Part 18 (1/2)
”What do you mean by hundreds and thousands of years?” said Roger.
”Look here, how the arm bends, and the wrist! I believe I could make its fingers close on mine,” he continued, stepping back--evidently afraid of the remains which lay before him. ”If I was sure now, that it was not Stephen or Nan ... But the peat water does wonders, they say, with whatever lies in it.”
”So it does. It preserves bodies, as I told you. I will show you in a minute that it is n.o.body you have ever known.”
And Oliver took from Roger's hand the slip of wood with which he had been working, and began to clear out more soil about the figure.
”Don't, don't now!” exclaimed Roger. ”Don't uncover the face! If you do, I will go away.”
”Go, then,” replied Oliver. It appeared as if the bold boy and the timid one had changed characters. The reason was that Roger had some very disagreeable thoughts connected with Stephen and Nan Redfurn. He never forgot, when their images were before him, that they had died in the midst of angry and contemptuous feelings between them and him.
Oliver, on the other hand, was religious. Though, in easy times, more afraid than he ought to have been of dishonest and violent persons, he had yet enough trust in G.o.d to support his spirits and his hope in trial, as we have seen: and about death and the grave, and the other world, where he believed the dead went to meet their Maker and Father, he had no fear at all. Nothing that Roger now said, therefore, made him desist, till he had uncovered half the dried body.
”Look here!” said he--for Roger had not gone away as he had threatened--”come closer and look, or you will see nothing in the dusk.
Did either Stephen or Nan wear their hair this way? And is this dress anything like Ailwin's cloak? Look at the long black hair hanging all round the little flat brown face. And the dress: it is the skin of some beast, with the hair left on--a rough-edged skin, fastened with a bit of something like coal on the left shoulder. I dare say it was once a wooden skewer. I wonder how long ago this body was alive. I wonder what sort of a country this was to live in, at that day.”
Roger's fear having now departed, his more habitual feelings again prevailed.
”I say,” said he, returning to the spot, and wrenching the tool from Oliver's hand; ”I say--don't you meddle any more. The curiosity is mine, you know. I found it, and it's mine.”
”What will you do with it?” asked Oliver, who saw that, even now, Roger rather shrank from touching the limbs, and turned away from the open eyes of the body.
”It will make a show. If I don't happen to see the earl, so as to get gold for it, I'll make people give me a penny a piece to see it; and that will be as good as gold presently.”
”I wish you would bury it,” earnestly exclaimed Oliver, as the thought occurred to him that the time might come, though perhaps hundreds of years hence, when dear little George's body might be found in like manner. He could not endure the idea of that body being ever made a show of.
Of course, Roger would not hear of giving up his treasure; and Oliver was walking away, when Roger called after him--
”Don't go yet, Oliver. Wait a minute, and I will come with you.”
Oliver proceeded, however, thinking that Roger would have to acquire some courage yet before he could carry about his mummy for a show.
Oliver was only going for Mildred--to let her see, before it was quite dark, what had been done, and what found. When they returned, Roger was standing at some distance from the bank, apparently watching his mummy as it lay in the cleft that he had cleared. He started when he heard Mildred's gentle voice exclaiming at its being so small and so dark-coloured. She next wondered how old it was.
After the boys had examined the ground again, and put together all they had heard about the ancient condition of the Levels, they agreed that this person must have been buried, or have died alone in the woods, before the district became a marsh. Pastor Dendel had told Oliver about the thick forest that covered these lands when the Romans invaded Britain; and how the inhabitants fled to the woods, and so hid themselves there that the Roman soldiers had to cut down the woods to get at them; and how the trees, falling across the courses of the streams, dammed them up, so that the surrounding soil was turned into a swamp; and how mosses and water-plants grew over the fallen trees, and became matted together, so that more vegetation grew on the top of that, till the ancient forest was, at length, quite buried in the carr.
Oliver now reminded his sister of all this: and they looked with a kind of veneration on the form which they supposed was probably that of an ancient Briton, who, flying from the invaders, into the recesses of the forest, had perished there alone. There was no appearance of his having been buried. No earthen vessels, or other remains, such as were usually found in the graves of the ancients, appeared to be contained in the bank. If he had died lying along the ground, his body would have decayed like other bodies, or been devoured by wild beasts. Perhaps he was drowned in one of the ponds or streams of the forest, and the body, being immediately washed over with sand or mud, was thus preserved.
”What is the use of guessing and guessing?” exclaimed Roger. ”If people should dig up George's bones, out of this bank, a thousand years hence, and find them lying in a sort of oven, as they would call it, with a fine carved stone for one of the six sides, do you think they could ever guess how all these things came to be here?”
”This way of burying is an accident, such as no one would think of guessing,” said Oliver, sighing. ”And this dried body may be here, to be sure, by some other accident that we know nothing about. I really wish, Roger, you would cover up the corpse again; at least, till we know whether we shall all die together here.”
This was what Roger could never bear to hear of. He always ran away from it: and so he did now. Dark as it was growing, he pa.s.sed over to the house, and mounted the staircase (which stood as firm as ever, and looked something like a self-supported ladder). While he was vainly looking abroad for boats, which the shadows of the evening would have prevented his seeing if they had been there by hundreds, the brother and sister speculated on one thing more, in connection with the spectacle which had powerfully excited their imaginations. Mildred whispered to Oliver--
”If this old man and George lie together here, I wonder whether their spirits will know it, and come together in heaven.”
They talked for some time about the difference there must be between the thoughts of an ancient Briton, skin-clothed, a hunter of the wolf, and living on the acorns and wild animals of the forest, and the mind of a little child, reared in the Levels, and nourished and amused between the farm-yard and the garden. Yet they agreed that there must have been some things in which two so different thought and felt alike. The sky was over the heads of both, and the air around them, and the gra.s.s spread under their feet:--both, too, had, no doubt, had relations, by whom they had been beloved: and there is no saying how many things may become known alike to all, on entering upon the life after death.
Oliver and Mildred resolved that if ever they should see Pastor Dendel again, they would ask him what he thought of all this. They agreed that they would offer to help Roger to seek for other curiosities, to make a show of; and would give him, for his own, all they could find, if he would but consent to bury this body again, decently, and beside little George.
The supper was eatable to-night; and so was the breakfast on the Sunday morning; and yet Roger scarcely touched anything. Oliver heard him tossing and muttering during the night, and was sure that he was ill.