itself to her husband’s mind before? Mr. Sowerberry rightly
construed this, as an acquiescence in his proposition; it was
speedily determined, therefore, that Oliver should be at once
initiated into the mysteries of the trade; and, with this view, that
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he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of his
services being required.
The occasion was not long in coming. 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 pocketbook:
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. “Antimonial, Mr.
Sowerberry!”
“So it is,” acquiesced the undertaker.
“We only heard of the family 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, offhand.”
“Ah, there’s promptness,” said the undertaker.
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“Promptness, indeed!” replied the beadle. “But what’s the
consequence; what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir?
Why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won’t suit
his wife’s complaint, and so she shan’t take it—says she shan’t
take it, sir! Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with
great success to two Irish labourers and a coal-heaver, only a week
before—sent ’em for nothing, with a blackin’-bottle in—and he
sends back word that she shan’t take it, sir!”
As the 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 anybody 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 even to ask after
you!” said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode
down the street.
“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
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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 most crowded and
densely inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a
narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet
passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object
of their search. The houses on either side were high and large, but
very old, and tenanted by people of the poorest class: as their
neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted, without
the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few
men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half-doubled,
occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements had
shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only
the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had become
insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the
street by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly
planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have
been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches,
for many of the rough boards, which supplied the place of door
and window, were wrenched from their positions, to afford an
aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body. The
kennel was stagnant and filthy. The very rats, which here and
there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine.
There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door
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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. Stumbling against a door on the landing,
he 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; 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 involuntary 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; his hair and beard were
grizzly; 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! Damn 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
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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 her—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
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
grovelling upon the floor, his eyes fixed and the foam covering 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. Having unloosed the
cravat of the man who still remained extended on the ground, she
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 in such a place.
“Lord, Lord! Well, it is strange that I who gave birth to her, and
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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 tonight? 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 you like!”
he disengaged himself from the old woman’s grasp; and, drawing
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;
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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
where 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 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 the churchyard played a noisy game
at hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their
amusements by jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin.
Mr. Sowerberry and Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk,
sat by the fire with him, and read the paper.
At length, after a lapse of something more than an hour, Mr.
Bumble, and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running
towards the grave. Immediately afterwards, the clergyman
appeared, putting on his surplice as he came along. Mr. Bumble
then thrashed 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 walked 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
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feet; shouldered his spade; and walked off, followed by the boys,
who murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so
soon.
“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 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,” said Sowerberry.
“Nothing when you are used to it, my boy.”
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.
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Chapter 6
Oliver, Being Goaded By The Taunts Of Noah,
Rouses Into Action, And Rather Astonishes Him.
The month’s trial over, Oliver was formally apprenticed. It
was a nice sickly season just at this time. In commercial
phrase, coffins were looking up; and, in the course of a few
weeks, Oliver acquired a great deal of experience. The success of
Mr. Sowerberry’s ingenious speculation exceeded even his most
sanguine hopes. The oldest inhabitants recollected no period at
which measles had been so prevalent, or so fatal to infant
existence; and many were the mournful processions which little
Oliver headed, in a hat-band reaching down to his knees, to the
indescribable admiration and emotion of all the mothers in the
town. As Oliver accompanied his master in most of his adult
expeditions, too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity of
demeanour and full command of nerve which are essential to a
finished undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the
beautiful resignation and fortitude with which some strong-
minded people bear their trials and losses.
For instance; when Sowerberry had an order for the burial of
some rich old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great
number of nephews and nieces, who had been perfectly
inconsolable during the previous illness, and whose grief had been
wholly irrepressible even on the most public occasions, they would
be as happy among themselves as need be—quite cheerful and
contented—conversing together with as much freedom and gaiety,
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as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb them. Husbands,
too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic calmness.
Wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far from
grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to
render it as becoming and attractive as possible. It was observable,
too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish
during the ceremony of internment, recovered almost as soon as
they reached home, and became quite composed before the tea-
drinking was over. All this was very pleasant and improving to see;
and Oliver beheld it with great admiration.
That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of
these good people, I cannot, although I am his biographer,
undertake to affirm with any degree of confidence; but I can most
distinctly say, that for many months he continued meekly to
submit to the domination and ill-treatment of Noah Claypole, who
used him far worse than before, now that his jealousy was routed
by seeing the new boy promoted to the black stick and hat-band,
while he, the old one, remained stationary in the muffin-cap and
leathers. Charlotte treated him ill, because Noah did; and Mrs.
Sowerberry was his decided enemy, because Mr. Sowerberry was
disposed to be his friend; so, between these three on one side, and
a glut of funerals on the other, Oliver was not altogether as
comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up, by
mistake, in the grain department of a brewery.
And now, I come to a very important passage in Oliver’s history;
for I have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in
appearance, but which indirectly produced a material change in
all his future prospects and proceedings.
One day, Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen at
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