In that time of trouble and of unexampled events, the mind received impressions in a different manner from what it had ever done before. The stern gloom that hung over the future, the hazard upon which life was suspended, the close contact with universal death, and the desperate struggle by which it was staved off, gave to all things a new character; and the scene of the last chapter was but one of the series of deadly and dreadful excitements which were now the habit of every day. The solemn frame of mind which it induced in Ellen, was of a piece with the solemn nature of their existence; and she could talk of it with her husband at any time, and not disturb the natural bent which their conversation took. They searched the immediate neighbourhood for the habitation of the unhappy mother and her family; and the marks of her footsteps on the dust of the soil enabled them to trace her to Hope, a village in the plain, two miles, or rather more, from the Peak. She and her husband had used the church for their habitation, and it seemed had employed the same kind of precaution as Paulett to defend it and conceal that it was their dwelling. One entrance only was left, and the other apertures blocked up; but all care was useless now, for death had set them free from pain and fear. On a bed beside the altar lay the body of a man, over which as spread a cloak of fur and velvet, which in the lifetime of the world would have been most precious. His eyes were decently closed, the curtains of the bed drawn round him, and the pillow which supported his head was marked with the pressure of another head, and with moisture which could have been only the tears of his wife. The floor of the church was in confusion, like the dwelling of one too much distracted with trouble to attend to what did not relate to it; but there was corn which had served for food, and fuel heaped on the stone which had been a hearth—there was the drawing of a lovely woman and of a beautiful place: but these were cast into a corner, probably by the irritable hand of despair. On a table stood empty cups, which had long, perhaps, been dry—the glass of one had been shivered, and the fragments lay on the floor; there were also a few books, neglected and covered with dust. In the churchyard were the marks of three recent graves—one of them had a stone at its head, on which was carved with care the name of Alfred, and the soil was fenced and supported with sticks, so as to preserve its shape over the body—probably it was that of the first child whom the parents had committed to dust. Another was more hastily prepared, and no superfluous labour had been bestowed on it. This must be the last, when heart and health were both failing. Paulett and Ellen kneeled and prayed beside them, and rejoiced that the mother, too, was at rest after the long misery of this scene. They returned to their cave, and, under the shadow of the rock near the old course of the brook, laid both mother and child, covering their bodies with stones, and thinking more of the probable reunion, in some unknown scene, of the spirits of that family, than of the distance which separated their graves on this earth.
And now, with good store of diamonds, and with increasing skill and success in the resolution of them into water, both Paulett and Ellen looked upon the lives of all as safe for the present, and their thoughts were at liberty to wander to some other subject. They believed that they and their children were alone in the world, for every sign of life from other countries, as well as their own, had ceased. It was very long since any human tidings had come, and though, after men had done with each other, birds continued their migrations, these had now long been over, and the years passed away without bringing or sending a single wing. The course of the seasons, too, was strange and unnatural. It seemed as if the earth performed its usual course in the heavens, and kept its place and functions in the movements of the planets; days and nights varied in their length according to the season, and the heat of the sun was at one time of the year great and at another weak: but much that depended hitherto upon the constitution of the globe was suspended. There were no clouds in the sky, no dews dropping from the air, no reproduction in the earth. It seemed decayed and dying of old age. Yet Paulett said, a new existence would, perhaps, arise on this same scene, and from these same elements. Once before, the earth had been reduced to eight persons by the action of water; and now the absence of the same element had brought it to four. Charles and Alice might be the destined parents of a new race, and those names that were so familiar now, might become the venerable appellations of the founders of the third race of man. Ellen smiled and shook her head, looking at the boy and girl, who were building a house of pebbles; and both parents listened for a while to what they were saying. Charles recollected the house he had dwelt in before the great shipwreck of human life drove then to the cavern; and he was teaching Alice that there were rooms below and rooms above, and that he had heard how people like their father had carried great stones, and put them one on another to make these rooms. Alice persisted in making her house one hollow cavern; and the other she called Charles’s house, and did not understand his recommendation.
“Charles is taking the part already of a teacher, in whom remains the traditionary knowledge of an old world,” said Paulett; “and Alice represents the new inhabitants, who have their own rude copies of natural objects, but who will be open to the training of the learned man.”
“The learned man will be their father,” said Ellen; “they will gladly take their notions from him.”
“Yes; but if it should be so destined, the first generation must work hard merely to live—they must be very long ignorant of every thing except a paternal government, and such habitations as can be raised or appropriated most easily. They will be children in comparison to Charles all their lives, if we can but succeed in giving him the ideas of the age we have lived in. Fancy them, Ellen, increased to perhaps fifty inhabitants before he dies, a very old man, coming round his chair to hear of the wonderful steam-engine, and the use of the telescope, and to learn the art of printing, and the list of different languages which Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, used; and what lions were, and horses.”
“Or tell them how he and Alice escaped from the great drought,” said Ellen. “But, alas! it is far more likely he and she will perish in it, and then of what use is this knowledge to him?”
“Why—his soul. ‘It is a thing immortal like thyself;’ and if what he knows is of no use here, it will be useful elsewhere.”
“What!” said Ellen, smiling—“are there railroads and telescopes in another world?”
“For aught I can tell. At all events, the powers that contrive them here may contrive something from the same principles hereafter.”
“But we can tell nothing about the other world,” said Ellen.