Headlong Hall Part 6

CHAPTER IX The s.e.xton

Mr Escot pa.s.sed a sleepless night, the ordinary effect of love, according to some amatory poets, who seem to have composed their whining ditties for the benevolent purpose of bestowing on others that gentle slumber of which they so pathetically lament the privation. The deteriorationist entered into a profound moral soliloquy, in which he first examined _whether a philosopher ought to be in love?_ Having decided this point affirmatively against Plato and Lucretius, he next examined, _whether that pa.s.sion ought to have the effect of keeping a philosopher awake?_ Having decided this negatively, he resolved to go to sleep immediately: not being able to accomplish this to his satisfaction, he tossed and tumbled, like Achilles or Orlando, first on one side, then on the other; repeated to himself several hundred lines of poetry; counted a thousand; began again, and counted another thousand: in vain: the beautiful Cephalis was the predominant image in all his soliloquies, in all his repet.i.tions: even in the numerical process from which he sought relief, he did but a.s.sociate the idea of number with that of his dear tormentor, till she appeared to his mind's eye in a thousand similitudes, distinct, not different. These thousand images, indeed, were but one; and yet the one was a thousand, a sort of uni-multiplex phantasma, which will be very intelligible to some understandings.

He arose with the first peep of day, and sallied forth to enjoy the balmy breeze of morning, which any but a lover might have thought too cool; for it was an intense frost, the sun had not risen, and the wind was rather fresh from north-east and by north. But a lover, who, like Ladurlad in the Curse of Kehama, always has, or at least is supposed to have, "a fire in his heart and a fire in his brain," feels a wintry breeze from N.E. and by N. steal over his cheek like the south over a bank of violets; therefore, on walked the philosopher, with his coat unb.u.t.toned and his hat in his hand, careless of whither he went, till he found himself near the enclosure of a little mountain chapel.

Pa.s.sing through the wicket, and stepping over two or three graves, he stood on a rustic tombstone, and peeped through the chapel window, examining the interior with as much curiosity as if he had "forgotten what the inside of a church was made of," which, it is rather to be feared, was the case. Before him and beneath him were the font, the altar, and the grave; which gave rise to a train of moral reflections on the three great epochs in the course of the _featherless biped_,--birth, marriage, and death. The middle stage of the process arrested his attention; and his imagination placed before him several figures, which he thought, with the addition of his own, would make a very picturesque group; the beautiful Cephalis, "arrayed in her bridal apparel of white;" her friend Caprioletta officiating as bridemaid; Mr Cranium giving her away; and, last, not least, the Reverend Doctor Gaster, intoning the marriage ceremony with the regular orthodox allowance of nasal recitative. Whilst he was feasting his eyes on this imaginary picture, the demon of mistrust insinuated himself into the storehouse of his conceptions, and, removing his figure from the group, subst.i.tuted that of Mr Panscope, which gave such a violent shock to his feelings, that he suddenly exclaimed, with an extraordinary elevation of voice, _Oimoi kakodaimon, kai tris kakodaimon, kai tetrakis, kai pentakis, kai dodekakis, kai muriakis!_[9.1] to the great terror of the s.e.xton, who was just entering the churchyard, and, not knowing from whence the voice proceeded, _pensa que fut un diableteau_. The sight of the philosopher dispelled his apprehensions, when, growing suddenly valiant, he immediately addressed him:--

"Cot pless your honour, I should n't have thought of meeting any pody here at this time of the morning, except, look you, it was the tevil--who, to pe sure, toes not often come upon consecrated cround--put for all that, I think I have seen him now and then, in former tays, when old Nanny Llwyd of Llyn-isa was living--Cot teliver us! a terriple old witch to pe sure she was--I tid n't much like tigging her crave--put I prought two c.o.c.ks with me--the tevil hates c.o.c.ks--and tied them py the leg on two tombstones--and I tug, and the c.o.c.ks crowed, and the tevil kept at a tistance. To pe sure now, if I had n't peen very prave py nature--as I ought to pe truly--for my father was Owen Ap-Llwyd Ap-Gryffydd Ap-Shenkin Ap-Williams Ap-Thomas Ap-Morgan Ap-Parry Ap-Evan Ap-Rhys, a coot preacher and a lover of _cwrw_[9.2]--I should have thought just now pefore I saw your honour, that the foice I heard was the tevil's calling Nanny Llwyd--Cot pless us! to pe sure she should have been puried in the middle of the river, where the tevil can't come, as your honour fery well knows."

"I am perfectly aware of it," said Mr Escot.

