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The Old Curiosity Shop

by Charles Dickens

October, 1996  [Etext #700]


*****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Old Curiosity Shop*****
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The Old Curiosity Shop

By Charles Dickens





CHAPTER 1


Night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave
home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day,
or even escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the
country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be
thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the
earth, as much as any creature living.

I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my
infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating
on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The
glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like
mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp
or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full
revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder
in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle
at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.

That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that
incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy--is it
not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear
it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court,
listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness
obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform)
to detect the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from
the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel
of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant
pleasure-seeker--think of the hum and noise always being present to his
sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on,
through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie,
dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest
for centuries to come.

Then, the crowds for ever passing and repassing on the bridges (on
those which are free of toil at last), where many stop on fine
evenings looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague
idea that by and by it runs between green banks which grow wider
and wider until at last it joins the broad vast sea--where some halt to
rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to
smoke and lounge away one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a
hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness
unalloyed--and where some, and a very different class, pause with
heaver loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old
time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means of suicide
the easiest and best.

Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when
the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the
unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery, and driving the
dusky thrust, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night
long, half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all
akin to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the
hot hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already,
while others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they
shall be watered and freshened up to please more sober company,
and make old clerks who pass them on their road to business,
wonder what has filled their breasts with visions of the country.

But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story
I am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals,  arose
out of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of
them by way of preface.

One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in
my usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was
arrested by an inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but
which seemed to be addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft
sweet voice that struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round
and found at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed
to a certain street at a considerable distance, and indeed in quite
another quarter of the town.

It is a very long way from here,' said I, 'my child.'

'I know that, sir,' she replied timidly. 'I am afraid it is a very long
way, for I came from there to-night.'

'Alone?' said I, in some surprise.

'Oh, yes, I don't mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I
had lost my road.'

'And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?'

'I am sure you will not do that,' said the little creature,' you are such
a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.'

I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the
energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child's
clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into
my face.

'Come,' said I, 'I'll take you there.'

She put her hand in mind as confidingly as if she had known me
from her cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature
accommodating her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and
take care of me than I to be protecting her. I observed that every
now and then she stole a curious look at my face, as if to make quite
sure that I was not deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp
and keen they were too) seemed to increase her confidence at every
repetition.

For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the
child's, for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably
from what I could make out, that her very small and delicate frame
imparted a peculiar youthfulness to her appearance. Though more
scantily attired than she might have been she was dressed with
perfect neatness, and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect.

'Who has sent you so far by yourself?' said I.

'Someone who is very kind to me, sir.'

'And what have you been doing?'

'That, I must not tell,' said the child firmly.

There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to
look at the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise;
for I wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to
be prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my
thoughts, for as it met mine she added that there was no harm in
what she had been doing, but it was a great secret--a secret which
she did not even know herself.

This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an
unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on
as before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and
talking cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home,
beyond remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if
it were a short one.

While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred
different explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I
really felt ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful
feeling of the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love
these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so
fresh from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her
confidence I determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature
which had prompted her to repose it in me.

There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the
person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by
night and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found
herself near home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of
the opportunity, I avoided the most frequented ways and took the
most intricate, and thus it was not until we arrived in the street itself
that she knew where we were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and
running on before me for a short distance, my little acquaintance
stopped at a door and remaining on the step till I came up knocked at
it when I joined her.

A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I
did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and I
was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our
summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise
as if some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light
appeared through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the
bearer having to make his way through a great many scattered
articles, enabled me to see both what kind of person it was who
advanced and what kind of place it was through which he came.

It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he
held the light above his head and looked before him as he
approached, I could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I
fancied I could recognize in his spare and slender form something of
that delicate mould which I had noticed in a child. Their bright blue
eyes were certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so
very full of care, that here all resemblance ceased.

The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those
receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd
corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public
eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like
ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from
monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures
in china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture
that might have been designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the
little old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have
groped among old churches and tombs and deserted houses and
gathered all the spoils with his own hands. There was nothing in the
whole collection but was in keeping with himself nothing that looked
older or more worn than he.

As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some
astonishment which was not diminished when he looked from me to
my companion. The door being opened, the child addressed him as
grandfather, and told him the little story of our companionship.

'Why, bless thee, child,' said the old man, patting her on the head,
'how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!'

'I would have found my way back to YOU, grandfather,' said the
child boldly; 'never fear.'

The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk
in, I did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the
light, he led me through the place I had already seen from without,
into a small sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening
into a kind of closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have
slept in, it looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The
child took a candle and tripped into this little room, leaving the old
man and me together.

'You must be tired, sir,' said he as he placed a chair near the fire,
'how can I thank you?'

'By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good
friend,' I replied.

'More care!' said the old man in a shrill voice, 'more care of Nelly!
Why, who ever loved a child as I love Nell?'

He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what
answer to make, and the more so because coupled with something
feeble and wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of
deep and anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be,
as I had been at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or
imbecility.

'I don't think you consider--' I began.

'I don't consider!' cried the old man interrupting me, 'I don't consider
her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly, little Nelly!'

It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of
speech might be, to express more affection than the dealer in
curiosities did, in these four words. I waited for him to speak again,
but he rested his chin upon his hand and shaking his head twice or
thrice fixed his eyes upon the fire.

While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened,
and the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her
neck, and her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us.
She busied herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she
was thus engaged I remarked that the old man took an opportunity of
observing me more closely than he had done yet. I was surprised to
see that all this time everything was done by the child, and that there
appeared to be no other persons but ourselves in the house. I took
advantage of a moment when she was absent to venture a hint on this
point, to which the old man replied that there were few grown
persons as trustworthy or as careful as she.

'It always grieves me, ' I observed, roused by what I took to be his
selfishness, 'it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of
children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than
infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity--two of the best
qualities that Heaven gives them--and demands that they share our
sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.'

'It will never check hers,' said the old man looking steadily at me,
'the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but
few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought
and paid for.

'But--forgive me for saying this--you are surely not so very poor'--said I.

'She is not my child, sir,' returned the old man. 'Her mother was,
and she was poor. I save nothing--not a penny--though I live as you
see, but'--he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to
whisper--'she shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don't
you think ill of me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as
you see, and it would break her heart if she knew that I suffered
anybody else to do for me what her little hands could undertake. I
don't consider!'--he cried with sudden querulousness, 'why, God
knows that this one child is there thought and object of my life, and
yet he never prospers me--no, never!'

At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and
the old men motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and
said no more.

We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the
door by which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh,
which I was rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity,
said it was no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last.

'Foolish Nell!' said the old man fondling with her hair. 'She always
laughs at poor Kit.'

The child laughed again more heartily than before, I could not help
smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and
went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels.

Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an
uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and
certainly the most comical expression of face I ever saw. He stopped
short at the door on seeing a stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly
round old hat without any vestige of a brim, and resting himself now
on one leg and now on the other and changing them constantly, stood
in the doorway, looking into the parlour with the most extraordinary
leer I ever beheld. I entertained a grateful feeling towards the boy
from that minute, for I felt that he was the comedy of the child's life.

'A long way, wasn't it, Kit?' said the little old man.

'Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,' returned Kit.

'Of course you have come back hungry?'

'Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,' was the answer.

The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke,
and thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not
get at his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would
have amused one anywhere, but the child's exquisite enjoyment of
his oddity, and the relief it was to find that there was something she
associated with merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to
her, were quite irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself
was flattered by the sensation he created, and after several efforts to
preserve his gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his
mouth wide open and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently.

The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took
no notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was
over, the child's bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by
the fullness of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite
after the little anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh
had been all the time one of that sort which very little would change
into a cry) he carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of
beer into a corner, and applied himself to disposing of them with
great voracity.

'Ah!' said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken
to him but that moment, 'you don't know what you say when you tell
me that I don't consider her.'

'You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first
appearances, my friend,' said I.

'No,' returned the old man thoughtfully, 'no. Come hither, Nell.'

The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his
neck.

'Do I love thee, Nell?' said he. 'Say--do I love thee, Nell, or no?'

The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his
breast.

'Why dost thou sob?' said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him
and glancing towards me. 'Is it because thou know'st I love thee, and
dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well,
well--then let us say I love thee dearly.'

'Indeed, indeed you do,' replied the child with great earnestness,
'Kit knows you do.'

Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing
two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a
juggler, stopped short in his operations on being thus appealed to,
and bawled 'Nobody isn't such a fool as to say he doosn't,' after
which he incapacitated himself for further conversation by taking a
most prodigious sandwich at one bite.

'She is poor now'--said the old men, patting the child's cheek, 'but I
say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been
a long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it
surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but
waste and riot. When WILL it come to me!'

'I am very happy as I am, grandfather,' said the child.

'Tush, tush!' returned the old man, 'thou dost not know--how
should'st thou!' then he muttered again between his teeth, 'The time
must come, I am very sure it must. It will be all the better for
coming late'; and then he sighed and fell into his former musing
state, and still holding the child between his knees appeared to be
insensible to everything around him. By this time it wanted but a few
minutes of midnight and I rose to go, which recalled him to himself.

'One moment, sir,' he said, 'Now, Kit--near midnight, boy, and you
still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the
morning, for there's work to do. Good night! There, bid him good
night, Nell, and let him be gone!'

'Good night, Kit,' said the child, her eyes lighting up with
merriment and kindness.'

'Good night, Miss Nell,' returned the boy.

'And thank this gentleman,' interposed the old man, 'but for whose
care I might have lost my little girl to-night.'

'No, no, master,' said Kit, 'that won't do, that won't.'

'What do you mean?' cried the old man.

'I'd have found her, master,' said Kit, 'I'd have found her. I'll bet
that I'd find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as
anybody, master. Ha, ha, ha!'

Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing
like a stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself
out.

Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when
he had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old
man said:

'I haven't seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night,
but I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her
thanks are better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went
away, and thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of
her--I am not indeed.'

I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. 'But,' I added, 'may
I ask you a question?'

'Ay, sir,' replied the old man, 'What is it?'

'This delicate child,' said I, 'with so much beauty and intelligence--has
she nobody to care for
her but you? Has she no other companion
or advisor?'

'No,' he returned, looking anxiously in my face, 'no, and she wants
no other.'

'But are you not fearful,' said I, 'that you may misunderstand a
charge so tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain
that you know how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man,
like you, and I am actuated by an old man's concern in all that is
young and promising. Do you not think that what I have seen of you
and this little creature to-night must have an interest not wholly free
from pain?'

'Sir,' rejoined the old man after a moment's silence.' I have no right
to feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the
child, and she the grown person--that you have seen already. But
waking or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the
one object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you
would look on me with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It's a
weary life for an old man--a weary, weary life--but there is a great
end to gain and that I keep before me.'

Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned
to put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room,
purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing
patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and
stick.

'Those are not mine, my dear,' said I.

'No,' returned the child, 'they are grandfather's.'

'But he is not going out to-night.'

'Oh, yes, he is,' said the child, with a smile.

'And what becomes of you, my pretty one?'

'Me! I stay here of course. I always do.'

I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned
to be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked
back to the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy
place all the long, dreary night.

She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped
the old man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to
light us out. Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she
looked back with a smile and waited for us.  The old man showed by
his face that he plainly understood the cause of my hesitation, but he
merely signed to me with an inclination of the head to pass out of the
room before him, and remained silent. I had no resource but to comply.

When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned
to say good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the
old man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.

'Sleep soundly, Nell,' he said in a low voice, 'and angels guard thy
bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.'

'No, indeed,' answered the child fervently, 'they make me feel so
happy!'

'That's well; I know they do; they should,' said the old man. 'Bless
thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.'

'You'll not ring twice,' returned the child. 'The bell wakes me, even
in the middle of a dream.'

With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded
by a shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the
house) and with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have
recalled a thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old
man paused a moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the
inside, and satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At
the street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled
countenance said that our ways were widely different and that he
must take his leave. I would have spoken, but summoning up more
alacrity than might have been expected in one of his appearance, he
hurried away. I could see that twice or thrice he looked back as if to
ascertain if I were still watching him, or perhaps to assure himself
that I was not following at a distance. The obscurity of the night
favoured his disappearance, and his figure was soon beyond my
sight.

I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to
depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked
wistfully into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time
directed my steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and
stopped and listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as the
grave.

Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all
possible harm that might happen to the child--of fires and robberies
and even murder--and feeling as if some evil must ensure if I turned
my back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the
street brought me before the curiosity-dealer's once more; I crossed
the road and looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise
had not come from there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as
before.

There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and
pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by,
and now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he
reeled homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and
soon ceased. The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down,
promising myself that every time should be the last, and breaking
faith with myself on some new plea as often as I did so.

The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks
and bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I
had a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good
purpose. I had only come to know the fact through the innocence of
the child, and though the old man was by at the time, and saw my
undisguised surprise, he had preserved a strange mystery upon the
subject and offered no word of explanation. These reflections
naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face,
his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for
the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind;
even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction,
or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of
him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit
the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone
of voice in which he had called her by her name.

'Stay here of course,' the child had said in answer to my question, 'I
always do!' What could take him from home by night, and every
night! I called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and
secret deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a
long series of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not
find one adapted to this mystery, which only became the more
impenetrable, in proportion as I sought to solve it.

Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all
tending to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long
hours; at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered
by fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first,
I engaged the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was
blazing on the hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me
with its old familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and
cheering, and in happy contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.

But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred
and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever
before me the old dark murky rooms--the gaunt suits of mail with
their ghostly silent air--the faces all awry, grinning from wood and
stone--the dust and rust and worm that lives in wood--and alone in
the midst of all this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful
child in her gentle slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.




CHAPTER 2


After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to
revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already
detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I
would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early
in the morning.

I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with
that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious
that the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very
acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not
appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I
continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered
this irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer's
warehouse.

The old man and another person were together in the back part, and
there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices
which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my
entering, and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a
tremulous tone that he was very glad I had come.

'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the
man whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will
murder me one of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if
he had dared.'

'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the
other, after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'

'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him.
'If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I
would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'

'I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither oaths,
or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and mean
to live.'

'And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his
hands and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'

The other stood lunging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him
with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty
or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the
expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in
common with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent
air which repelled one.

'Justice or no justice,' said the young fellow, 'here I am and here I
shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for
assistance to put me out--which you won't do, I know. I tell you
again that I want to see my sister.'

'YOUR sister!' said the old man bitterly.

'Ah! You can't change the relationship,' returned the other. 'If you
could, you'd have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you
keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and
pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and
add a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly
count. I want to see her; and I will.'

