'I'm sure she must have been. Why, only think how old she looked. You and I seemed but boys to her.'
'She did look old,' rejoined David. 'You're right. She did look old.'
'Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if she could be but seventy–nine at last —only our age,' said the sexton.
'Five year older at the very least!' cried the other.
'Five!' retorted the sexton. 'Ten. Good eighty–nine. I call to mind the time her daughter died. She was eighty–nine if she was a day, and tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger. Oh! human vanity!'
The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such weight as to render it doubtful—not whether the deceased was of the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal term of a hundred. When they had settled this question to their mutual satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend's assistance, rose to go.
'It's chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful—till the summer,' he said, as he prepared to limp away.
'What?' asked old David.
'He's very deaf, poor fellow!' cried the sexton. 'Good–bye!' 'Ah!' said old David, looking after him. 'He's failing very fast. He ages every day.'
And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in him than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the little fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose decease was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and would be no business of theirs for half a score of years to come.
The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as he threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to cough and fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind of sober chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast. At length she turned away, and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came unexpectedly upon the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green grave in the sun, reading.
'Nell here?' he said cheerfully, as he closed his book. 'It does me good to see you in the air and light. I feared you were again in the church, where you so often are.'
'Feared!' replied the child, sitting down beside him. 'Is it not a good place?'
'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster. 'But you must be gay sometimes—nay, don't shake your head and smile so sadly.'
'Not sadly, if you knew my heart. Do not look at me as if you thought me sorrowful. There is not a happier creature on earth, than I am now.'
Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it between her own. 'It's God's will!' she said, when they had been silent for some time.
'What?'
'All this,' she rejoined; 'all this about us. But which of us is sad now? You see that I am smiling.'
'And so am I,' said the schoolmaster; 'smiling to think how often we shall laugh in this same place. Were you not talking yonder?'
'Yes,'the child rejoined.
'Of something that has made you sorrowful?'
There was a long pause.
'What was it?' said the schoolmaster, tenderly. 'Come. Tell me what it was.'
'I rather grieve—I do rather grieve to think,' said the child, bursting into tears, 'that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.'
'And do you think,' said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, 'that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves—neglected as they look to us—are the chief instruments.'
'Tell me no more,' said the child quickly. 'Tell me no more. I feel, I know it. How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?'
'There is nothing,' cried her friend, 'no, nothing innocent or good, that dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here. Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!'
'Yes,' said the child, 'it is the truth; I know it is. Who should feel its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives again! Dear, dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have given me!'
The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in silence; for his heart was full.
They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather approached. Before they had spoken many words together, the church clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew.
'A good man,' said the grandfather, looking after him; 'a kind man. Surely he will never harm us, Nell. We are safe here, at last, eh? We will never go away from here?'
The child shook her head and smiled.
'She needs rest,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'too pale—too pale. She is not like what she was.'
When?' asked the child.
'Ha!' said the old man, 'to be sure—when? How many weeks ago? Could I count them on my fingers? Let them rest though; they're better gone.' 'Much better, dear,' replied the child. 'We will forget them; or, if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream that has passed away.'
'Hush!' said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand and looking over his shoulder; 'no more talk of the dream, and all the miseries it brought. There are no dreams here. 'Tis a quiet place, and they keep away. Let us never think about them, lest they should pursue us again. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks—wet, cold, and famine—and horrors before them all, that were even worse—we must forget such things if we would be tranquil here.'
'Thank Heaven!' inwardly exclaimed the child, 'for this most happy change!'
'I will be patient,' said the old man, 'humble, very thankful, and obedient, if you will let me stay. But do not hide from me; do not steal away alone; let me keep beside you. Indeed, I will be very true and faithful, Nell.'
'I steal away alone! why that,' replied the child, with assumed gaiety, 'would be a pleasant jest indeed. See here, dear grandfather, we'll make this place our garden—why not! It is a very good one—and to–morrow we'll begin, and work together, side by side.'
'It is a brave thought!' cried her grandfather. 'Mind, darling—we begin to–morrow!'
Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their labour! Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the spot, as he! They plucked the long grass and nettles from the tombs, thinned the poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and cleared it of the leaves and weeds. They were yet in the ardour of their work, when the child, raising her head from the ground over which she bent, observed that the bachelor was sitting on the stile close by, watching them in silence.
'A kind office,' said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she curtseyed to him. 'Have you done all that, this morning?'
'It is very little, sir,' returned the child, with downcast eyes, 'to what we mean to do.'
'Good work, good work,' said the bachelor. 'But do you only labour at the graves of children, and young people?'
'We shall come to the others in good time, sir,' replied Nell, turning her head aside, and speaking softly.
It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident, or the child's unconscious sympathy with youth. But it seemed to strike upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before. He looked in ° hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the child, then pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest. Something he had long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in his mind. It did not pass away, as weightier things had done; but came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that day, and often afterwards. Once, while they were yet at work, the child, seeing that he often turned and looked uneasily at her, as though he were trying to resolve some painful doubts or collect some scattered thoughts, urged him to tell the reason. But he said it was
