Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Read online

  BROTHERS OF PITY.

  "Who dug his grave?"

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  "Who made his shroud?" "I," said the Beetle, "With my thread and needle, I made his shroud."--_Death of Cock Robin_.

  It must be much easier to play at things when there are more of you thanwhen there is only one.

  There is only one of me, and Nurse does not care about playing atthings. Sometimes I try to persuade her; but if she is in a good tempershe says she has got a bone in her leg, and if she isn't she says thatwhen little boys can't amuse themselves it's a sure and certain signthey've got "the worrits," and the sooner they are put to bed with aGregory's powder "the better for themselves and every one else."

  Godfather Gilpin can play delightfully when he has time, and he believesin fancy things, only he is so very busy with his books. But even whenhe is reading he will let you put him in the game. He doesn't mindpretending to be a fancy person if he hasn't to do anything, and if I dospeak to him he always remembers who he is. That is why I like playingin his study better than in the nursery. And Nurse always says "He'ssafe enough, with the old gentleman," so I'm allowed to go there as muchas I like.

  Godfather Gilpin lets me play with the books, because I always take careof them. Besides, there is nothing else to play with, except thewindow-curtains, for the chairs are always full. So I sit on the floor,and sometimes I build with the books (particularly Stonehenge), andsometimes I make people of them, and call them by the names on theirbacks, and the ones in other languages we call foreigners, and GodfatherGilpin tells me what countries they belong to. And sometimes I lie on myface and read (for I could read when I was four years old), andGodfather Gilpin tells me the hard words. The only rule he makes is,that I must get all the books out of one shelf, so that they are easilyput away again. I may have any shelf I like, but I must not mix theshelves up.

  I always took care of the books, and never had any accident with any ofthem till the day I dropped Jeremy Taylor's _Sermons_. It made me verymiserable, because I knew that Godfather Gilpin could never trust me somuch again.

  However, if it had not happened, I should not have known anything aboutthe Brothers of Pity; so, perhaps (as Mrs. James, Godfather Gilpin'shouse-keeper, says), "All's for the best," and "It's an ill wind thatblows nobody good."

  It happened on a Sunday, I remember, and it was the day after the day onwhich I had had the shelf in which all the books were alike. They wereall foreigners--Italians--and all their names were _Goldoni_, and therewere forty-seven of them, and they were all in white and gold. I couldnot read any of them, but there were lots of pictures, only I did notknow what the stories were about. So next day, when Godfather Gilpingave me leave to play a Sunday game with the books, I thought I wouldhave English ones, and big ones, for a change, for the _Goldonis_ wererather small.

  We played at church, and I was the parson, and Godfather Gilpin was theold gentleman who sits in the big pew with the knocker, and goes tosleep (because he wanted to go to sleep), and the books were thecongregation. They were all big, but some of them were fat, and some ofthem were thin, like real people--not like the _Goldonis_, which wereall alike.

  I was arranging them in their places and looking at their names, when Isaw that one of them was called Taylor's _Sermons_, and I thought Iwould keep that one out and preach a real sermon out of it when I hadread prayers. Of course I had to do the responses as well as "Dearlybeloved brethren" and those things, and I had to sing the hymns too, forthe books could not do anything, and Godfather Gilpin was asleep.

  When I had finished the service I stood behind a chair that was full ofnewspapers, for a pulpit, and I lifted up Taylor's _Sermons_, and restedit against the chair, and began to look to see what I would preach. Itwas an old book, bound in brown leather, and ornamented with gold, witha picture of a man in a black gown and a round black cap and a whitecollar in the beginning; and there was a list of all the sermons withtheir names and the texts. I read it through, to see which sounded themost interesting, and I didn't care much for any of them. However, thelast but one was called "A Funeral Sermon, preached at the Obsequies ofthe Right Honourable the Countess of Carbery;" and I wondered whatobsequies were, and who the Countess of Carbery was, and I thought Iwould preach that sermon and try to find out.