'Here's a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here's a generous spirit
to scorn scraped-up shillings!' cried the old man, turning from him
to me. 'A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only
upon those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon
society which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,' he
added, in a lower voice as he drew closer to me, 'who knows how
dear she is to me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there
is a stranger nearby.'

'Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,' said the young fellow
catching at the word, 'nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is
to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mind. There's a
friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to
wait some time, I'll call him in, with your leave.'

Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street
beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from
the air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied,
required a great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At
length there sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way--with a
bad pretense of passing by accident--a figure conspicuous for its dirty
smartness, which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in
resistence of the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was
brought into the shop.

'There. It's Dick Swiveller,' said the young fellow, pushing him in.
'Sit down, Swiveller.'

'But is the old min agreeable?' said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.

Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propritiatory
smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and
this week was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst
standing by the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with
a straw in his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which
appearance he augured that another fine week for the ducks was
approaching, and that rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore
took occasion to apologize for any negligence that might be
perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he had had 'the
sun very strong in his eyes'; by which expression he was understood
to convey to his hearers in the most delicate manner possible, the
information that he had been extremely drunk.

'But what,' said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, 'what is the odds so long
as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the
wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long
as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present
moment is the least happiest of our existence!'

'You needn't act the chairman here,' said his friend, half aside.

'Fred!' cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, 'a word to the wise is
sufficient for them--we may be good and happy without riches, Fred.
Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only
one little whisper, Fred--is the old min friendly?'

'Never you mind,' repled his friend.

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word,
and caution is the act.' with that, he winked as if in preservation of
some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair,
looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity.

It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had
already passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the
effects of the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if
no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair,
dull eyes, and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses
against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable
for the  nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which
strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of
a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and
only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled
white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side
foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was
ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the
cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his
dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously
folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a
yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a
ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these
personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savour of
tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appearance) Mr
Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling,
and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the
company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the
middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.

The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands,
looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange
companion, as if he were utterly powerless and had no resource but
to leave them to do as they pleased. The young man reclined against
a table at no great distance from his friend, in apparent indifference
to everything that had passed; and I--who felt the difficulty of any
interference, notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me,
both by words and looks--made the best feint I could of being
occupied in examining some of the goods that were disposed for sale,
and paying very little attention to a person before me.

The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after
favouring us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in
the Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a
preliminary to the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty,
removed his eyes from the ceiling and subsided into prose again.

'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly
occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before,
'is the old min friendly?'

'What does it matter?' returned his friend peevishly.

'No, but IS he?' said Dick.

'Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?'

Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general
conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our
attention.

He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the
abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with
ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to
be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of
expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded
to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and
that the young
gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after
eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from
their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their
heads possessing this remarkable property; when he concluded that if
the Royal Society would turn their attention to the circumstance, and
endeavour to find in the resources of science a means of preventing
such untoward revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as
benefactors to mankind. These opinions being equally
incontrovertible with those he had already pronounced, he went on to
inform us that Jamaica rum, though unquestionably an agreeable
spirit of great richness and flavour, had the drawback of remaining
constantly present to the taste next day; and nobody being venturous
enough to argue this point either, he increased in confidence and
became yet more companionable and communicative.

'It's a devil of a thing, gentlemen,' said Mr Swiveller, 'when
relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never
moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but
be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and
grandfather peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all
might be bliss and concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?'

'Hold your tongue,' said his friend.

'Sir,' replied Mr Swiveller, 'don't you interrupt the chair.
Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion?
Here is a jolly old grandfather--I say it with the utmost respect--and
here is a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the
wild young grandson, 'I have brought you up and educated you,
Fred; I have put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted
a little out of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never
have another chance, nor the ghost of half a one.'  The wild young
grandson makes answer to this and says, 'You're as rich as rich can
be; you have been at no uncommon expense on my account, you're
saving up piles of money for my little sister that lives with you in a
secret, stealthy, hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner
of enjoyment--why can't you stand a trifle for your grown-up
relation?' The jolly old grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that
he declines to fork out with that cheerful readiness which is always
so agreeable and pleasant in a gentleman of his time of life, but that
he will bow up, and call names, and make reflections whenever they
meet. Then the plain question is, an't it a pity that this state of things
should continue, and how much better would it be for the gentleman
to hand over a reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and
comfortable?'

Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes
of the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into
his mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his
speech by adding one other word.

'Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!' said the old man
turning to his grandson. 'Why do you bring your prolifigate
companions here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of
care and self-denial, and that I am poor?'

'How often am I to tell you,' returned the other, looking coldly at
him, 'that I know better?'

'You have chosen your own path,' said the old man. 'Follow it.
Leave Nell and me to toil and work.'

'Nell will be a woman soon,' returned the other, 'and, bred in your
faith, she'll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.'

'Take care,' said the old man with sparkling eyes, 'that she does not
forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that
the day don't come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she
rides by in a gay carriage of her own.'

'You mean when she has your money?' retorted the other. 'How like
a poor man he talks!'

'And yet,' said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one
who thinks aloud, 'how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause
is a young child's guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes
well with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!'

These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the
young men.  Mr Swiveller appeared to think the they implied some
mental struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address,
for he poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction
that he had administered 'a clincher,' and that he expected a
commission on the profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he
appeared to grow rather sleeply and discontented, and had more than
once suggested the proprieity of an immediate departure, when the
door opened, and the child herself appeared.




CHAPTER 3


The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably
hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be
quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the
body of a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his
mouth and chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and
his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or
wholesome. But what added most to the grotesque expression of his
face was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of
habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent
feeling, constantly revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet
scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His
dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair
of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp
and crumpled to disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such
hair as he had was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his
temples, and hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands,
which were of a rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails
were crooked, long, and yellow.

There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they
were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some
moments elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced
timidly towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we
may call him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer,
who plainly had not
expected his uncouth visitor, seemed
disconcerted and embarrassed.

'Ah!' said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes
had been surveying the young man attentively, 'that should be your
grandson, neighbour!'

'Say rather that he should not be,' replied the old man. 'But he is.'

'And that?' said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.

'Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,' said the old man.

'And that?' inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight
at me.

'A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night
when she lost her way, coming from your house.'

The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his
wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and
bent his head to listen.

'Well, Nelly,' said the young fellow aloud. 'Do they teach you to
hate me, eh?'

'No, no. For shame. Oh, no!' cried the child.

'To love me, perhaps?' pursued her brother with a sneer.

'To do neither,' she returned. 'They never speak to me about you.
Indeed they never do.'

'I dare be bound for that,' he said, darting a bitter look at the
grandfather. 'I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!'

'But I love you dearly, Fred,' said the child.

'No doubt!'

'I do indeed, and always will,' the child repeated with great emotion,
'but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy,
then I could love you more.'

'I see!' said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child,
and having kissed her, pushed her from him: 'There--get you away
now you have said your lesson. You needn't whimper. We part good
friends enough, if that's the matter.'

He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained
her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf,
said abruptly,

'Harkee, Mr--'

'Meaning me?' returned the dwarf. 'Quilp is my name. You might
remember. It's not a long one--Daniel Quilp.'

'Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,' pursued the other, 'You have some
influence with my grandfather there.'

'Some,' said Mr Quilp emphatically.

'And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.'

'A few,' replied Quilp, with equal dryness.

'Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into
and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell
here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of
her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned
and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He'll tell you that I have no
natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake,
than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of
coming to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see
her when I please. That's my point. I came here to-day to maintain
it, and I'll come here again fifty times with the same object and
always with the same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it.
I have done so, and now my visit's ended. Come Dick.'

'Stop!' cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the
door. 'Sir!'

'Sir, I am your humble servant,' said Mr Quilp, to whom the
monosyllable was addressed.

'Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light,
sir,' said Mr Swiveller, 'I will with your permission, attempt a slight
remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old
min was friendly.'

'Proceed, sir,' said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden
stop.

'Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling
as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the
sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social
harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a
course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion.
Will you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?'

Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped
up to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to
get at his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all
present,

'The watch-word to the old min is--fork.'

'Is what?' demanded Quilp.

'Is fork, sir, fork,' replied Mr Swiveller slapping his picket. 'You
are awake, sir?'

The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise,
then drew a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these
means he in time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to
attract the dwarf's attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in
dumb show, the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy.
Having performed the serious pantomime that was necessary for the
due conveyance of these idea, he cast himself upon his friend's track,
and vanished.

'Humph!' said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his
shoulders, 'so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge
none! Nor need you either,' he added, turning to the old man, 'if you
were not as weak as a reed, and nearly as senseless.'

'What would you have me do?' he retorted in a kind of helpless
desperation. 'It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?'

'What would I do if I was in your case?' said the dwarf.

'Something violent, no doubt.'

'You're right there,' returned the little man, highly gratified by the
compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a
devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. 'Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty
Mrs Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me--I have
left her all alone,
and she will be anxious and know not a
moment's peace till I return. I know she's always in that condition
when I'm away, thought she doesn't dare to say so, unless I lead her
on and tell her she may speak freely and I won't be angry with her.
Oh! well-trained Mrs Quilp.

The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and
little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and
round again--with something fantastic even in his manner of
performing this slight action--and, dropping his shaggy brows and
cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of
exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated to
himself.

'Here,' he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the
old man as he spoke; 'I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as,
being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in
her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes thought,
neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.'

'Heaven send she may! I hope so,' said the old man with something
like a groan.'

'Hope so!' echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear;
'neighbour, I would I knew in what good investment all these supplies
are sunk. But you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.'

'My secret!' said the other with a haggard look. 'Yes,
you're right--I--I--keep it close--very close.'

He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow,
uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and
dejected man. the dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into
the little sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the
chimney-piece; and after musing for a short space, prepared to take
his leave, observing that unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp
would certainly be in fits on his return.

'And so, neighbour,' he added, 'I'll turn my face homewards,
leaving my love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way
again, though her doing so HAS procured me an honour I didn't
expect.' With that he bowed and leered at me, and with a keen
glance around which seemed to comprehend every object within his
range of vision, however, small or trivial, went his way.

I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always
opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties
on our being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former
occasion of our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions,
and sat down, pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a
few old medals which he placed before me. It needed no great
pressing to induce me to stay, for if my curiosity has been excited on
the occasion of my first visit, it certainly was not diminished now.

Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the
table, sat by the old man's side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh
flowers in the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his
little cage, the breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle
through the old dull house and hover round the child. It was curious,
but not so pleasant, to turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to
the stooping figure, care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man.
As he grew weaker and more feeble, what would become of this
lonely litle creature; poor protector as he was, say that he died--what
we be her fate, then?

The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on
hers, and spoke aloud.

'I'll be of better cheer, Nell,' he said; 'there must be good fortune in
store for thee--I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries
must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but
that, being tempted, it will come at last!'

She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.

'When I think,' said he, 'of the many years--many in thy short life--
that thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing
no companions of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the
solitutde in which thou has grown to be what thou art, and in which
thou hast lived apart from nearly all thy kind but one old man; I
sometimes fear I have dealt hardly by thee, Nell.'

'Grandfather!' cried the child in unfeigned surprise.

'Not in intention--no no,' said he. 'I have ever looked forward to the
time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest,
and take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I
still look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee,
meanwhile, how have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The
poor bird yonder is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned
adrift upon its mercies--Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go
to him.'

She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms
about the old man's neck, then left him and hurried away again--but
faster this time, to hide her falling tears.

'A word in your ear, sir,' said the old man in a hurried whisper. 'I
have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can
only plead that I have done all for the best--that it is too late to
retract, if I could (though I cannot)--and that I hope to triumph yet.
All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would
spare her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare
her the miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an
early grave. I would leave her--not with resources which could be
easily spent or squandered away, but with what would place her
beyond the reach of want for ever. you mark me sir? She shall have
no pittance, but a fortune--Hush! I can say no more than that, now or
at any other time, and she is here again!'

The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the
trembling of the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained
and starting eyes he fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation
of his manner, filled me with amazement. All that I had heard and
seen, and a great part of what he had said himself, led me to suppose
that he was a wealthy man. I could form no comprehension of his
character, unless he were one of those miserable wretches who,
having made gain the sole end and object of their lives and having
succeeded in amassing great riches, are constantly tortured by the
dread of poverty, and best by fears of loss and ruin. Many things he
had said which I had been at a loss to understand, were quite
reconcilable with the idea thus presented to me, and at length I
concluded that beyond all doubt he was one of this unhappy race.

The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which
indeed there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came
directly, and soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a
writing lesson, of which it seemed he had a couple every week, and
one regularly on that evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both
of himself and his instructress. To relate how it was a long time
before his modesty could be so far prevailed upon as it admit of his
sitting down in the parlour, in the presence of an unknown
gentleman--how, when he did set down, he tucked up his sleeves and
squared his elbows and put his face close to the copy-book and
squinted horribly at the lines--how, from the very first moment of
having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow in blots, and to daub
himself with ink up to the very roots of his hair--how, if he did by
accident form a letter properly, he immediately smeared it out again
with his arm in his preparations to make another -- how, at every
fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of merriment from the child
and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor Kit himself--and how
there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a gentle wish on her
part to teach, and an anxious desire on his to learn--to relate all these
particulars would no doubt occupy more space and time than they
deserve. It will be sufficient to say that the lesson was given--that
evening passed and night came on--that the old man again grew
restless and impatient--that he quitted the house secretly at the same
hour as before--and that the child was once more left alone within its
gloomy walls.

And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character
and introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the
convenience of the narrative detach myself from its further course,
and leave those who have prominent and necessary parts in it to
speak and act for themselves.




CHAPTER 4


Mr and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on
Tower Hill. Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when
he quitted her on the business which he had already seen to transact.

Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or
calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations
numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets
and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty
officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers
mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very
nose of the Custom House, and made appointments on 'Change with
men in glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the
Surrey side of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called
'Quilp's Wharf,' in which were a little wooden counting-house
burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and
ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several
large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps
of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp's
Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker, yet to judge from these
appearances he must either have been a ship-breaker on a very small
scale, or have broken his ships up very small indeed. Neither did the
place present any extraordinary aspect of life or activity, as its only
human occupant was an amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole
change of occupation was from sitting on the head of a pile and
throwing stones into the mud when the tide was out, to standing with
his hands in his pockets gazing listlessly on the motion and on the
bustle of the river at high-water.

The dwarf's lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful
accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet
for that lady's mother, who resided with the couple and waged
perpetual war with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in
no slight dread. Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means
or other--whether by his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural
cunning is no great matter--to impress with a wholesome fear of his
anger, most of those with whom he was brought into daily contact
and communication. Over nobody had he such complete ascendance
as Mrs Quilp herself--a pretty little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman,
who having allied herself in wedlock to the dwarf in one of those
strange infatuations of which examples are by no means scarce,
performed a sound practical penance for her folly, every day of her
life.