"True, true," continued the s.e.xton; "put to pe sure, Owen Thomas of Morfa-Bach will have it that one summer evening--when he went over to Cwm Cynfael in Meirionnydd, apout some cattles he wanted to puy--he saw a strange figure--pless us!--with five horns!--Cot save us!

sitting on Hugh Llwyd's pulpit, which, your honour fery well knows, is a pig rock in the middle of the river----"

"Of course he was mistaken," said Mr Escot.

"To pe sure he was," said the s.e.xton. "For there is no toubt put the tevil, when Owen Thomas saw him, must have peen sitting on a piece of rock in a straight line from him on the other side of the river, where he used to sit, look you, for a whole summer's tay, while Hugh Llwyd was on his pulpit, and there they used to talk across the water! for Hugh Llwyd, please your honour, never raised the tevil except when he was safe in the middle of the river, which proves that Owen Thomas, in his fright, did n't pay proper attention to the exact spot where the tevil was."

The s.e.xton concluded his speech with an approving smile at his own sagacity, in so luminously expounding the nature of Owen Thomas's mistake.

"I perceive," said Mr Escot, "you have a very deep insight into things, and can, therefore, perhaps, facilitate the resolution of a question, concerning which, though I have little doubt on the subject, I am desirous of obtaining the most extensive and accurate information."

The s.e.xton scratched his head, the language of Mr Escot not being to his apprehension quite so luminous as his own.

"You have been s.e.xton here," continued Mr Escot, in the language of Hamlet, "man and boy, forty years."

The s.e.xton turned pale. The period Mr Escot named was so nearly the true one, that he began to suspect the personage before him of being rather too familiar with Hugh Llwyd's sable visitor. Recovering himself a little, he said, "Why, thereapouts, sure enough."

"During this period, you have of course dug up many bones of the people of ancient times."

"Pones! Cot pless you, yes! pones as old as the 'orlt."

"Perhaps you can show me a few."

The s.e.xton grinned horribly a ghastly smile. "Will you take your Pible oath you ton't want them to raise the tevil with?"

"Willingly," said Mr Escot, smiling; "I have an abstruse reason for the inquiry."

"Why, if you have an _obtuse_ reason," said the s.e.xton, who thought this a good opportunity to show that he could p.r.o.nounce hard words as well as other people; "if you have an _obtuse_ reason, that alters the case."

So saying he lead the way to the bone-house, from which he began to throw out various bones and skulls of more than common dimensions, and amongst them a skull of very extraordinary magnitude, which he swore by St David was the skull of Cadwallader.

"How do you know this to be his skull?" said Mr Escot.

"He was the piggest man that ever lived, and he was puried here; and this is the piggest skull I ever found: you see now----"

"Nothing can be more logical," said Mr Escot. "My good friend will you allow me to take this skull away with me?"

"St Winifred pless us!" exclaimed the s.e.xton, "would you have me haunted py his chost for taking his plessed pones out of consecrated cround? Would you have him come in the tead of the night, and fly away with the roof of my house? Would you have all the crop of my carden come to nothing? for, look you, his epitaph says,

"He that my pones shall ill pestow, Leek in his cround shall never crow."

"You will ill bestow them," said Mr Escot, "in confounding them with those of the sons of little men, the degenerate dwarfs of later generations; you will well bestow them in giving them to me: for I will have this ill.u.s.trious skull bound with a silver rim, and filled with mantling wine, with this inscription, NUNC TANDEM: signifying that that pernicious liquor has at length found its proper receptacle; for, when the wine is in, the brain is out."

Saying these words, he put a dollar into the hands of the s.e.xton, who instantly stood spellbound by the talismanic influence of the coin, while Mr Escot walked off in triumph with the skull of Cadwallader.

CHAPTER X The Skull

When Mr Escot entered the breakfast-room he found the majority of the party a.s.sembled, and the little butler very active at his station.

Several of the ladies shrieked at the sight of the skull; and Miss Tenorina, starting up in great haste and terror, caused the subversion of a cup of chocolate, which a servant was handing to the Reverend Doctor Gaster, into the nape of the neck of Sir Patrick O'Prism. Sir Patrick, rising impetuously, _to clap an extinguisher_, as he expressed himself, _on the farthing rushlight of the rascal's life_, pushed over the chair of Marmaduke Milestone, Esquire, who, catching for support at the first thing that came in his way, which happened unluckily to be the corner of the table-cloth, drew it instantaneously with him to the floor, involving plates, cups and saucers, in one promiscuous ruin. But, as the princ.i.p.al _materiel_ of the breakfast apparatus was on the little butler's side-table, the confusion occasioned by this accident was happily greater than the damage. Miss Tenorina was so agitated that she was obliged to retire: Miss Graziosa accompanied her through pure sisterly affection and sympathy, not without a lingering look at Sir Patrick, who likewise retired to change his coat, but was very expeditious in returning to resume his attack on the cold partridge. The broken cups were cleared away, the cloth relaid, and the array of the table restored with wonderful celerity.

