I catches all the boys," he whispered; "and this is whereI caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to nurse my kneesa bit. Let me see--why, let me see! Don't you speak till I do, miss.Were it the last but one I dug? Or could un 'a been the last but two?Never mind; I can't call to mind quite justly. We puts down about one amonth in this parish, without any distemper or haxident. Well, it must'a been the one afore last--to be sure, no call to scratch my headabout un. Old Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here--done handsome bythe rate-payers. Over there, miss, if you please to look--about twoland-yard and a half away. Can you see un with the grass peeking upa'ready?"
"Never mind that, Jacob. Do please to go on."
"So I be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well,I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to sayas I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it--a spiteful old ooman,and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay forit; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was justmaking ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to easemy legs, like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, andover again that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along--movin'along, without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You maysee the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this herefinger."
"Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?"
"I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard, suchas a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away from. But theyno right, after the service of the Church, to come up for more than onechange of the moon, unless they been great malefactors. And then they beashamed of it; and I reminds them of it. 'Amen,' I say, in the very samevoice as I used at the tail of their funerals; and then they knows wellthat I covered them up, and the most uneasy goes back again. Lor' blessyou, miss, I no fear of the dead. At both ends of life us be harmless.It is in the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all thedeath for one another."
This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to interject anynew ideas from which he might go rambling.
"Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you," the old man continued,as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with another pinch ofsnuff, "being tall and grim, and white in the face, and very onpleasantfor to look at, and its eyes seemed a'most to burn holes in the air. Nosooner did I see that it were not a ghostie, but a living man thesame as I be, than my knees begins to shake and my stumps of teeth tochatter. And what do you think it was stopped me, miss, from slippinground this corner, and away by belfry? Nort but the hoddest idea youever heared on. For all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that theLord had been pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome ashe used to be, but in the living flesh, however, in spite of theynewspapers. And I were just at the pint of coming forrard, out of thishere dark cornder, knowing as I had done my duty by them graves that hishonor, to my mind, must 'a come looking after, when, lucky for me, Isee summat in his walk, and then in his countenance, and then in allhis features, unnateral on the Captain's part, whatever his time of lifem
ight be. And sure enough, miss, it were no Captain more nor I myselfbe."
"Of course not. How could it be? But who was it, Jacob?"
"You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole. Well, by that time'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge up intothe elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as nigh as mightbe, and keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a face more fullof malice and uncharity. However, he come on as straight as a arrow,holding his long chin out, like this, as if he gotten crutches underit, as the folk does with bad water. A tall man, as tall as the Captaina'most, but not gifted with any kind aspect. He trampsed over thegeneral graves, like the devil come to fetch their souls out; but whenhe come here to the 'holy ring,' he stopped short, and stood with hisback to me. I could hear him count the seven graves, as pat as theshells of oysters to pay for, and then he said all their names, as true,from the biggest to the leastest one, as Betsy Bowen could 'a done it,though none of 'em got no mark to 'em. Oh, the poor little hearts, itwas cruel hard upon them! And then my lady in the middle, makingseven. So far as I could catch over his shoulder, he seemed to be quitea-talking with her--not as you and I be, miss, but a sort of a manner ofa way, like."
"And what did he seem to say? Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over it!"
"Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain. And glad I wasto have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to such acondition--ay, and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had caughtsight of me--as the parish might 'a had to fight over the appintment ofanother sexton. And so at last a' went away. And I were that stiff withscrooging in this cornder--"
"Is that all? Oh, that comes to nothing. Surely you must have more totell me? It may have been some one who knew our names. It may have beensome old friend of the family."
"No, miss, no! No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like KingDavid's. He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of aspswere under his lips. In this here hattitude he stood, with his backtoward me, and his reins more upright than I be capable of putting it.And this was how he held up his elbow and his head. Look 'e see, miss,and then 'e know as much as I do."
Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step--a most difficult strain forhis short bowed legs--as far as the place he had been pointing out; andthere he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what the tall manhad done, so far as the difference of size allowed.
It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness; and yetJacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching himself insuch a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger, that--low as itwas--I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally offending him.
"That warn't quite right, miss. Now you look again," he exclaimed, witha little readjustment. "Only he had a thing over one shoulder, the likeof what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was beyond me, because ofthe back of his head, like. For God's sake keep out of his way, miss."
The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude, withthe right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand restinghalf-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown back, as ifready for a blow.
"What a very odd way to stand!" I said.
"Yes, miss. And what he said was odder. 'Six, and the mother!' I hearedun say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.' But stop, miss. Not abreath to any one! Here comes the poor father and mother to speak theblessing across their daughter's grave--and the grave not two foot downyet!"