It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her
bower she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of
whom mention has recently been made, there were present some
half-dozen ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a
strange accident (and also by a little understanding among
themselves) to drop in one after another, just about tea-time. This
being a season favourable to conversation, and the room being a
cool, shady, lazy kind of place, with some plants at the open window
shutting out the dust, and interposing pleasantly enough between the
tea table within and the old Tower without, it is no wonder that the
ladies felt an inclination to talk and linger, especially when there are
taken into account the additional inducements of fresh butter, new
bread, shrimps, and watercresses.

Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was
extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity
of mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that
developed upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their
rights and dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because
Mrs Quilp being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion
of her husband ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs
Quilp's parent was known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition
and inclined to resist male authority; thirdly, because each visitor
wished to show for herself how superior she was in this respect to
the generality of her sex; and forthly, because the company being
accustomed to acandalise each other in pairs, were deprived of their
usual subject of conversation now that they were all assembled in
close friendship, and had consequently no better employment than to
attack the common enemy.

Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings
by inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr
Quilp was; whereunto Mr Quilp's wife's mother replied sharply,
'Oh! He was well enough--nothing much was every the matter with
him--and ill weeds were sure to thrive.' All the ladies then sighed in
concert, shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.

'Ah!' said the spokeswoman, 'I wish you'd give her a little of your
advice, Mrs Jiniwin'--Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should
be observed--'nobody knows better than you, ma'am, what us
women owe to ourselves.'

'Owe indeed, ma'am!' replied Mrs Jiniwin. 'When my poor husband,
her dear father, was alive, if he had ever venture'd a cross
word to me, I'd have--' The good old lady did not finish the
sentence, but she twisted off the head of a shrimp with a
vindictiveness which seemed to imply that the action was in some
degree a substitute for words. In this light it was clearly understood
by the other party, who immediately replied with great approbation,
'You quite enter into my feelings, ma'am, and it's jist what I'd do
myself.'

'But you have no call to do it,' said Mrs Jiniwin. 'Luckily for you,
you have no more occasion to do it than I had.'

'No woman need have, if she was true to herself,' rejoined the stout
lady.

'Do you hear that, Betsy?' said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice.
'How often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone
down my knees when I spoke 'em!'

Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one
face of condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head
doubtfully. This was the signal for a general clamour, which
beginning in a low murmur gradually swelled into a great noise in
which everybody spoke at once, and all said that she being a young
woman had no right to set up her opinions against the experiences of
those who knew so much better; that it was very wrong of her not to
take the advice of people who had nothing at heart but her good; that
it was next door to being downright ungrateful to conduct herself in
that manner; that if she had no respect for herself she ought to have
some for other women, all of whom she compromised by her
meekness; and that if she had no respect for other women, the time
would come when other women would have no respect for her; and
she would be very sorry for that, they could tell her. Having dealt
out these admonitions, the ladies fell to a more powerful assault than
they had yet made upon the  mixed tea, new bread, fresh butter,
shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their vexation was so great
to see her going on like that, that they could hardly bring themselves
to eat a single morsel.

It's all very fine to talk,' said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, 'but I
know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he
pleased--now that he could, I know!'

There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he
pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of
them; they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing.
One lady (a widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he
hinted at it.

'Very well,' said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, 'as I said just now,
it's very easy to talk, but I say again that I know--that I'm sure--Quilp
has such a way with
him when he likes, that the best looking
woman here couldn't refuse him if I was dead, and she was free, and
he chose to make love to him. Come!'

Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, 'I know you
mean me. Let him try--that's all.' and yet for some hidden reason
they were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her
neighbour's ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself
the person referred to, and what a puss she was!

'Mother knows,' said Mrs Quilp, 'that what I say is quite correct,
for she often said so before we were married. Didn't you say so,
mother?'

This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position,
for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter
Mrs Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to
encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else
would have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating
qualities of her son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in
which all her energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing
considerations, Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but
denied the right to govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout
lady brought back the discussion to the point from which it had
strayed.

'Oh! It's a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has
said,!' exclaimed the old lady. 'If women are only true to
themselves!--But Betsy isn't, and more's the shame and pity.'

'Before I'd let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,' said Mrs
George, 'before I'd consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of
him, I'd--I'd kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!'

This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady
(from the Minories) put in her word:

'Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,' said this lady, 'and I supposed
there's no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs
Jiniwin says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still
he is not quite a--what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young
man neither, which might be a little excuse for him if anything could
be; whereas his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman--which
is the greatest
thing after all.'

This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a
corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the
lady went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and
unreasonable with such a wife, then--

'If he is!' interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and
brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn
declaration. 'If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she
daren't call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and
even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit
to give him a word back, no, not a single word.'

Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all
the tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every
tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this
official communication was no sooner made than they all began to
talk at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility.
Mrs George remarked that people would talk, that people had often
said this to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had
told her so twenty times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta
Simmons, unless I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own
ears, I never will believe it.' Mrs Simmons corroborated this
testimony and added strong evidence of her own. The lady from the
Minories recounted a successful course of treatment under which she
had placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one month after
marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means
become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her
own personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she
had found it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to
weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the
general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened herself
upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst
them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and
happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the
weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole
thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The
noise was at its height, and half the company had elevated their
voices into a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other
half, when Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her
forefinger stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not
until then, Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this
clamour, was observed to be in the room, looking on and listening
with profound attention.

'Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies
to stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light
and palatable.'

'I--I--didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. It's quite an
accident.'

'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always
the pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he
seemed to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they
were encrusted, little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going, ladies,
you are not going, surely!'

His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a
faint struggle to sustain the character.

'And why not stop to supper, Quilp,' said the old lady, 'if my
daughter had a mind?'

'To be sure,' rejoined Daniel. 'Why not?'

'There's nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?' said Mrs
Jiniwin.

'Surely not,' returned the dwarf. 'Why should there be? Nor
anything unwholesome, either, unless there's lobster-salad or
prawns, which I'm told are not good for digestion.'

'And you wouldn't like your wife to be attacked with that, or
anything else that would make her uneasy would you?' said Mrs
Jiniwin.

'Not for a score of worlds,' replied the dwarf with a grin. 'Not even
to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a
blessing that would be!'

'My daughter's your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,' said the old lady
with a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be
reminded of the fact; 'your wedded wife.'

'So she is, certainly. So she is,' observed the dwarf.

'And she has has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,' said the
old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of
her impish son-in-law.

'Hope she has!' he replied. 'Oh! Don't you know she has? Don't you
know she has, Mrs Jiniwin?

'I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my
way of thiniking.'

'Why an't you of your mother's way of thinking, my dear?' said the
dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, 'why don't you always
imitate your mother, my dear? She's the ornament of her sex--your
father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.'

'Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty
thousand of some people,' said Mrs Jiniwin; 'twenty hundred million
thousand.'

'I should like to have known him,' remarked the dwarf. 'I dare say
he was a blessed creature then; but I'm sure he is now. It was a
happy release. I believe he had suffered a long time?'

The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed,
with the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on
his tongue.

'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself
too much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go
to bed.'

'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'

'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.

The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced,
and falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her
and bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding
downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a
corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted
himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a
long time without speaking.

'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.

'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.

Instead of pursing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his
arms again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she
averted her eyes and kept them on the ground.

'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp.'

'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'

With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave
him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade
her clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set
before him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of
some ship's locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large
head and face squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted
on the table.

'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall
probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please,
in case I want you.'

His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and
the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first
glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the
Tower turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to
black, the room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a
deep fiery red, but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in
the same position, and staring listlessly out of window with the
doglike smile always on his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some
involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue; and then it
expanded into a grin of delight.




CHAPTER 5


Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a
time, or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long,
certain it is that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one
from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring
the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour
after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any
natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness,
which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the
night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his
shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and
by stealth.

At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of
early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was
discovered sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals
in mute appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and
gently reminding him by an occasion cough that she was still
unpardoned and that her penance had been of long duration. But her
dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without
heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time risen, and
the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street, that he
deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might not
have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door
he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively
engaged upon the other side.

'Why dear me!' he said looking round with a malicious grin, 'it's
day. Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!'

His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.

Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity;
for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to
relieve her feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general
conduct and character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that
the room appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on
the previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.

Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who,
perfectly understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned
uglier still in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good
morning, with a leer or triumph.

'Why, Betsy,' said the old woman, 'you haven't been--you don't
mean to say you've been a--'

'Sitting up all night?' said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the
sentence. 'Yes she has!'

'All night?' cried Mrs Jiniwin.

'Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?' said Quilp, with a smile of
which a frown was part. 'Who says man and wife are bad company?
Ha ha! The time has flown.'

'You're a brute!' exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.

'Come come,' said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course,
'you mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And
though she did beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must
not be so tenderly careful of me as to be out of humour with her.
Bless you for a dear old lady. Here's to your health!'

'I am much obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a
certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her
matronly fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!'

'Grateful soul!' cried the dwarf. 'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp,' said the timid sufferer.

'Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the
wharf this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.'

Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down
in a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute
determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her
daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt
faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next
apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied
herself to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.

While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining
room, and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his
countenance with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance,
which made his complexion rather more cloudy than it was before.
But, while he was thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did
not forsake him, for with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he
often stopped, even in this short process, and stood listening for any
conversation in the next room, of which he might be the theme.

'Ah!' he said after a short effort of attention, 'it was not the towel
over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a
monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!'

The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full
force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very
doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.

Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was
standing there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin
happening to be behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt
to shake her fist at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an
instant, but as she did so and accompanied the action with a
menacing look, she met his eye in the glass, catching her in the very
act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a
horribly grotesque and distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and
the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and
placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.

'How are you now, my dear old darling?'

Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a
little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old
woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and
suffered herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the
breakfast-table. Here he by no means diminished the impression he
had just produced, for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured
gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and
water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness,
drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they
bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and
uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their
wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. At last,
having gone through these proceedings and many others which were
equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them, reduced to a very
obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the river-side,
where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed his
name.

It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to
cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on,
some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed,
dogged, obstinate
way, bumping up against the larger craft,
running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of
nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on
all sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long
sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some
lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands
were busily engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry,
taking in or discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible
but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to
and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over the side and
bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the forests
of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short impatient
strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to
breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among
the minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of
colliers; between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with
sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed
from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was in active
motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey
Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire
shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their
chafing, restless neighbour.

Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save
in so far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused
himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither
through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character
of its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and
a very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first
object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly
shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which
remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an
eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now
standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under
these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his
heels by the sound of his master's voice, and as soon as his head was
in its right position, Mr Quilp, to speak expresively in the absence of
a better verb, 'punched it' for him.

'Come, you let me alone,' said the boy, parrying Quilp's hand with
both his elbows alternatively. 'You'll get something you won't like if
you don't and so I tell you.'

'You dog,' snarled Quilp, 'I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch
you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me--I will.'

With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously
diving in betwen the elbows and catching the boy's head as it dodged
from side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having
now carried his point and insisted on it, he left off.

'You won't do it agin,' said the boy, nodding his head and drawing
back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; 'now--'

'Stand still, you dog,' said Quilp. 'I won't do it again, because I've
done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.'

'Why don't you hit one of your size?' said the boy approaching very
slowly.

'Where is there one of my size, you dog?' returned Quilp. 'Take the
key, or I'll brain you with it'--indeed he gave him a smart tap with
the handle as he spoke. 'Now, open the counting-house.'

The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he
looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady
look. And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the
dwarf that existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or
bred, and or nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and
retorts and defiances on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would
certainly suffer nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy
would assuredly not have submitted to be so knocked about by
anybody but Quilp, when he had the power to run away at any time
he chose.

'Now,' said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, 'you
mind the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I'll cut one of your
feet off.'

The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in,
stood on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the
back and stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and
repeated the performance. There were indeed four sides to the
counting-house, but he avoided that one where the window was,
deeming it probable that Quilp would be looking out of it. This was
prudent, for in point of fact, the dwarf, knowing his disposition, was
lying in wait at a little distance from the sash armed with a large
piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged and studded in many
parts with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him.

It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but an
old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an
inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day
clock which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the
minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp
pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a
flat top) and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with
ease of an old pactitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate
himself for the deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and sound
nap.

Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been
asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust
in his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp
was a light sleeper and started up directly.

'Here's somebody for you,' said the boy.

'Who?'

'I don't know.'

'Ask!' said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and
throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy
disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. 'Ask,
you dog.'

Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy
discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who
now presented herself at the door.

'What, Nelly!' cried Quilp.

'Yes,' said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the
dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him
and a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to
behold; it's only me, sir.'

'Come in,' said Quilp, without getting off the desk. 'Come in. Stay.
Just look out into the yard, and see whether there's a boy standing on
his head.'

'No, sir,' replied Nell. 'He's on his feet.'

'You're sure he is?' said Quilp. 'Well. Now, come in and shut the
door. What's your message, Nelly?'

The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his
position further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his
chin on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its
contents.




CHAPTER 6


Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance
of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that
while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she
was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque
attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful
anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it
disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this
impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly
have done by any efforts of her own.

That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree,
by the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had
got through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes
very wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused
him to scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when
he came to the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of
surprise and dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he
bit the nails of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and
taking it up sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all
appearance as unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a
profound reverie from which he awakened to another assault upon
his nails and a long stare at the child, who with her eyes turned
towards the ground awaited his further pleasure.

'Halloa here!' he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness,
which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her
ear. 'Nelly!'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do you know what's inside this letter, Nell?'

'No, sir!'

'Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?'

'Quite sure, sir.'

'Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?' said the dwarf.

'Indeed I don't know,' returned the child.

'Well!' muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. 'I believe
you. Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What
the devil has he done with it, that's the mystery!'

This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once
more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed
into what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man
would have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked
up again she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary
favour and complacency.

'You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you
tired, Nelly?'

'No, sir. I'm in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I
am away.'

'There's no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,' said Quilp. 'How
should you like to be my number two, Nelly?'

'To be what, sir?'

'My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf.

The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him,
which Mr Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more
distinctly.

'To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead,
sweet Nell,' said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards
him with his bent forefinger, 'to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked,
red-lipped wife. Say
that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only
four, you'll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl,
Nelly, a very good girl, and see if one of these days you don't come
to be Mrs Quilp of Tower Hill.'

So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful
prospect, the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled
violently. Mr Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded
him a constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to
contemplate the death of Mrs Quilp number one, and the elevation of
Mrs Quilp number two to her post and title, or because he was
determined from purposes of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at
that particular
time, only laughed and feigned to take no
heed of her alarm.