Mr Escot was a little surprised at the scene of confusion which signalised his entrance; but, perfectly unconscious that it originated with the skull of Cadwallader, he advanced to seat himself at the table by the side of the beautiful Cephalis, first placing the skull in a corner, out of the reach of Mr Cranium, who sate eyeing it with lively curiosity, and after several efforts to restrain his impatience, exclaimed, "You seem to have found a rarity."

"A rarity indeed," said Mr Escot, cracking an egg as he spoke; "no less than the genuine and indubitable skull of Cadwallader."

"The skull of Cadwallader!" vociferated Mr Cranium; "O treasure of treasures!"

Mr Escot then detailed by what means he had become possessed of it, which gave birth to various remarks from the other individuals of the party: after which, rising from table, and taking the skull again in his hand,

"This skull," said he, "is the skull of a hero, _palai katatethneiotos_[10.1], and sufficiently demonstrates a point, concerning which I never myself entertained a doubt, that the human race is undergoing a gradual process of diminution, in length, breadth, and thickness. Observe this skull. Even the skull of our reverend friend, which is the largest and thickest in the company, is not more than half its size. The frame this skull belonged to could scarcely have been less than nine feet high. Such is the lamentable progress of degeneracy and decay. In the course of ages, a boot of the present generation would form an ample chateau for a large family of our remote posterity. The mind, too, partic.i.p.ates in the contraction of the body. Poets and philosophers of all ages and nations have lamented this too visible process of physical and moral deterioration.

'The sons of little men', says Ossian. '_Oioi nun brotoi eisin_,' says Homer: 'such men as live in these degenerate days.' 'All things,' says Virgil, 'have a retrocessive tendency, and grow worse and worse by the inevitable doom of fate.'[10.2] 'We live in the ninth age,' says Juvenal, 'an age worse than the age of iron; nature has no metal sufficiently pernicious to give a denomination to its wickedness.'[10.3] 'Our fathers,' says Horace, 'worse than our grandfathers, have given birth to us, their more vicious progeny, who, in our turn, shall become the parents of a still viler generation.'[10.4] You all know the fable of the buried Pict, who bit off the end of a pickaxe, with which sacrilegious hands were breaking open his grave, and called out with a voice like subterranean thunder, _I perceive the degeneracy of your race by the smallness of your little finger!_ videlicet, the pickaxe. This, to be sure, is a fiction; but it shows the prevalent opinion, the feeling, the conviction, of absolute, universal, irremediable deterioration."

"I should be sorry," said Mr Foster, "that such an opinion should become universal, independently of my conviction of its fallacy. Its general admission would tend, in a great measure, to produce the very evils it appears to lament. What could be its effect, but to check the ardour of investigation, to extinguish the zeal of philanthropy, to freeze the current of enterprising hope, to bury in the torpor of scepticism and in the stagnation of despair, every better faculty of the human mind, which will necessarily become retrograde in ceasing to be progressive?"

"I am inclined to think, on the contrary," said Mr Escot, "that the deterioration of man is accelerated by his blindness--in many respects wilful blindness--to the truth of the fact itself, and to the causes which produce it; that there is no hope whatever of ameliorating his condition but in a total and radical change of the whole scheme of human life, and that the advocates of his indefinite perfectibility are in reality the greatest enemies to the practical possibility of their own system, by so strenuously labouring to impress on his attention that he is going on in a good way, while he is really in a deplorably bad one."

"I admit," said Mr Foster, "there are many things that may, and therefore will, be changed for the better."

"Not on the present system," said Mr Escot, "in which every change is for the worse."

"In matters of taste I am sure it is," said Mr Gall: "there is, in fact, no such thing as good taste left in the world."

"Oh, Mr Gall!" said Miss Philomela Poppyseed, "I thought my novel----"

"My paintings," said Sir Patrick O'Prism----

"My ode," said Mr Mac Laurel----

"My ballad," said Mr Nightshade----

"My plan for Lord Littlebrain's park," said Marmaduke Milestone, Esquire----

"My essay," said Mr Treacle----

"My sonata," said Mr Chromatic----