  There was a very long text, and it was not a very easy one. It was:"For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, whichcannot be gathered up again: neither doth GOD respect anyperson: yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled fromHim."

  The sermon wasn't any easier than the text, and half the _s_'s were like_f_'s which made it rather hard to preach, and there was Latin mixed upwith it, which I had to skip. I had preached two pages when I got intothe middle of a long sentence, of which part was this: "Every triflingaccident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm sowrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollowlike a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first makethe wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us."

  I knew the meaning of the words "wrinkles," and "old age." GodfatherGilpin's forehead had unusually deep furrows, and, almost against mywill, I turned so quickly to look if his wrinkles were at all like thegraves in the churchyard, that Taylor's _Sermons_, in its heavy binding,slipped from the pulpit and fell to the ground.

  And Godfather Gilpin woke up, and (quite forgetting that he was reallythe old gentleman in the pew with the knocker) said, "Dear me, dear me!is that Jeremy Taylor that you are knocking about like a football? Mydear child, I can't lend you my books to play with if you drop them onto the floor."

  I took it up in my arms and carried it sorrowfully to Godfather Gilpin.He was very kind, and said it was not hurt, and I might go on playingwith the others; but I could see him stroking its brown leather and goldback, as if it had been bruised and wanted comforting, and I was far toosorry about it to go on preaching, even if I had had anything to preach.

  I picked up the smallest book I could see in the congregation, and satdown and pretended to read. There were pictures in it, but I turned overa great many, one after the other, before I could see any of them, myeyes were so full of tears of mortification and regret. The firstpicture I saw when my tears had dried up enough to let me see was a verycurious one indeed. It was a picture of two men carrying what lookedlike another man covered with a blue quilt, on a sort of bier. But thefunny part about it was the dress of the men. They were wrapped up inblack cloaks, and had masks over their faces, and underneath the picturewas written, "_Fratelli della Misericordia_"--"Brothers of Pity."

  I do not know whether the accident to Jeremy Taylor had made GodfatherGilpin too anxious about his books to sleep, but I found that he waskeeping awake, and after a bit he said to me, "What are you staring sohard and so quietly at, little Mouse?"

  I looked at the back of the book, and it was called _Religious Orders_;so I said, "It's called _Religious Orders_, but the picture I'm lookingat has got two men dressed in black, with their faces covered all buttheir eyes, and they are carrying another man with something blue overhim."

  "_Fratelli della Misericordia_," said Godfather Gilpin.

  "Who are they, and what are they doing?" I asked. "And why are theirfaces covered?"

  "They belong to a body of men," was Godfather Gilpin's reply, "who bindthemselves to be ready in their turn to do certain offices of mercy,pity, and compassion to the sick, the dying, and the dead. Thebrotherhood is six hundred years old, and still exists. The men whobelong to it receive no pay, and they equally reject the reward ofpublic praise, for they work with covered faces, and are not known evento each other. Rich men and poor men, noble men and working men, men ofletters and the ignorant, all belong to it, and each takes his turn whenit comes round to nurse the sick, carry the dying to hospital, and burythe dead.'

  "Is that a dead man under the blue coverlet?" I asked with awe.

  "I suppose so," said Godfat
her Gilpin.

  "But why don't his friends go to the funeral?" I inquired.

  "He has no friends to follow him," said my godfather. "That is why he isbeing buried by the Brothers of Pity."

  Long after Godfather Gilpin had told me all that he could tell me of the_Fratelli della Misericordia_--long after I had put the congregation(including the _Religious Orders_ and Taylor's _Sermons_) back into theshelf to which they belonged--the masked faces and solemn garb of themen in the picture haunted me.

  I have changed my mind a great many times, since I can remember, aboutwhat I will be when I am grown up. Sometimes I have thought I shouldlike to be an officer and die in battle; sometimes I settled to be aclergyman and preach splendid sermons to enormous congregations; once Iquite decided to be a head fireman and wear a brass helmet, and bewhirled down lighted streets at night, every one making way for me, onerrands of life and death.