'You shall home with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is,
directly,' said the dwarf. 'She's very fond of you, Nell, though not
so fond as I am. You shall come home with me.'

'I must go back indeed,' said the child. 'He told me to return directly
I had the answer.'

'But you haven't it, Nelly,' retorted the dwarf, 'and won't have it,
and can't have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your
errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and
we'll go directly.' With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll
gradually off the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when
he got upon them and led the way from the counting-house to the
wharf outside, when the first objects that presented themselves were
the boy who had stood on his head and another young gentleman of
about his own stature, rolling in the mud together, locked in a tight
embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness.

'It's Kit!' cried Nelly, clasping her hand, 'poor Kit who came with
me! Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!'

'I'll stop 'em,' cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and
returning with a thick stick, 'I'll stop 'em. Now, my boys, fight
away. I'll fight you both. I'll take bot of you, both together, both
together!'

With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing
round the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over
them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on
the other, in a most desperate manner, always aiming at their heads
and dealing such blows as none but the veriest little savage would
have inflicted. This being warmer work than they had calculated
upon, speedily cooled the courage of the belligerents, who scrambled
to their feet and called for quarter.

'I'll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,' said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to
get near either of them for a parting blow. 'I'll bruise you until
you're copper-coloured, I'll break your faces till you haven't a
profile between you, I will.'

'Come, you drop that stick or it'll be worse for you,' said his boy,
dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; 'you
drop that stick.'

'Come a little nearer, and I'll drop it on your skull, you dog,' said
Quilp, with gleaming eyes; 'a little nearer--nearer yet.'

But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a
little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to
wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily
kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power,
when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that
he fell violently upon his head. the success of this manoeuvre tickled
Mr Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the
ground as at a most irresistible jest.

'Never mind,' said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the
same time; 'you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because
they say you're an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a
penny, that's all.'

'Do you mean to say, I'm not, you dog?' returned Quilp.

'No!' retorted the boy.

'Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?' said Quilp.

'Because he said so,' replied to boy, pointing to Kit, 'not because
you an't.'

'Then why did he say,' bawled Kit, 'that Miss Nelly was ugly, and
that she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked?
Why did he say that?'

'He said what he did because he's a fool, and you said what you did
because you're very wise and clever--almost too clever to live,
unless you're very careful of yourself, Kit.' said Quilp, with great
suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes
and mouth. 'Here's sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth.
At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog,
and bring me the key.'

The other boy, to whom this order was addresed, did as he was told,
and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a
dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into
his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat,
and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on
the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed
the river.

There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the
return of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing
slumber when the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely
time to seem to be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered,
accompanied by the child; having left Kit downstairs.

'Here's Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,' said her husband. 'A glass of
wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She'll sit
with you, my soul, while I write a letter.'

Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse's face to know what this
unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she
saw in his gesture, followed him into the next room.

'Mind what I say to you,' whispered Quilp. 'See if you can get out
of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they
live, or what he tells her. I've my reasons for knowing, if I can. You
women talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you
have a soft, mild way with you that'll win upon her. Do you hear?'

'Yes, Quilp.'

'Go then. What's the matter now?'

'Dear Quilp,' faltered his wife. 'I love the child--if you could do
without making me deceive her--'

The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some
weapon with which to inflict condign punishment upon his
disobedient wife. the submissive little woman hurriedly entreated
him not to be angry, and promised to do as he bade her.

'Do you hear me,' whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm;
'worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening,
recollect. If you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe
betide you if I have to creak it much. Go!'

Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband,
ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his
ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and
attention.

Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or
what kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door,
creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without
further consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard.

'How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to
Mr Quilp, my dear.'

'I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,' returned Nell
innocently.

'And what has he said to that?'

'Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched
that if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you
could not have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!'

'It often does.' returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards
it. 'But your grandfather--he used not to be so wretched?'

'Oh, no!' said the child eagerly, 'so different! We were once so
happy and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad
change has fallen on us since.'

'I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!' said
Mrs Quilp. And she spoke the truth.

'Thank you,' returned the child, kissing her cheek, 'you are always
kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one
else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel
happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me
sometimes to see him alter so.'

'He'll alter again, Nelly,' said Mrs Quilp, 'and be what he was
before.'

'Oh, if God would only let that come about!' said the child with
streaming eyes; 'but it is a long time now, since he first began to--I
thought I saw that door moving!'

'It's the wind,' said Mrs Quilp, fainly. 'Began to ---'

'To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way ot
spending the time in the long evenings,' said the child. 'I used to
read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped
and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she
once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then
he used to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that
she was not lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country
beyond the sky where nothing died or ever grew old--we were very
happy once!'

'Nelly, Nelly!' said the poor woman, 'I can't bear to see one as
young as you so sorrowful. Pray don't cry.'

'I do so very seldom,' said Nell,' but I have kept this to myself a
long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into
my eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don't mind telling you my
grief, for I know you will not tell it to any one again.'

Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.

'Then,' said the child, 'we often walked in the fields and among the
green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for
being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark
and rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only
made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look
forward to our next one. But now we never have these walks, and
though it is the same house it is darker and much more gloomy than
it used to be, indeed!'

She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs
Quilp said nothing.

'Mind you don't suppose,' said the child earnestly, 'that grandfather
is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day,
and is kinder and more afectionate than he was the day before. You
do not know how fond he is of me!'

'I am sure he loves you dearly,' said Mrs Quilp.

'Indeed, indeed he does!' cried Nell, 'as dearly as I love him. But I
have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never
breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he
takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and neary all night
long he is away from home.'

'Nelly!'

'Hush!' said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking
round. 'When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just
before day, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite
light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were
bloodshot, and that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone
to bed again, I heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and
heard him say, before he knew that I was there, that he could not
bear his life much longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish
to die. What shall I do! Oh! What shall I do!'

The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by
the weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she
had ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been
received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst
into a passion of tears.

In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost
surprise to find her in this condtiion, which he did very naturally and
with admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered
familiar to him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it.

'She's tired you see, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf, squinting in a
hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. 'It's a
long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alrmed to
see a couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the
water besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor
Nell!'

Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have
devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the
head. Such an application from any other hand might not have
produced a remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from
his touch and felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach,
that she rose directly and declared herself ready to return.

'But you'd better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.' said the
dwarf.

'I have been away too long, sir, already,' returned Nell, drying her
eyes.

'Well,' said Mr Quilp, 'if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here's the
note. It's only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next
day, and that I couldn't do that little business for him this morning.
Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d'ye hear?'

Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so
needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening
manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause
of Nelly shedding tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge
the fact upon him on the mere suspicion, turned about and followed
his young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs
Quilp and departed.

'You're a keen questioner, an't you, Mrs Quilp?' said the dwarf,
turning upon her as soon as they were left alone.

'What more could I do?' returned his wife mildly?

'What more could you do!' sneered Quilp, 'couldn't you have done
something less? Couldn't you have done what you had to do, without
appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?'

'I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,' said his wife. 'Surely I've
done enough. I've led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were
alone; and you were by, God forgive me.'

'You led her on! You did a great deal truly!' said Quilp. 'What did I
tell you about making me creak the door? It's lucky for you that
from what she let fall, I've got the clue I want, for if I hadn't, I'd
have visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.'

Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband
added with some exultation,

'But you may thank your fortunate stars--the same stars that made
you Mrs Quilp--you may thank them that I'm upon the old
gentleman's track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more
about this matter now or at any other time, and don't get anything
too nice for dinner, for I shan't be home to it.'

So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs
Quilp, who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the
part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and
smothering her head in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more
bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a
much greater offence; for, in the majority of cases, conscience is an
elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching
and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by
prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel
waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with
it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and
throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most
convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue.




CHAPTER 7


'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller, 'remember the once popular melody of
Begone dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of
friendship; and pass the rosy wine.'

Mr Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of
Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the
advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled
to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out
upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of
maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller
made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and
encouragement of his desponding friend; and it may not be
uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief
observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical
character of Mr Swiveller's mind, as the rosy wine was in fact
represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was
replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the
table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers
which, as Mr Swiveller's was a bachelor's establishment, may be
acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single
chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged
times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as
'apartments' for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up
the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his
chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and
leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty
halls, at pleasure.

In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive
piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase,
which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to
defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day
Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a
bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed,
resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the
bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its
nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed
between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the
deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of
Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason,
observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the
bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.

'Fred!' said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had
been productive of no effect. 'Pass the rosy.'

Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him,
and fell again in the the moddy attitude from which he had been
unwillingly roused.

'I'll give you, Fred,' said his friend, stirring the mixture, 'a little
sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the ---'

'Pshaw!' interposed the other. 'You worry me to death with your
chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.'

'Why, Mr Trent,' returned Dick, 'there is a proverb which talks
about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be
merry and can't be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they
can) and can't be merry. I'm one of the first sort. If the proverb's a
good 'un, I supose it's better to keep to half of it than none; at all
events, I'd rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one
nor t'other.'

'Bah!' muttered his friend, peevishly.

'With all my heart,' said Mr Swiveller. 'In the polite circles I believe
this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own
apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,' adding to
this retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be
rather 'cranky' in point of temper, Richards Swiveller finished the
rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in
which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an
imaginary company.

'Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient
family of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular--Mr
Richard, gentlemen,'
said Dick with great emphasis, 'who spends
all his money on his friends and is Bah!'d for his pains. Hear, hear!'

'Dick!' said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the
room twice or thrice, 'will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I
show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?'

'You've shown me so many,' returned Dick; 'and nothing has come
of any one of 'em but empty pockets ---'

'You'll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is
over,' said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. 'You saw
my sister Nell?'

'What about her?' returned Dick.

'She has a pretty face, has she not?'

'Why, certainly,' replied Dick. 'I must say for her that there's not
any very strong family likeness between her and you.'

'Has she a pretty face,' repeated his friend impatiently.

'Yes,' said Dick, 'she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of
that?'

'I'll tell you,' returned his friend. 'It's very plain that the old man
and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I
have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?'

'A bat might see that, with the sun shining,' said Dick.

'It's equally plain that the money which the old flint--rot him--first
taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all
be hers, is it not?'

'I should said it was,' replied Dick; 'unless the way in which I put
the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was
powerful, Fred. 'Here is a jolly old grandfather'--that was strong, I
thought--very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?'

It didn't strike him,' returned the other, 'so we needn't discuss it.
Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.'

'Fine girl of her age, but small,' observed Richard Swiveller
parenthetically.

'If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,' returned Trent, fretting at
the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation.
'Now I'm coming to the point.'

'That's right,' said Dick.

'The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may,
at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand,
I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her
to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the
scheme would take a week to tell) what's to prevent your marrying
her?'

Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler
while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with
great energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words
than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty
ejaculated the monosyllable:

'What!'

'I say, what's to prevent,' repeated the other with a steadiness of
manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well
assured by long experience, 'what's to prevent your marrying her?'

'And she 'nearly fourteen'!' cried Dick.

'I don't mean marrying her now'--returned the brother angrily; 'say
in two year's time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a
long-liver?'

'He don't look like it,' said Dick shaking his head, 'but these old
people--there's no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mind
down in Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years
old, and hasn't kept her word yet. They're so aggravating, so
unprincipled, so spiteful--unless there's apoplexy in the family, Fred,
you can't calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as
often as not.'

'Look at the worst side of the question then,' said Trent as steadily
as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. 'Suppose he lives.'

'To be sure,' said Dick. 'There's the rub.'

'I say,' resumed his friend, 'suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if
the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with
you. What do you think would come of that?'

'A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep 'em on,' said
Richard Swiveller after some reflection.

'I tell you,' returned the other with an increased earnestness, which,
whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his
companion, 'that he lives for her, that his whole energies and
thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her
for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour
again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be
guilty of. He could not do it. You or any other man with eyes in his
head may see that, if he chooses.'

'It seems improbable certainly,' said Dick, musing.

'It seems improbable because it is improbable,' his friend returned.
'If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive
you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel,
between you and me--let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean,
of course--and he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping
will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she
is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to?
That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old
hunks, that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the
bargain a beautiful young wife.'

'I suppose there's no doubt about his being rich'--said Dick.

'Doubt! Did you hear what he left fall the other day when we were
there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?'

It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful
windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart
of Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity,
interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to
look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other
inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his
disposition stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same
side. To these impulses must be added the complete ascendancy
which his friend had long been accustomed to exercise over him--an
ascendancy exerted in the beginning sorely at the expense of his
friend's vices, and was in nine cases out of ten looked upon as his
designing tempter when he was indeed nothing but his thoughtless,
light-headed tool.

The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which
Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to
their own development, require no present elucidation. the
negotiation was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in
the act of stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable
objection to marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or
moveables, who could be induced to take him, when he was
interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door, and the
consequent necessity of crying 'Come in.'

The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a
strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop
downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant-girl,
who being then and
there engaged in cleaning the stars had just
drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter she now
held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception of
surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.

Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction,
and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that
it was one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it
was very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite
forgotten her.

'Her. Who?' demanded Trent.

'Sophy Wackles,' said Dick.

'Who's she?'

'She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is,' said Mr
Swiveller, taking a long pull at 'the rosy' and looking gravely at his
friend. 'She's lovely, she's divine. You know her.'

'I remember,' said his companion carelessly. 'What of her?'

'Why, sir,' returned Dick, 'between Miss Sophia Wackles and the
humble individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and
tender sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most
honourable and inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls
aloud for the chase, is not more particular in her behavior than
Sophia Wackles; I can tell you that.'

'Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say?' demanded
his friend; 'you don't mean to say that any love-making has been
going on?'

'Love-making, yes. Promising, no,' said Dick. 'There can be no
action for breach, that's one comfort. I've never committed myself in
writing, Fred.'

'And what's in the letter, pray?'

'A reminder, Fred, for to-night--a small party of twenty, making two
hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and
gentleman to have the proper complement. It must go, if it's only to
begin breaking off the affair--I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should
like to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of
any bar to her happiness, it's affecting, Fred.'

To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and
ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with
her own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum's
sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that
Mr Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she
was extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr
Swiveller heard this account with a degree of admiration not
altogether consistent with the project in which he had just concurred,
but his friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this
respect, probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to
control Richard Swiveller's proceedings in this or any other matter,
whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own
purposes, to exert it.