  But the history of the Brothers of Pity put me out of conceit with allother heroes. It seemed better than anything I had ever thought of--todo good works unseen of men, without hope of reward, and to those whocould make no return. For it rang in my ears that Godfather Gilpin hadsaid, "He has no friends--that is why he is being buried by the Brothersof Pity."

  I quite understood what I thought they must feel, because I had onceburied a cat who had no friends. It was a poor half-starved old thing,for the people it belonged to had left it, and I used to see it slinkingup to the back door and looking at Tabby, who was very fat and sleek,and at the scraps on the unwashed dishes after dinner. Mrs. Jones kickedit out every time, and what happened to it before I found it lyingdraggled and dead at the bottom of the Ha-ha, with the top of a kettlestill fastened to its scraggy tail, I never knew, and it cost me bittertears to guess. It cost me some hard work, too, to dig the grave, for myspade was so very small.

  I don't think Mrs. Jones would have cared to be a Brother of Pity, forshe was very angry with me for burying that cat, because it was such awretched one, and so thin and dirty, and looked so ugly and smelt sonasty. But that was just why I wanted to give it a good funeral, and whyI picked my crimson lily and put it in the grave, because it seemed sosad the poor thing should be like that when it might have been clean andfluffy, and fat and comfortable, like Tabby, if it had had a home andpeople to look after it.

  It was remembering about the cat that made me think that there were noBrothers of Pity (not even in Tuscany, for I asked Godfather Gilpin) tobury beasts and birds and fishes when they have no friends to go totheir funerals. And that was how it was that I settled to be a Brotherof Pity without waiting till I grew up and could carry men.

  I had a shilling of my own, and with sixpence of it I bought a yard anda half of black calico at the post-office shop, and Mrs. Jones made me acloak out of it; and with the other sixpence I bought a mask--for theysell toys there too. It was not a right sort of mask, but I could notmake Mrs. Jones understand about a hood with two eye-holes in it, and Idid not like to show her the picture, for if she had seen that I wantedto play at burying people, perhaps she would not have made me the cloak.She made it very well, and it came down to my ankles, and I could hidemy spade under it. The worst of the mask was that it was a funny one,with a big nose; but it hid my face all the same, and when you getinside a mask you can feel quite grave whatever it's painted like.

  I had never had so happy a summer before as the one when I was a Brotherof Pity. I heard Nurse saying to Mrs. Jones that "there was no tellingwhat would keep children out of mischief," for that I "never seemed tobe tired of that old black rag and that ridiculous face."

  But it was not the dressing-up that pleased me day after day, it was thechance of finding dead bodies with no friends to bury them. Going out isquite a new thing when you have something to look for; and GodfatherGilpin says he felt just the same in the days when he used to collectinsects.

  I found a good many corpses of one sort and another: birds and mice andfrogs and beetles, and sometimes bigger bodies--such as kittens anddogs. The stand of my old wooden horse made a capital thing to drag themon, for all the wheels were there, and I had a piece of bluecotton-velvet to put on the top, but the day I found a dead mole I didnot cover him. I put him outside, and he looked like black velvet lyingon blue velvet. It seemed quite a pity to put him into the dirty ground,with such a lovely coat.

  One day I was coming back from burying a mouse, and I saw a "flyingwatchman" beetle lying quite stiff and dead, as I thought, with his legsstretched out, and no friends; so I put him on the bier at once, and putthe blue velvet over him, and drew him to the place where the mouse'sgrave was. When I took the pall off and felt him, and turned him overand over, he was still quite rigid, so I felt sure he was dead, andbegan to dig his grave; but when I had finished and went back to thebier, the flying watchman was just creeping over the wheel. He had onlypretended to be dead, and had given me all that trouble for nothing.