CHAPTER 8


Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its
being nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be
endangered by longer abstinence, dispached a message to the nearest
eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens
for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having
experience of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending
back for answer that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps
he would be so obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with
him, as grace before meat, the amount of a certin small account
which had long been outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this
rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller
forwarded the same message to another and more distant eating-house,
adding to it by way of rider that the gentleman was induced to
send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had
acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef
retailed at the obdurant cook's shop, which rendered it quite unfit not
merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The
good effect of this politic course was demonstrated by the speedy
arrive of a small pewter pyramid, curously constructed of platters
and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a
foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being resolved into its
component parts afforded all things requisite and necessary for a
hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend applied
themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.

'May the present moment,' said Dick, sticking his fork into a large
carbuncular potato, 'be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of
sending 'em with the peel on; there's a charm in drawing a poato
from its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and
powerful are strangers. Ah! 'Man wants but little here below, nor
wants that little long!' How true that it!--after dinner.'

'I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may
not want that little long,' returned his companion; but I suspect
you've no means of paying for this!'

'I shall be passing present, and I'll call,' said Dick, winking his eye
significantly. 'The waiter's quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred,
and there's an end of it.'

In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome
truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was
informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would
call and setle when he should be passing presently, he displayed
some pertubation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about
'payment on delivery' and 'no trust,' and other unpleasant subjects,
but was fain to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was
likely that the gentleman would call, in order that being presently
responsible for the beef , greens, and sundries, he might take to be in
the way at the time. Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his
engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two
minutes before six and seven minutes past; and the man disappearing
with this feeble consolation, Richards Swiveller took a greasy
memorandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein.

'Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?' said Trent
with a sneer.

'Not exactly, Fred,' replied the imperturable Richard, continuing to
write with a businesslike air. 'I enter in this little book the names of
the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This dinner
today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen
Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one
avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that
to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every
direction, that in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a
remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get
over the way.'

'There's no fear of failing, in the end?' said Trent.

'Why, I hope not,' returned Mr Swiveller, 'but the average number
of letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far
as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another tom-morrow
morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it
out of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. 'I'm in such a state
of mind that I hardly know what I write'--blot--' if you could see me
at this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct'--pepper-castor--
my hand trembles when I think'--blot again--if that don't produce
the effect, it's all over.'

By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now
replaced his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a
perfectly grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that
it was time for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard
Swiveller was accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine
and his own meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.

'It's rather sudden,' said Dick shaking his head with a look of
infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with
scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; 'when the heart
of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss
Wackles appears; she's a very nice girl. She's like the red red rose
that's newly sprung in June--there's no denying that--she's also like a
melody that's sweetly played in tune. It's really very sudden. Not
that there's any need, on account of Fred's little sister, to turn cool
directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I
must begin at once, I see that. There's the chance of an action for
breach, that's another. There's the chance of--no, there's no chance
of that, but it's as well to be on the safe side.'

This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller
sought to conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against
the charms of Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by
linking his fortunes to hers forever, of putting it out of his own
power to further their notable scheme to which he had so readily
become a party. For all these reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel
with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext
determined in favour of groundless jealousy.  Having made up his
mind on this important point, he circulated the glass (from his right
hand to left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to act his
part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some slight
improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed
by the fair object of his meditations.

The spot was at Chesea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with
her widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she
maintained a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate
dimensions; a circumstance which was made known to the
neighbourhood by an oval board over the front first-floor windows,
whereupon appeared in circumbmbient flourishes the words 'Ladies'
Seminary'; and which was further published and proclaimed at
intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in the morning,
by a straggling and solitrary young lady of tender years standing on
the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach
the knocker with spelling-book. The several duties of instruction in
this establishment were this discharged. English grammar,
composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss
Melissa Wackles; writing, arthmetic, dancing, music, and general
fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work,
marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment,
fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss
Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and
Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty
summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy
was a fresh, good humoured, busom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane
numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent
but rather vemenous old lady of three-score.

To this Ladies' Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs
obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin
white, embelished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received
him on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant
preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little
flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in
windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the
day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted
curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole
of the preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the
solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest
daughter, which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon but made
no further impression upon him.

The truth is--and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste so
strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a
wilful and malicious invention--the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles
nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the
pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight
mention of him as 'a gay young man' and to sigh and shake their
heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller's
conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and
dilitory kind which is usuaully looked upon as betokening no fixed
matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of
time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue
one way or other. Hence she had at last consented to play off against
Richard Swiveller a stricken market-gardner known to be ready with
his offer on the smallest encouragement, and hence--as this occasion
had been specially assigned for the purpose--that great anxiety on her
part for Richard Swiveller's presence which had occasioned her to
leave the note he has ben seen to receive. 'If he has any expectations
at all or any means of keeping a wife well,' said Mrs Wackles to her
eldest daughter, 'he'll state 'em to us now or never.'--'If he really
cares about me,' thought Miss Sophy, 'he must tell me so, to-night.'

But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr
Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind
how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that
occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own
sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company
came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was
Cheggs. But Mr Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he
prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who
making straight to Miss Sophy and taking her by both hands, and
kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they
had not come too early.

'Too early, no!' replied Miss Sophy.

'Oh, my dear,' rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before,
'I've been so tormented, so worried, that it's a mercy we were not
here at four o'clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state
of impatience to come! You'd hardly believe that he was dressed
before dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me
ever since. It's all your fault, you naughty thing.'

Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful
before ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy's mother and sisters, to
prevent Mr Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and
attentions upon him, and left Richard Swiveller to take care of
himself. Here was the very thing he wanted, here was good cause
reason and foundation for pretending to be angry; but having this
cause reason and foundation which he had come expressly to seek,
not expecting to find, Richard Swiveller was angry in sound earnest,
and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence.

However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy's hand for the first quadrille
(country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an
advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and
contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved
through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller
had of the market-gardener, for determining to show the family what
quality of man they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late
libations, he performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls
as filled the company with astonishment, and in particular caused a
very long gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to
stand quite transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles
forgot for the moment to snubb three small young ladies who were
inclined to be happy, and could not repress a rising thought that to
have such a dancer as that in the family would be a pride indeed.

At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous
and useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful
smiles a contempt for Mr Swiveller's accomplishments, she took
every opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy's ear expressions
of condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a
ridiculous creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest
Alick should fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and
entreating Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick
gleamed with love and fury; passions, it may be observed, which
being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it
with a crimson glow.

'You must dance with Miss Chegs,' said Miss Sophy to Dick
Swiviller, after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and
made great show of encouraging his advances. 'She's a nice girl--and
her brother's quite delightful.'

'Quite delightful, is he?' muttered Dick. 'Quite delighted too, I
should say, from the manner in which he's looking this way.'

Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her
many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr
Cheggs was.

'Jealous! Like his impudence!' said Richard Swiviller.

'His impudence, Mr Swiviller!' said Miss Jane, tossing her head.
'Take care he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.'

'Oh, pray, Jane --' said Miss Sophy.

'Nonsense!' replied her sister. 'Why shouldn't Mr Cheggs be jealous
if he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be
jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right
soon if he hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophy!'

Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister,
originating in humane intenions and having for its object the inducing
Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for
Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are premeturely shrill
and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr
Swiviller retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs
and converying a definance into his looks which that gentleman
indignantly returned.

'Did you speak to me, sir?' said Mr Cheggs, following him into a
corner. 'Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be
suspected. Did you speak to me, sir'?

Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg's toes,
then raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin,
from that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right
leg, until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from
button to button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up
the middle of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said
abruptly,

'No, sir, I didn't.'

`'Hem!' said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, 'have the
goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me,
sir.'

'No, sir, I didn't do that, either.'

'Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,' said Mr
Cheggs fiercely.

At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr
Chegg's face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down
his waistcoat and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and
carefully surveyed him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up
the other legt and thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said
when had got to his eyes, 'No sir, I haven't.:'

'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Mr Cheggs. 'I'm glad to hear it. You know
where I'm to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have
anything to say to me?'

'I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.'

'There's nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?'

'Nothing more, sir'--With that they closed the tremendous dialog by
frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss
Sophy, and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very
moody state.

Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated,
looking on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss
Cheggs occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his
share of the figure, and made some remark or other which was gall
and wormword to Richard Swiviller's soul. Looking into the eyes of
Mrs and Miss Wackles for encouragement, and sitting very upright
and uncomfortable on a couple of hard stools, were two of the
day-scholars; and when Miss Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled,
the two little girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling
likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old
lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be
guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under
convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the
young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to
shed tears, and for this offense they were both filed off immediately,
with a dreadful promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the
pupils.

'I've got such news for you,' said Miss Cheggs approaching once
more, 'Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word,
you know, it's quite serious and in earnest, that's clear.'

'What's he been saying, my dear?' demanded Mrs Wackles.

'All manner of things,' replied Miss Cheggs, 'you can't think how
out he has been speaking!'

Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking
advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs
to pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful
assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the
way Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was
holding a flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had)
with a feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door
sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr
Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to
exchange a few parting words.

'My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass
this door I will say farewell to thee,' murmured Dick, looking
gloomily upon her.

'Are you going?' said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at
the result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference
notwithstanding.

'Am I going!' echoed Dick bitterly. 'Yes, I am. What then?'

'Nothing, except that it's very early,' said Miss Sophy; 'but you are
your own master, of course.'

'I would that I had been my own mistress too,' said Dick, 'before I
had ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you
true, and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e'er I
knew, a girl so fair yet so deceiving.'

Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after
Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.

'I came here,' said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which
he had really come, 'with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and
my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with
feelings that may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling
within myself that desolating truth that my best affections have
experienced this night a stifler!'

'I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,' said Miss
Sophy with downcast eyes. 'I'm very sorry if--'

'Sorry, Ma'am!' said Dick, 'sorry in the possession of a Cheegs! But
I wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark,
that there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me,
who has not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and
who has requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which,
having a regard for some members of her family, I have consented to
promise. It's a gratifying circumstance which you'll be glad to hear,
that a young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on
my account, and is now saving up for me. I thought I'd mention it. I
have now merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your
attention. Good night.'

'There's one good thing springs out of all this,' said Richard
Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging
over the candle with the extinguisher in his hand, 'which is, that I
now go heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme
about little Nelly, and right glad he'll be to find me so strong upon
it. He shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the mean time, as
it's rather late, I'll try and get a wink of the balmy.'

'The balmy' came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few
minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married
Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of
power was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it
into a brick-field.




CHAPTER 9


The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly
described the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness
of the cloud which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its
hearth.  Besides that it was very difficult to impart to any person
not intimately acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense
of its gloom and loneliness, a constant fear of in some way
committing or injuring the old man to whom she was so tenderly
attached, had restrained her, even in the midst of her heart's
overflowing, and made her timid of allusion to the main cause of
her anxiety and distress.

For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and
uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary
evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of
every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or
the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily
wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell.  To see the old
man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark
his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a
dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his
words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and
wait and listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and
to feel and know that, come what might, they were alone in the
world with no one to help or advise or care about them--these were
causes of depression and anxiety that might have sat heavily on an
older breast with many influences at work to cheer and gladden it,
but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom they were ever
present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that could keep
such thoughts in restless action!

And yet, to the old man's vision, Nell was still the same.  When he
could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that
haunted and brooded on it always, there was his young companion
with the same smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry
laugh, the same love and care that, sinking deep into his soul,
seemed to have been present to him through his whole life.  And so
he went on, content to read the book of her heart from the page
first presented to him, little dreaming of the story that lay
hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at
least the child was happy.

She had been once.  She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and
moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures,
making them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by
her gay and cheerful presence.  But, now, the chambers were cold and
gloomy, and when she left her own little room to while away the
tedious hours, and sat in one of them, she was still and motionless
as their inanimate occupants, and had no heart to startle the
echoes--hoarse from their long silence--with her voice.

In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where
the child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the
night, alone and thoughtful.  None are so anxious as those who watch
and wait; at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her
mind, in crowds.

She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as
they passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of
the opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome
as that in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company
to see her sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and
draw in their heads again.  There was a crooked stack of chimneys on
one of the roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had
fancied ugly faces that were frowning over at her and trying to
peer into the room; and she felt glad when it grew too dark to make
them out, though she was sorry too, when the man came to light the
lamps in the street--for it made it late, and very dull inside.
Then, she would draw in her head to look round the room and see
that everything was in its place and hadn't moved; and looking out
into the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a
coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him
to a house where somebody lay dead; which made her shudder and
think of such things until they suggested afresh the old man's
altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and speculations.
If he were to die--if sudden illness had happened to him, and he
were never to come home again, alive--if, one night, he should
come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had gone
to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly,
and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come
creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door!  These
thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have
recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and
more silent than before.  The shops were closing fast, and lights
began to shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to
bed.  By degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were
replaced, here and there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn
all night.  Still, there was one late shop at no great distance
which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement even yet, and
looked bright and companionable.  But, in a little time, this
closed, the light was extinguished, and all was gloomy and quiet,
except when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement, or a
neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at his
house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.

When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had)
the child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs,
thinking as she went that if one of those hideous faces below,
which often mingled with her dreams, were to meet her by the way,
rendering itself visible by some strange light of its own, how
terrified she would be.  But these fears vanished before a
well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own room.  After
praying fervently, and with many bursting tears, for the old man,
and the restoration of his peace of mind and the happiness they had
once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob
herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the day-light
came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary summons
which had roused her from her slumber.

One night, the third after Nelly's interview with Mrs Quilp, the
old man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not
leave home.  The child's eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her
joy subsided when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.

'Two days,' he said, 'two whole, clear, days have passed, and there
is no reply.  What did he tell thee, Nell?'

'Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.'

'True,' said the old man, faintly.  'Yes.  But tell me again, Nell.
My head fails me.  What was it that he told thee?  Nothing more than
that he would see me to-morrow or next day?  That was in the note.'

'Nothing more,' said the child.  'Shall I go to him again to-
morrow, dear grandfather?  Very early?  I will be there and back,
before breakfast.'

The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her
towards him.

''Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use.  But if he deserts
me, Nell, at this moment--if he deserts me now, when I should,
with his assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I
have lost, and all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes
me what you see, I am ruined, and--worse, far worse than that--
have ruined thee, for whom I ventured all.  If we are beggars--!'

'What if we are?' said the child boldly.  'Let us be beggars, and be
happy.'

'Beggars--and happy!' said the old man.  'Poor child!'

'Dear grandfather,' cried the girl with an energy which shone in
her flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, 'I am
not a child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that
we may beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty
living, rather than live as we do now.'

'Nelly!' said the old man.

'Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,' the child repeated, more
earnestly than before.  'If you are sorrowful, let me know why and
be sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every
day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you.  If you are poor,
let us be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with
you; do not let me see such change and not know why, or I shall
break my heart and die.  Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad
place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door.'