  When first I became a Brother of Pity, I thought I would have agraveyard to bury all the creatures in, but afterwards I changed my mindand settled to bury them all near wherever I found them. But I got somebits of white wood, and fastened them across each other with bits ofwire, and so marked every grave.

  At last there were lots of them dotted about the fields and woods Iknew. I remembered to whom most of them belonged, and even if I hadforgotten, it made a very good game, to pretend to be a stranger in theneighbourhood, and then pretend to be somebody else, talking to myself,and saying, "Wherever you see those little graves some poor creature hasbeen buried by the Brothers of Pity."

  I did not like to read the burial service, for fear it should not bequite right (especially for frogs; there were so many of them in summer,and they were so horrid-looking, I used to bury several together, andpretend it was the time of the plague); but I did not like not havingany service at all. So when I put on my cloak and mask, and took myspade and the bier, I said, "Brothers, let us prepare to perform thiswork of mercy," which is the first thing the real _Fratelli dellaMisericordia_ say when they are going out. And when I buried the body Isaid, "Go in peace," which is the last thing that they say. GodfatherGilpin told me, and I learnt it by heart.

  I enjoyed it very much. There were graves of beasts and birds who haddied without friends in the hedges and the soft parts of the fields inalmost all our walks. I never showed them to Nurse, but I often wonderedthat she did not notice them. I always touched my hat when I passedthem, and sometimes it was very difficult to do so without her seeingme, but it made me quite uncomfortable if I passed a grave without. WhenI could not find any bodies I amused myself with making wreaths to hangover particularly nice poor beasts, such as a bullfinch or a kitten.

  I had been a Brother of Pity for several months, when a very curiousthing happened.

  One summer evening I went by myself after tea into a steep little fieldat the back of our house, with an old stone-quarry at the top, on theledges of which, where the earth had settled, I used to play at makinggardens. And there, lying on a bit of very stony ground, half on thestones and half on the grass, was a dead robin-redbreast. I love robinsvery much, and it was not because I wanted one to die, but because Ithought that if one did die, I should so like to bury him, that I hadwished to find a dead robin ever since I became a Brother of Pity. Itwas rather late, but it wanted nearly an hour to my usual bedtime, so Ithought I would go home at once for my dress and spade and bier, and forsome roses. For I had resolved to bury this (my first robin-redbreast)in a grave lined with rose-leaves, and to give him a wreath offorget-me-nots.

  Just as I was going I heard a loud buzz above my head, and something hitme in the face. It was a beetle, whirring about in the air, and as Iturned to leave poor Robin the beetle sat down on him, on the middle ofhis red breast, and by still hearing the buzzing, I found that anotherbeetle was whirling and whirring just above my head in the air. I likebeetles (especially the flying watchmen), and these ones were black too;so I said, for fun, "You've got on your black things, and if you'll takecare of the body ti
ll I get my spade you shall be Brothers of Pity."

  I ran home, and I need not have gone indoors at all, for I keep my cloakand my spade and the bier in the summer-house, but the bits of wood werein the nursery cupboard, so, after I had got some good roses, and wasquite ready, I ran up-stairs, and there, to my great vexation, Nurse metme, and said I was to go to bed.

  I thought it was very hard, because it had been a very hot day, and Ihad had to go a walk in the heat of the sun along the old coaching-roadwith Nurse, and it seemed so provoking, now it was cool and the moon wasrising, that I should have to go to bed, especially as Nurse was sendingme there earlier than usual because she wanted to go out herself, and Iknew it.

  I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. Every time I opened my eyes themoonlight was more and more like daylight through the white blind. Atlast I almost thought I must have really been to sleep without knowingit, and that it must be morning. So I got out of bed, and went to thewindow and peeped; but it was still moonlight--only moonlight as brightas day--and I saw Nurse and two of the maids just going through theupper gate into the park.

  In one moment I made up my mind. Nurse had only put me to bed to get meout of the way. I did not mean to trouble her, but I was determined notto lose the chance of being Brother of Pity to a robin-redbreast.

  I dressed myself as well as I could, got out unobserved, and made my wayto the summer-house. Things look a little paler by moonlight, otherwiseI could see quite well. I put on my cloak, took my spade and the handleof the bier in my right hand, and holding the mask over my face with myleft, I made my way to the quarry field.

  It was a lovely night, and as I strolled along I thought with myselfthat the ground where Robin lay was too stony for my spade, and that Imust move him a little lower, where some soft earth bordered one side ofthe quarry.

  I was as certain as I had ever been of anything that I did not thinkabout this till then, but when I got to the quarry the body was gonefrom the place where I had found it; and when I looked lower, on the bitof soft earth there lay Robin, just in the place where I was settling inmy mind that I would bury him.

  I could not believe my eyes through the holes in my mask, so I pulled itoff, but there was no doubt about the fact. There he lay; and round him,when I looked closer, I saw a ridge like a rampart of earth, whichframed him neatly and evenly, as if he were already halfway into hisgrave.

  The moonlight was as clear as day, there was no mistake as to what Isaw, and whilst I was looking the body of the bird began to sink bylittle jerks, as if some one were pulling it from below. When first itmoved I thought that poor Robin could not be dead after all, and that hewas coming to life again like the flying watchman, but I soon saw thathe was not, and that some one was pulling him down into a grave.

  When I felt quite sure of this, when I had rubbed my eyes to clear them,and pulled up the lashes to see if I was awake, I was so horriblyfrightened that, with my mask in one hand and the spade and the handleof my bier in the other, I ran home as fast as my legs would carry me,leaving the roses and the cross and the blue-velvet pall behind me inthe quarry.

  Nurse was still out; and I crept back to bed without detection, where Idreamed disturbedly of invisible gravediggers all through the night.

  I did not feel quite so much afraid by daylight, but I was not a bitless puzzled as to how Cock Robin had been moved from the stony place tothe soft earth, and who dug his grave. I could not ask Nurse about it,for I should have had to tell her I had been out, and I could not havetrusted Mrs. Jones either; but Godfather Gilpin never tells tales of me,and he knows everything, so I went to him.

  The more I thought of it the more I saw that the only way was to tellhim everything; for if you only tell parts of things you sometimes findyourself telling lies before you know where you are. So I put on mycloak and my mask, and took the shovel and bier into the study, and satdown on the little foot-stool I always wait on when Godfather Gilpin isin the middle of reading, and keeps his head down to show that he doesnot want to be disturbed.

  When he shut up his book and looked at me he burst out laughing. I meantto have asked him why, but I was so busy afterwards I forgot. I supposeit was the nose, for it had got rather broken when I fell down as I wasburying the old drake that Neptune killed.

  But he was very kind to me, and I told him all about my being a Brotherof Pity, and how I had wanted to bury a robin, and how I had found one,and how he had frightened me by burying himself.

  "Some other Brother of Pity must have found him," said my godfather,still laughing. "And he must have got Jack the Giant-killer's cloak ofdarkness for _his_ dress, so that you did not see him."

  "There was nobody there," I earnestly answered, shaking my mask as Ithought of the still, lonely moonlight. "Nothing but two beetles, and Isaid if they would take care of him they might be Brothers of Pity."

  "They took you at your word, _mio fratello_. Take off your mask, which alittle distracts me, and I will tell you who buried Cock Robin."

  I knew when Godfather Gilpin was really telling me things--withoutthinking of something else, I mean,--and I listened with all my ears.

  "The beetles whom you very properly admitted into your brotherhood,"said my godfather, "were burying beetles, or sexton beetles,[A] as theyare sometimes called. They bury animals of all sizes in a surprisinglyshort space of time. If two of them cannot conduct the funeral, theysummon others. They carry the bodies, if necessary, to suitable ground.With their flat heads (for the sexton beetle does not carry a shovel asyou do) they dig trench below trench all round the body they arecommitting to the earth, after which they creep under it and pull itdown, and then shovel away once more, and so on till it is deep enoughin, and then they push the earth over it and tread it and pat it neatlydown."

  "Then was it the beetles who were burying the robin-redbreast?" Igasped.

  "I suspect so," said Godfather Gilpin. "But we will go and see."

  He actually knocked a book down in his hurry to get his hat, and when Ihelped him to pick it up, and said, "Why, godfather, you're as bad as Iwas about Taylor's _Sermons_," he said, "I am an old fool, my dear. Iused to be very fond of insects before I settled down to the work I'm atnow, and it quite excites me to go out into the fields again."

  I never had a nicer walk, for he showed me lots of things I had nevernoticed, before we got to the quarry field; and then I took him straightto the place where the bit of soft earth was, and there was nothing tobe seen, and the earth was quite smooth and tidy. But when he poked withhis stick the ground was very soft, and after he had poked a little wesaw some nut-brown feathers, and we knew it was Robin's grave.

  And I said, "Don't poke any more, please. I wanted to bury him withrose-leaves, but the beetles were dressed in black, and I gave themleave, and I think I'll put a cross over him, because I don't think it'suntrue to show that he was buried by the Brothers of Pity."

  Godfather Gilpin quite agreed with me, and we made a nice mound (for Ihad brought my spade), and put the best kind of cross, and afterwards Imade a wreath of forget-me-nots to hang on it.

  He was the only robin-redbreast I have found since I became a Brother ofPity, and that was how it was that it was not I who buried him afterall.

  Many of the walks that Nurse likes to take I do not care about, but oneplace she likes to go to, especially on Sunday, I like too, and that isthe churchyard.

  I was always fond of it. It is so very nice to read the tombstones, andfancy what the people were like, particularly the ones who lived longago, in 1600 and something, with beautifully-shaped sixes and capitalletters on their graves. For they must have dressed quite differentlyfrom us, and perhaps they knew Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell.

  Diggory the gravedigger never talks much, but I like to watch him. Ithink he is rather deaf, for when I asked him if he thought, if he wenton long enough, he could dig himself through to the other side of theworld, he only said "Hey?" and chucked up a great shovelful of earth.But perhaps it was because he was so deep down th
at he could not hear.

  Now, when he is quite out of sight, and chucks the earth up like that,it makes me think of the sexton beetles; for Godfather Gilpin says theydrive their flat heads straight down, and then lift them with a sharpjerk, and throw the earth up so.

  I said to Diggory one day, "Don't you wish your head was flat, insteadof being as it is, so that you could shovel with it instead of having tohave a spade?"

  He wasn't so deep down that time, and he heard me, and put his head upout of the grave and rested on his spade. But he only scratched his headand stared, and said, "You be an uncommon queer young gentleman, to besure," and then went on digging again. And I was afraid he was angry, soI daren't ask him any more.

  I daren't of course ask him if he is a Brother of Pity, but I think hedeserves to be, for workhouse burials at any rate; for if you have onlythe Porter and Silly Billy at your funeral, I don't think you can callthat having friends.

  I have taken the beetles for my brothers, of course. Godfather Gilpinsays I should find far more bodies than I do if they were not buryingall along. I often wish I could understand them when they hum, and thatthey knew me.

  I wonder if either they or Diggory know that they belong to the order of_Fratelli della Misericordia_, and that I belong to it too?

  But of course it would not be right to ask them, even if either of themwould answer me, for if we were "known, even to each other," we shouldnot really and truly be Brothers of Pity.

  NOTE--Burying beetles are to the full as skilful as they are described in this tale. With a due respect for the graces of art, I have not embodied the fact that they feed on the carcases which they bury. The last thing that the burying beetle does, after tidying the grave, is to make a small hole and go down himself, having previously buried his partner with their prey. Here the eggs are laid, and the larvae hatched and fed.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [Footnote A: _Necrophorus humator_, &c.]

  FATHER HEDGEHOG AND HIS NEIGHBOURS.

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