The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the
pillow of the couch on which he lay.

'Let us be beggars,' said the child passing an arm round his neck,
'I have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall.  Let
us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under
trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make
you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our
faces in the day, and thank God together!  Let us never set foot in
dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but wander up and down
wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to
rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and
beg for both.'

The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old
man's neck; nor did she weep alone.

These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other
eyes.  And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in
all that passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no
less a person than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when
the child first placed herself at the old man's side, refrained--
actuated, no doubt, by motives of the purest delicacy--from
interrupting the conversation, and stood looking on with his
accustomed grin.  Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a
gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the dwarf being one of
that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon
cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon
agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the
seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort
to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for
doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions
had strong possession of him.  Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked
carelessly over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his
hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features
twisted into a complacent grimace.  And in this position the old
man, happening in course of time to look that way, at length
chanced to see him: to his unbounded astonishment.

The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable
figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not
knowing what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked
shrinkingly at it.  Not at all disconcerted by this reception,
Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or
thrice with great condescension.  At length, the old man pronounced
his name, and inquired how he came there.

'Through the door,' said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his
thumb.  'I'm not quite small enough to get through key-holes.  I
wish I was.  I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in
private.  With nobody present, neighbour.  Good-bye, little Nelly.'

Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed
her cheek.

'Ah!' said the dwarf, smacking his lips, 'what a nice kiss that was--
just upon the rosy part.  What a capital kiss!'

Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark.  Quilp
looked after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the
door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.

'Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,' said Quilp,
nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; 'such
a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!'

The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling
with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience.  It was
not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed
anybody else, when he could.

'She's so,' said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be
quite absorbed in the subject, 'so small, so compact, so
beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a
transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways--
but bless me, you're nervous!  Why neighbour, what's the matter?  I
swear to you,' continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and
sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very
different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, 'I
swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so
warm.  I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite
cool.  I am pretty sure it ought to be.  Yours must be out of order,
neighbour.'

'I believe it is,' groaned the old man, clasping his head with both
hands.  'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to
which I fear to give a name.'

The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced
restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his
seat.  Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for
some time, and then suddenly raising it, said,

'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'

'No!' returned Quilp.

'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and
looking upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'

'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his
hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering
attention, 'let me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than
when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing
more.  You have no secret from me now.'

The old man looked up, trembling.

'You are surprised,' said Quilp.  'Well, perhaps that's natural.  You
have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one.  For now, I know,
that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and
supplies that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall
I say the word?'

'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'

'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt.  This
was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the
secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my
money (if I had been the fool you took me for); this was your
inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado, eh?'

'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it
was.  It is.  It will be, till I die.'

'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking
contemptuously at him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'

'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely.  'I call Heaven to
witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that
at every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name
and called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did.
Whom did it prosper?  Who were those with whom I played?  Men who
lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in
doing ill, and propagating vice and evil.  My winnings would have
been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last
farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have
sweetened and made happy.  What would they have contracted?  The
means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery.  Who would not have
hoped in such a cause?  Tell me that!  Who would not have hoped as I
did?'

'When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his
taunting inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief
and wildness.

'When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his
brow.  'When was it, that I first began?  When should it be, but when
I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to
save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and
how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with
barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty;
then it was that I began to think about it.'

'After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed
off to sea?' said Quilp.

'Shortly after that,' replied the old man.  'I thought of it a long
time, and had it in my sleep for months.  Then I began.  I found no
pleasure in it, I expected none.  What has it ever brought me but
anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of
mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!'

'You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me.
While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were)
you were making yourself a beggar, eh?  Dear me!  And so it comes to
pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a
bill of sale upon the--upon the stock and property,' said Quilp
standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that
none of it had been taken away.  'But did you never win?'

'Never!' groaned the old man.  'Never won back my loss!'

'I thought,' sneered the dwarf, 'that if a man played long enough
he was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a
loser.'

'And so he is,' cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from
his state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent
excitement, 'so he is; I have felt that from the first, I have
always known it, I've seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as
I feel it now.  Quilp, I have dreamed, three nights, of winning the
same large sum, I never could dream that dream before, though I
have often tried.  Do not desert me, now I have this chance.  I have
no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one last
hope.'

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

'See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,' said the old man, drawing
some scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and
clasping the dwarf's arm, 'only see here.  Look at these figures,
the result of long calculation, and painful and hard experience.  I
MUST win.  I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, but
two score pounds, dear Quilp.'

'The last advance was seventy,' said the dwarf; 'and it went in one
night.'

'I know it did,' answered the old man, 'but that was the very worst
fortune of all, and the time had not come then.  Quilp, consider,
consider,' the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the
papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind,
'that orphan child!  If I were alone, I could die with gladness--
perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally:
coming, as it does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and
shunning the needy and afflicted, and all who court it in their
despair--but what I have done, has been for her.  Help me for her
sake I implore you; not for mine; for hers!'

'I'm sorry I've got an appointment in the city,' said Quilp,
looking at his watch with perfect self-possession, 'or I should
have been very glad to have spent half an hour with you while you
composed yourself, very glad.'

'Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,' gasped the old man, catching at his
skirts, 'you and I have talked together, more than once, of her
poor mother's story.  The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps
been bred in me by that.  Do not be hard upon me, but take that into
account.  You are a great gainer by me.  Oh spare me the money for
this one last hope!'

'I couldn't do it really,' said Quilp with unusual politeness,
'though I tell you what--and this is a circumstance worth bearing
in mind as showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in
sometimes--I was so deceived by the penurious way in which you
lived, alone with Nelly--'

'All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her
triumph greater,' cried the old man.

'Yes, yes, I understand that now,' said Quilp; 'but I was going to
say, I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation
you had among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated
assurances that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple
the interest you paid me, that I'd have advanced you, even now,
what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn't
unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way of life.'

'Who is it,' retorted the old man desperately, 'that,
notwithstanding all my caution, told you?  Come.  Let me know the
name--the person.'

The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child
would lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed,
which, as nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal,
stopped short in his answer and said, 'Now, who do you think?'

'It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you
tampered with him?' said the old man.

'How came you to think of him?' said the dwarf in a tone of great
commiseration.  'Yes, it was Kit.  Poor Kit!'

So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave:
stopping when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and
grinning with extraordinary delight.

'Poor Kit!' muttered Quilp.  'I think it was Kit who said I was an
uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it.  Ha
ha ha!  Poor Kit!'  And with that he went his way, still chuckling as
he went.




CHAPTER 10


Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man's house,
unobserved.  In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to
one of the many passages which diverged from the main street, there
lingered one, who, having taken up his position when the twilight
first came on, still maintained it with undiminished patience, and
leaning against the wall with the manner of a person who had a long
time to wait, and being well used to it was quite resigned,
scarcely changed his attitude for the hour together.

This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those
who passed, and bestowed as little upon them.  His eyes were
constantly directed towards one object; the window at which the
child was accustomed to sit.  If he withdrew them for a moment, it
was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then
to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased
earnestness and attention.

It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in
his place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was.  But
as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise,
glancing at the clock more frequently and at the window less
hopefully than before.  At length, the clock was hidden from his
sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed
eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the conviction
seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use tarrying
there any longer.

That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no
means willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to
quit the spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it,
still looking over his shoulder at the same window; and from the
precipitation with which he as often returned, when a fancied noise
or the changing and imperfect light induced him to suppose it had
been softly raised.  At length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless
for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as though to force
himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once ventured
to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again.

Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this
mysterious individual dashed on through a great many alleys and
narrow ways until he at length arrived in a square paved court,
when he subsided into a walk, and making for a small house from the
window of which a light was shining, lifted the latch of the door
and passed in.

'Bless us!' cried a woman turning sharply round, 'who's that?  Oh!
It's you, Kit!'

'Yes, mother, it's me.'

'Why, how tired you look, my dear!'

'Old master an't gone out to-night,' said Kit; 'and so she hasn't
been at the window at all.'  With which words, he sat down by the
fire and looked very mournful and discontented.

The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an
extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about
it, nevertheless, which--or the spot must be a wretched one indeed--
cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree.  Late as
the Dutch clock' showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at
work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle
near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old,
very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a
night-gown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting
bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his
great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his
mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he had already
declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of bed
in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and
friends.  It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and
the children, being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too
often--but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping
soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket,
and from him to their mother, who had been at work without
complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and
kinder thing to be good-humoured.  So he rocked the cradle with his
foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him
in high good-humour directly; and stoutly determined to be
talkative and make himself agreeable.

'Ah, mother!' said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling
upon a great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for
him, hours before, 'what a one you are!  There an't many such as
you, I know.'

'I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,' said Mrs Nubbles;
'and that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson
at chapel says.'

'Much he knows about it,' returned Kit contemptuously.  'Wait till
he's a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does
as much, and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I'll ask him
what's o'clock and trust him for being right to half a second.'

'Well,' said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, 'your beer's down
there by the fender, Kit.'

'I see,' replied her son, taking up the porter pot, 'my love to
you, mother.  And the parson's health too if you like.  I don't bear
him any malice, not I!'

'Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn't gone out
to-night?' inquired Mrs Nubbles.

'Yes,' said Kit, 'worse luck!'

'You should say better luck, I think,' returned his mother,
'because Miss Nelly won't have been left alone.'

'Ah!' said Kit, 'I forgot that.  I said worse luck, because I've
been watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her.'

'I wonder what she'd say,' cried his mother, stopping in her work
and looking round, 'if she knew that every night, when she--poor
thing--is sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the
open street for fear any harm should come to her, and that you
never leave the place or come home to your bed though you're ever
so tired, till such time as you think she's safe in hers.'

'Never mind what she'd say,' replied Kit, with something like a
blush on his uncouth face; 'she'll never know nothing, and
consequently, she'll never say nothing.'

Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming
to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while
she rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said
nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding
the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test
its temperature, and looking round with a smile, she observed:

'I know what some people would say, Kit--'

'Nonsense,' interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was
to follow.

'No, but they would indeed.  Some people would say that you'd fallen
in love with her, I know they would.'

To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother 'get
out,' and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms,
accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face.  Not deriving
from these means the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense
mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the
porter; by which artificial aids he choked himself and effected a
diversion of the subject.

'Speaking seriously though, Kit,' said his mother, taking up the
theme afresh, after a time, 'for of course I was only in joke just
now, it's very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and
never let anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to
know it, for I'm sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it
very much.  It's a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there.
I don't wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.'

'He don't think it's cruel, bless you,' said Kit, 'and don't mean
it to be so, or he wouldn't do it--I do consider, mother, that he
wouldn't do it for all the gold and silver in the world.  No, no,
that he wouldn't.  I know him better than that.'

'Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from
you?' said Mrs Nubbles.

'That I don't know,' returned her son.  'If he hadn't tried to keep
it so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was
his getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier
than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going
on.  Hark! what's that?'

'It's only somebody outside.'

'It's somebody crossing over here,' said Kit, standing up to
listen, 'and coming very fast too.  He can't have gone out after I
left, and the house caught fire, mother!'

The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he
had conjured up, of the power to move.  The footsteps drew nearer,
the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale
and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments,
hurried into the room.

'Miss Nelly!  What is the matter!' cried mother and son together.

'I must not stay a moment,' she returned, 'grandfather has been
taken very ill.  I found him in a fit upon the floor--'

'I'll run for a doctor'--said Kit, seizing his brimless hat.  'I'll
be there directly, I'll--'

'No, no,' cried Nell, 'there is one there, you're not wanted, you--
you--must never come near us any more!'

'What!' roared Kit.

'Never again,' said the child.  'Don't ask me why, for I don't know.
Pray don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed
with me!  I have nothing to do with it indeed!'

Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut
his mouth a great many times; but couldn't get out one word.

'He complains and raves of you,' said the child, 'I don't know what
you have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad.'

'I done!' roared Kit.

'He cries that you're the cause of all his misery,' returned the
child with tearful eyes; 'he screamed and called for you; they say
you must not come near him or he will die.  You must not return to
us any more.  I came to tell you.  I thought it would be better that
I should come than somebody quite strange.  Oh, Kit, what have you
done?  You, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only
friend I had!'

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder,
and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless
and silent.

'I have brought his money for the week,' said the child, looking to
the woman and laying it on the table--'and--and--a little more,
for he was always good and kind to me.  I hope he will be sorry and
do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much.  It
grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no
help.  It must be done.  Good night!'

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure
trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock
she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a
thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to
the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every
reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered,
notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his
defence.  Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery; and of the nightly
absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having
been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit; flocked into her brain
and rendered her afraid to question him.  She rocked herself upon a
chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no
attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered.  The baby in
the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell
over on his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more;
the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible
to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.




CHAPTER 11


Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no
longer, beneath the roof that sheltered the child.  Next morning,
the old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and
sinking under the influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks
in imminent peril of his life.  There was watching enough, now, but
it was the watching of strangers who made a greedy trade of it, and
who, in the intervals in their attendance upon the sick man huddled
together with a ghastly good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made
merry; for disease and death were their ordinary household gods.

Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was
more alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in
her devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed;
alone in her unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy.  Day
after day, and night after night, found her still by the pillow of
the unconscious sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still
listening to those repetitions of her name and those anxieties and
cares for her, which were ever uppermost among his feverish
wanderings.

The house was no longer theirs.  Even the sick chamber seemed to be
retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp's favour.  The old
man's illness had not lasted many days when he took formal
possession of the premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain
legal powers to that effect, which few understood and none presumed
to call in question.  This important step secured, with the
assistance of a man of law whom he brought with him for the
purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish himself and his coadjutor
in the house, as an assertion of his claim against all comers; and
then set about making his quarters comfortable, after his own fashion.

To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first
put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the
shop.  Having looked out, from among the old furniture, the
handsomest and most commodious chair he could possibly find (which
he reserved for his own use) and an especially hideous and
uncomfortable one (which he considerately appropriated to the
accommodation of his friend) he caused them to be carried into this
room, and took up his position in great state.  The apartment was
very far removed from the old man's chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it
prudent, as a precaution against infection from fever, and a means
of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke, himself, without
cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the
like.  Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling
boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit himself
down in another chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a
great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to
take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for
one minute at a time, if he dared.  These arrangements completed, Mr
Quilp looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked
that he called that comfort.

The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have
called it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he
could by no exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was
very hard, angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that
tobacco-smoke always caused him great internal discomposure and
annoyance.  But as he was quite a creature of Mr Quilp's and had a
thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile,
and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.

This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks
in the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like
a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep
red.  He wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles,
short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish
grey.  He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his
blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his
company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have
wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.

Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking
very much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered
when he happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly
fanned the smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands
with glee.

'Smoke away, you dog,' said Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your
pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put
the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon
your tongue.'

Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small
lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it.  Wherefore, he only
muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.

'Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like
the Grand Turk?" said Quilp.

Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk's feelings were by
no means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no
doubt he felt very like that Potentate.

'This is the way to keep off fever,' said Quilp, 'this is the way
to keep off every calamity of life!  We'll never leave off, all the
time we stop here--smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the
pipe!'

'Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?' inquired his legal friend,
when the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.

'We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is
dead,' returned Quilp.

'He he he!' laughed Mr Brass, 'oh! very good!'

'Smoke away!' cried Quilp.  'Never stop!  You can talk as you smoke.
Don't lose time.'

'He he he!' cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the
odious pipe.  'But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?'

'Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,' returned the
dwarf.

'How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!' said Brass.  'Some
people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods--oh dear, the
very instant the law allowed 'em.  Some people, Sir, would have been
all flintiness and granite.  Some people, sir, would have--'

'Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a
parrot as you,' interposed the dwarf.

'He he he!' cried Brass.  'You have such spirits!'

The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and
without taking his pipe from his lips, growled,

'Here's the gal a comin' down.'

'The what, you dog?' said Quilp.

'The gal,' returned the boy.  'Are you deaf?'

'Oh!' said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he
were taking soup, 'you and I will have such a settling presently;
there's such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear
young friend!  Aha! Nelly!  How is he now, my duck of diamonds?"

'He's very bad,' replied the weeping child.

'What a pretty little Nell!' cried Quilp.

'Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,' said Brass.  'Quite
charming.'

'Has she come to sit upon Quilp's knee,' said the dwarf, in what he
meant to be a soothing tone, 'or is she going to bed in her own
little room inside here?  Which is poor Nelly going to do?'

'What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!' muttered
Brass, as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; 'upon
my word it's quite a treat to hear him.'

'I'm not going to stay at all,' faltered Nell.  'I want a few things
out of that room, and then I--I--won't come down here any more.'

'And a very nice little room it is!' said the dwarf looking into it
as the child entered.  'Quite a bower!  You're sure you're not going
to use it; you're sure you're not coming back, Nelly?'

'No,' replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of
dress she had come to remove; 'never again!  Never again.'

'She's very sensitive,' said Quilp, looking after her.  'Very
sensitive; that's a pity.  The bedstead is much about my size.  I
think I shall make it MY little room.'

Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any
other emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try
the effect.  This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the
bed with his pipe in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and
smoking violently.  Mr Brass applauding this picture very much, and
the bed being soft and comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it,
both as a sleeping place by night and as a kind of Divan by day;
and in order that it might be converted to the latter purpose at
once, remained where he was, and smoked his pipe out.  The legal
gentleman being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his
ideas (for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his
nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking away into the
open air, where, in course of time, he recovered sufficiently to
return with a countenance of tolerable composure.  He was soon led
on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse, and in
that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning.

Such were Mr Quilp's first proceedings on entering upon his new
property.  He was, for some days, restrained by business from
performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well
occupied between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute
inventory of all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his
other concerns which happily engaged him for several hours at a
time.  His avarice and caution being, now, thoroughly awakened,
however, he was never absent from the house one night; and his
eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old man's
disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time passed by, soon began to
vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience.

Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf's advances towards
conversation, and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were
the lawyer's smiles less terrible to her than Quilp's grimaces.  She
lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or
other of them on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from
her grandfather's chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment,
until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture
forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room.

One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting
there very sorrowfully--for the old man had been worse that day--
when she thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the
street.  Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to
attract her attention had roused her from her sad reflections.

'Miss Nell!' said the boy in a low voice.

'Yes,' replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any
communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old
favourite still; 'what do you want?'

'I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,' the boy
replied, 'but the people below have driven me away and wouldn't let
me see you.  You don't believe--I hope you don't really believe--
that I deserve to be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?'

'I must believe it,' returned the child.  'Or why would grandfather
have been so angry with you?'

'I don't know,' replied Kit.  'I'm sure I never deserved it from
him, no, nor from you.  I can say that, with a true and honest
heart, any way.  And then to be driven from the door, when I only
came to ask how old master was--!'

'They never told me that,' said the child.  'I didn't know it
indeed.  I wouldn't have had them do it for the world.'

'Thank'ee, miss,' returned Kit, 'it's comfortable to hear you say
that.  I said I never would believe that it was your doing.'
'That was right!' said the child eagerly.

'Miss Nell,' cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in
a lower tone, 'there are new masters down stairs.  It's a change for
you.'

'It is indeed,' replied the child.

'And so it will be for him when he gets better,' said the boy,
pointing towards the sick room.

'--If he ever does,' added the child, unable to restrain her tears.

'Oh, he'll do that, he'll do that,' said Kit.  'I'm sure he will.
You mustn't be cast down, Miss Nell.  Now don't be, pray!'

These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly
said, but they affected the child and made her, for the moment,
weep the more.

'He'll be sure to get better now,' said the boy anxiously, 'if you
don't give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would
make him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering.  When
he does, say a good word--say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!'

'They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long,
long time,' rejoined the child, 'I dare not; and even if I might,
what good would a kind word do you, Kit?  We shall be very poor.  We
shall scarcely have bread to eat.'

'It's not that I may be taken back,' said the boy, 'that I ask the
favour of you.  It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've
been waiting about so long in hopes to see you.  Don't think that
I'd come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.'

The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he
might speak again.

'No, it's not that,' said Kit hesitating, 'it's something very
different from that.  I haven't got much sense, I know, but if he
could be brought to believe that I'd been a faithful servant to
him, doing the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he
mightn't--'

Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak
out, and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the
window.

'Perhaps he mightn't think it over venturesome of me to say--well
then, to say this,' cried Kit with sudden boldness.  'This home is
gone from you and him.  Mother and I have got a poor one, but that's
better than this with all these people here; and why not come
there, till he's had time to look about, and find a better!'

The child did not speak.  Kit, in the relief of having made his
proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour
with his utmost eloquence.

'You think,' said the boy, 'that it's very small and inconvenient.
So it is, but it's very clean.  Perhaps you think it would be noisy,
but there's not a quieter court than ours in all the town.  Don't be
afraid of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other
one is very good--besides, I'd mind 'em.  They wouldn't vex you
much, I'm sure.  Do try, Miss Nell, do try.  The little front room up
stairs is very pleasant.  You can see a piece of the church-clock,
through the chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it
would be just the thing for you, and so it would, and you'd have
her to wait upon you both, and me to run of errands.  We don't mean
money, bless you; you're not to think of that!  Will you try him,
Miss Nell?  Only say you'll try him.  Do try to make old master come,
and ask him first what I have done.  Will you only promise that,
Miss Nell?'

Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the
street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped
head called in a surly voice, 'Who's there!'  Kit immediately glided
away, and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room.

Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also
embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked
carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the
house, from the opposite side.  Finding that there was nobody in
sight, he presently returned into the house with his legal friend,
protesting (as the child heard from the staircase), that there was
a league and plot against him; that he was in danger of being
robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who prowled about
the house at all seasons; and that he would delay no longer but
take immediate steps for disposing of the property and returning to
his own peaceful roof.  Having growled forth these, and a great many
other threats of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in
the child's little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs.

It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with
Kit should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her
dreams that night and her recollections for a long, long time.
Surrounded by unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon
the sick, and meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with
little regard or sympathy even from the women about her, it is not
surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should have
been touched to the quick by one kind and generous spirit, however
uncouth the temple in which it dwelt.  Thank Heaven that the temples
of such spirits are not made with hands, and that they may be even more
worthily hung with poor patch-work than with purple and fine linen!




CHAPTER 12

At length, the crisis of the old man's disorder was past, and he
began to mend.  By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness
came back; but the mind was weakened and its functions were
impaired.  He was patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not
despondently, for a long space; was easily amused, even by a
sun-beam on the wall or ceiling; made no complaint that the days
were long, or the nights tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost
all count of time, and every sense of care or weariness.  He would
sit, for hours together, with Nell's small hand in his, playing
with the fingers and stopping sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss
her brow; and, when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes,
would look, amazed, about him for the cause, and forget his wonder
even while he looked.

The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and
the child beside him.  They were hand in hand as usual.  The noise
and motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was
not surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated.  He was asked
if he remembered this, or that.  'O yes,' he said, 'quite well--why
not?'  Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze
and outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he
disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he
answered not a word.

He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool
beside him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter.
'Yes,' he said without emotion, 'it was Quilp, he knew.  Quilp was
master there.  Of course he might come in.'  And so he did.

'I'm glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,' said the
dwarf, sitting down opposite him.  'You're quite strong now?'

'Yes,' said the old man feebly, 'yes.'

'I don't want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,' said the dwarf,
raising his voice, for the old man's senses were duller than they
had been; 'but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings,
the better.'

'Surely,' said the old man.  'The better for all parties.'

'You see,' pursued Quilp after a short pause, 'the goods being once
removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.'

'You say true,' returned the old man.  'Poor Nell too, what would
she do?'

'Exactly,' bawled the dwarf nodding his head; 'that's very well
observed.  Then will you consider about it, neighbour?'

'I will, certainly,' replied the old man.  'We shall not stop here.'

'So I supposed,' said the dwarf.  'I have sold the things.  They have
not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty well--
pretty well.  To-day's Tuesday.  When shall they be moved?  There's
no hurry--shall we say this afternoon?'

'Say Friday morning,' returned the old man.

'Very good,' said the dwarf.  'So be it--with the understanding
that I can't go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.'

'Good,' returned the old man.  'I shall remember it.'

Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way
in which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and
repeated 'on Friday morning.  I shall remember it,' he had no excuse
for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly
leave with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to
his friend on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs
to report progress to Mr Brass.

All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state.
He wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various
rooms, as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he
referred neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the
interview of the morning or the necessity of finding some other
shelter.  An indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and
in want of help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be
of good cheer, saying that they would not desert each other; but he
seemed unable to contemplate their real position more distinctly,
and was still the listless, passionless creature that suffering of
mind and body had left him.

We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor
hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep.  Where, in the dull
eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood,
the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no
chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in
blossoming?  Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly
death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the
waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those
which are to come?  Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say
who shall find the two akin.  Send forth the child and childish man
together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy
state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man.  But
a change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat
silently together.

In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree--green and
flourishing enough, for such a place--and as the air stirred among
its leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall.  The old
man sat watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of
light, until the sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon
was slowly rising, he still sat in the same spot.

To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these
few green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished
among chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things.  They suggested
quiet places afar off, and rest, and peace.  The child thought, more
than once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak.  But now he
shed tears--tears that it lightened her aching heart to see--and
making as though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to
forgive him.

'Forgive you--what?' said Nell, interposing to prevent his
purpose.  'Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?'

'All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was
done in that uneasy dream,' returned the old man.

'Do not talk so,' said the child.  'Pray do not.  Let us speak of
something else.'

'Yes, yes, we will,' he rejoined.  'And it shall be of what we
talked of long ago--many months--months is it, or weeks, or days?
which is it Nell?'

'I do not understand you,' said the child.

'It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we
have been sitting here.  I bless thee for it, Nell!'

'For what, dear grandfather?'

'For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell.  Let us
speak softly.  Hush!  for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they
would cry that I was mad and take thee from me.  We will not stop
here another day.  We will go far away from here.'

'Yes, let us go,' said the child earnestly.  'Let us begone from
this place, and never turn back or think of it again.  Let us wander
barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.'

'We will,' answered the old man, 'we will travel afoot through the
fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to
God in the places where He dwells.  It is far better to lie down at
night beneath an open sky like that yonder--see how bright it is--
than to rest in close rooms which are always full of care and
weary dreams.  Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy
yet, and learn to forget this time, as if it had never been.'

'We will be happy,' cried the child.  'We never can be here.'

'No, we never can again--never again--that's truly said,'
rejoined the old man.  'Let us steal away to-morrow morning--early
and softly, that we may not be seen or heard--and leave no trace
or track for them to follow by.  Poor Nell!  Thy cheek is pale, and
thy eyes are heavy with watching and weeping for me--I know--for
me; but thou wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far
away.  To-morrow morning, dear, we'll turn our faces from this scene
of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds.'

And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in
a few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up
and down together, and never part more until Death took one or
other of the twain.

The child's heart beat high with hope and confidence.  She had no
thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering.  She saw in
this, but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed,
a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape
from the heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her
late time of trial, the restoration of the old man's health and
peace, and a life of tranquil happiness.  Sun, and stream, and
meadow, and summer days, shone brightly in her view, and there was
no dark tint in all the sparkling picture.

The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she
was yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight.  There were a
few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him;
old garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to
wear; and a staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his
use.  But this was not all her task; for now she must visit the old
rooms for the last time.

And how different the parting with them was, from any she had
expected, and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured
to herself.  How could she ever have thought of bidding them
farewell in triumph, when the recollection of the many hours she
had passed among them rose to her swelling heart, and made her feel
the wish a cruelty: lonely and sad though many of those hours had
been!  She sat down at the window where she had spent so many
evenings--darker far than this--and every thought of hope or
cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place came vividly
upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful
associations in an instant.

Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and
prayed at night--prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning
now--the little room where she had slept so peacefully, and
dreamed such pleasant dreams!  It was hard not to be able to glance
round it once more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind
look or grateful tear.  There were some trifles there--poor useless
things--that she would have liked to take away; but that was
impossible.

This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet.
She wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature--until the
idea occurred to her--she did not know how, or why, it came into
her head--that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit
who would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had
left it behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an
assurance that she was grateful to him.  She was calmed and
comforted by the thought, and went to rest with a lighter heart.

From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but
with some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through
them all, she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the
stars were shining brightly in the sky.  At length, the day began to
glimmer, and the stars to grow pale and dim.  As soon as she was
sure of this, she arose, and dressed herself for the journey.

The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb
him, she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose.  He was anxious
that they should leave the house without a minute's loss of time,
and was soon ready.

The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and
cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and
often stopping to listen.  The old man had forgotten a kind of
wallet which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the
going back a few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay.

At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the
snoring of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in
their ears than the roars of lions.  The bolts of the door were
rusty, and difficult to unfasten without noise.  When they were all
drawn back, it was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key
was gone.  Then the child remembered, for the first time, one of the
nurses having told her that Quilp always locked both the house-
doors at night, and kept the keys on the table in his bedroom.

It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell
slipped off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old
curiosities, where Mr Brass--the ugliest piece of goods in all the
stock--lay sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little
chamber.

Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at
the sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he
almost seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the
uneasiness of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was
gasping and growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or
rather the dirty yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible.  It was no
time, however, to ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing
herself of the key after one hasty glance about the room, and
repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, she rejoined the old man in
safety.  They got the door open without noise, and passing into the
street, stood still.

'Which way?' said the child.

The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then
to the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head.  It
was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader.  The child
felt it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in
his, led him gently away.

It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied
by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light.  The streets were, as
yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed,
and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the
sleeping town.

The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate
with hope and pleasure.  They were alone together, once again; every
object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than
by contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind;
church towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now
shone in the sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light;
and the sky, dimmed only by excessive distance, shed its placid
smile on everything beneath.

Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor
adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.




CHAPTER 13


Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the
city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty's attornies of the
Courts of the King's Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a
solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious
and unsuspicious of any mischance, until a knocking on the street
door, often repeated and gradually mounting up from a modest single
rap to a perfect battery of knocks, fired in long discharges with
a very short interval between, caused the said Daniel Quilp to
struggle into a horizontal position, and to stare at the ceiling
with a drowsy indifference, betokening that he heard the noise and
rather wondered at the same, and couldn't be at the trouble of
bestowing any further thought upon the subject.

As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his
lazy state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if
in earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that
he had once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to
comprehend the possibility of there being somebody at the door; and
thus he gradually came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and
he had ordered Mrs Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early
hour.

Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes,
and often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that
which is usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the
season, was by this time awake also.  Seeing that Mr Quilp invested
himself in his every-day garments, he hastened to do the like,
putting on his shoes before his stockings, and thrusting his legs
into his coat sleeves, and making such other small mistakes in his
toilet as are not uncommon to those who dress in a hurry, and
labour under the agitation of having been suddenly roused.
While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under
the table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind
in general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to
Mr Brass the question, 'what's the matter?'

'The key,' said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, 'the
door-key--that's the matter.  D'ye know anything of it?'

'How should I know anything of it, sir?' returned Mr Brass.

'How should you?' repeated Quilp with a sneer.  'You're a nice
lawyer, an't you?  Ugh, you idiot!'

Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that
the loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to
affect his (Brass's) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr
Brass humbly suggested that it must have been forgotten over night,
and was, doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole.
Notwithstanding that Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the
contrary, founded on his recollection of having carefully taken it
out, he was fain to admit that this was possible, and therefore
went grumbling to the door where, sure enough, he found it.

Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with
great astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking
came again with the most irritating violence, and the daylight
which had been shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the
outside by a human eye.  The dwarf was very much exasperated, and
wanting somebody to wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart
out suddenly, and favour Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of
her attention in making that hideous uproar.

With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and
opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the
other side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another
application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his
hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his
malice.

So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no
resistance and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the
arms of the individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found
himself complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two
more, of the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his
assailant, such a shower of buffets rained down upon his person as
sufficed to convince him that he was in skilful and experienced
hands.  Nothing daunted by this reception, he clung tight to his
opponent, and bit and hammered away with such good-will and
heartiness, that it was at least a couple of minutes before he was
dislodged.  Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp found himself,
all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr
Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him and
requiring to know 'whether he wanted any more?'

'There's plenty more of it at the same shop,' said Mr Swiveller, by
turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, 'a large
and extensive assortment always on hand--country orders executed
with promptitude and despatch--will you have a little more, Sir--
don't say no, if you'd rather not.'

'I thought it was somebody else,' said Quilp, rubbing his
shoulders, 'why didn't you say who you were?'

'Why didn't you say who YOU were?' returned Dick, 'instead of
flying out of the house like a Bedlamite ?'

'It was you that--that knocked,' said the dwarf, getting up with
a short groan, 'was it?'

'Yes, I am the man,' replied Dick.  'That lady had begun when I
came, but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.'  As he said
this, he pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little
distance.

'Humph!' muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, 'I
thought it was your fault!  And you, sir--don't you know there has
been somebody ill here, that you knock as if you'd beat the door
down?'

'Damme!' answered Dick, 'that's why I did it.  I thought there was
somebody dead here.'

'You came for some purpose, I suppose,' said Quilp.  'What is it you
want?'

'I want to know how the old gentleman is,' rejoined Mr Swiveller,
'and to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a
little talk.  I'm a friend of the family, sir--at least I'm the
friend of one of the family, and that's the same thing.'

'You'd better walk in then,' said the dwarf.  'Go on, sir, go on.
Now, Mrs Quilp--after you, ma'am.'

Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted.  And it was not a
contest of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she
knew very well that her husband wished to enter the house in this
order, that he might have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a
few pinches on her arms, which were seldom free from impressions of
his fingers in black and blue colours.  Mr Swiveller, who was not in
the secret, was a little surprised to hear a suppressed scream,
and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with a sudden
jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon forgot
them.

'Now, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf when they had entered the shop,
'go you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly's room, and tell her
that she's wanted.'

'You seem to make yourself at home here,' said Dick, who was
unacquainted with Mr Quilp's authority.

'I AM at home, young gentleman,' returned the dwarf.

Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what
the presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying
down stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.

'Empty, you fool!' said the dwarf.

'I give you my word, Quilp,' answered his trembling wife, 'that I
have been into every room and there's not a soul in any of them.'

'And that,' said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an
emphasis, 'explains the mystery of the key!'

Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and
frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment
from any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down
again, confirming the report which had already been made.

'It's a strange way of going,' he said, glancing at Swiveller,
'very strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and
intimate friend of his!  Ah! he'll write to me no doubt, or he'll
bid Nelly write--yes, yes, that's what he'll do.  Nelly's very fond
of me.  Pretty Nell!'

Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment.
Still glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and
observed, with assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere
with the removal of the goods.

'For indeed,' he added, 'we knew that they'd go away to-day, but
not that they'd go so early, or so quietly.  But they have their
reasons, they have their reasons.'

'Where in the devil's name are they gone?' said the wondering Dick.

Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which
implied that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.

'And what,' said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, 'what do
you mean by moving the goods?'

'That I have bought 'em, Sir,' rejoined Quilp.  'Eh?  What then?'

'Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a
tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing
sea?' said Dick, in great bewilderment.

'Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be
visited too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted
friends, eh?' added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; 'I say
nothing, but is that your meaning?'

Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration
of circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the
project in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip
his prospects in the bud.  Having only received from Frederick
Trent, late on the previous night, information of the old man's
illness, he had come upon a visit of condolence and inquiry to
Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that long train of
fascinations which was to fire her heart at last.  And here, when he
had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating
approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was
slowly working against Sophy Wackles--here were Nell, the old man,
and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither,
as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a resolution to
defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken.

In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled
by the flight which had been made.  It had not escaped his keen eye
that some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the
fugitives, and knowing the old man's weak state of mind, he
marvelled what that course of proceeding might be in which he had
so readily procured the concurrence of the child.  It must not be
supposed (or it would be a gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was
tortured by any disinterested anxiety on behalf of either.  His
uneasiness arose from a misgiving that the old man had some secret
store of money which he had not suspected; and the idea of its
escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him with mortification and
self-reproach.

In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that
Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated
and disappointed by the same cause.  It was plain, thought the
dwarf, that he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole
or frighten the old man out of some small fraction of that wealth
of which they supposed him to have an abundance.  Therefore, it was
a relief to vex his heart with a picture of the riches the old man
hoarded, and to expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even
beyond the reach of importunity.

'Well,' said Dick, with a blank look, 'I suppose it's of no use my
staying here.'

'Not the least in the world,' rejoined the dwarf.

'You'll mention that I called, perhaps?' said Dick.

Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time
he saw them.

'And say,' added Mr Swiveller, 'say, sir, that I was wafted here
upon the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake
of friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and
to sow in their place, the germs of social harmony.  Will you have
the goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?'

'Certainly!' rejoined Quilp.

'Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,' said Dick, producing
a very small limp card, 'that that is my address, and that I am to
be found at home every morning.  Two distinct knocks, sir, will
produce the slavey at any time.  My particular friends, Sir, are
accustomed to sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to
understand that they ARE my friends and have no interested motives
in asking if I'm at home.  I beg your pardon; will you allow me to
look at that card again?'

'Oh! by all means,' rejoined Quilp.

'By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,' said Dick,
substituting another in its stead, 'I had handed you the pass-
ticket of a select convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of
which I have the honour to be Perpetual Grand.  That is the proper
document, Sir.  Good morning.'

Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious
Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it
carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a
flourish.

By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the
goods, and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of
drawers and other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and
performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions
considerably.  Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to
work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about,
like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous
and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with
no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he
could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many
sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon
the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of curious neighbours,
which was his department.  His presence and example diffused such
alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few hours, the
house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting, empty
porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.

Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting,
the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and
cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that
a boy was prying in at the outer door.  Assured that it was Kit,
though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his
name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded what he wanted.

'Come here, you sir,' said the dwarf.  'Well, so your old master and
young mistress have gone?'

'Where?' rejoined Kit, looking round.

'Do you mean to say you don't know where?' answered Quilp sharply.
'Where have they gone, eh?'

'I don't know,' said Kit.

'Come,' retorted Quilp, 'let's have no more of this!  Do you mean to
say that you don't know they went away by stealth, as soon as it
was light this morning?'

'No,' said the boy, in evident surprise.

'You don't know that?' cried Quilp.  'Don't I know that you were
hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh?  Weren't
you told then?'

'No,' replied the boy.

'You were not?' said Quilp.  'What were you told then; what were you
talking about?'

Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter
secret now, related the purpose for which he had come on that
occasion, and the proposal he had made.

'Oh!' said the dwarf after a little consideration.  'Then, I think
they'll come to you yet.'

'Do you think they will?' cried Kit eagerly.

'Aye, I think they will,' returned the dwarf.  'Now, when they do,
let me know; d'ye hear?  Let me know, and I'll give you something.
I want to do 'em a kindness, and I can't do 'em a kindness unless
I know where they are.  You hear what I say?'

Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been
agreeable to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf,
who had been skulking about the room in search of anything that
might have been left about by accident, had not happened to cry,
'Here's a bird!  What's to be done with this?'

'Wring its neck,' rejoined Quilp.

'Oh no, don't do that,' said Kit, stepping forward.  'Give it to me.'

'Oh yes, I dare say,' cried the other boy.  'Come!  You let the cage
alone, and let me wring its neck will you?  He said I was to do it.
You let the cage alone will you.'

'Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,' roared Quilp.  'Fight for
it, you dogs, or I'll wring its neck myself!'

Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other,
tooth and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and
chopping the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by
his taunts and cries to fight more fiercely.  They were a pretty
equal match, and rolled about together, exchanging blows which were
by no means child's play, until at length Kit, planting a
well-directed hit in his adversary's chest, disengaged himself,
sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp's hands made
off with his prize.

He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face
occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl
dreadfully.

'Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been
doing?' cried Mrs Nubbles.

'Never you mind, mother,' answered her son, wiping his face on the
jack-towel behind the door.  'I'm not hurt, don't you be afraid for
me.  I've been a fightin' for a bird and won him, that's all.  Hold
your noise, little Jacob.  I never see such a naughty boy in all my
days!'

'You have been fighting for a bird!' exclaimed his mother.

'Ah!  Fightin' for a bird!' replied Kit, 'and here he is--Miss
Nelly's bird, mother, that they was agoin' to wring the neck of!  I
stopped that though--ha ha ha!  They wouldn't wring his neck and me
by, no, no.  It wouldn't do, mother, it wouldn't do at all.  Ha ha
ha!'

Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking
out of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother
laughed.  and then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and
then they all laughed in concert: partly because of Kit's triumph,
and partly because they were very fond of each other.  When this fit
was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and
precious rarity--it was only a poor linnet--and looking about the
wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and
twisted it out with great exultation.

'Let me see,' said the boy, 'I think I'll hang him in the winder,
because it's more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there,
if he looks up very much.  He's such a one to sing, I can tell you!'

So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the
poker for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to
the immeasurable delight of the whole family.  When it had been
adjusted and straightened a great many times, and he had walked
backwards into the fire-place in his admiration of it, the
arrangement was pronounced to be perfect.

'And now, mother,' said the boy, 'before I rest any more, I'll go
out and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some
birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.'




CHAPTER 14


As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house
was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his
passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable
necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he
could not choose but yield.  It is not uncommon for people who are
much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been,
to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful
propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which
they gratify themselves.

There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being
detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp's
boy.  The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy
as if it had been so for months.  A rusty padlock was fastened on
the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily
against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in
the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the
inside.  Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched,
had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room
looked more deserted and dull than any.  A group of idle urchins had
taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the knocker
and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread
through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the
keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for 'the ghost,'
which an hour's gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the
late inhabitants, had already raised.  Standing all alone in the
midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house looked a
picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the cheerful
fire that used to burn there on a winter's night and the no less
cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite
mournfully away.

It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was
by no means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that
adjective in all his life.  He was only a soft-hearted grateful
fellow, and had nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently,
instead of going home again, in his grief, to kick the children and
abuse his mother (for, when your finely strung people are out of
sorts, they must have everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned
his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of making them more
comfortable if he could.

Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding
up and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held!  A good
city speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to
a fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of
money was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding
horses alone.  And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one,
if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had
occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an
ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ingenious
estimate in the world.

Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now
lingering as some rider slackened his horse's pace and looked about
him; and now darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a
glimpse of some distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of
the road, and promising to stop, at every door.  But on they all
went, one after another, and there was not a penny stirring.  'I
wonder,' thought the boy, 'if one of these gentlemen knew there was
nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he'd stop on purpose, and
make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I might earn a
trifle?'

He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of
repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest,
when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling
four-wheeled chaise' drawn by a little obstinate-looking
rough-coated pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old
gentleman.  Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady,
plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming along at his
own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole concern.  If
the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony
replied by shaking his head.  It was plain that the utmost the pony
would consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that
the old gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was
an understanding between them that he must do this after his own
fashion or not at all.

As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little
turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him.  Kit rising and
putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the
pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom
objected to that part of his duty) graciously acceded.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Kit.  'I'm sorry you stopped, sir.  I
only meant did you want your horse minded.'

'I'm going to get down in the next street,' returned the old
gentleman.  'If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.'

Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed.  The pony ran off at a sharp
angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and
then went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side.
Having satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and
materials, he came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation.
'Will you go on, sir,' said the old gentleman, gravely, 'or are we
to wait here for you till it's too late for our appointment?'

The pony remained immoveable.

'Oh you naughty Whisker,' said the old lady.  'Fie upon you!  I'm
ashamed of such conduct.'

The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for
he trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no
more until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the
words 'Witherden--Notary.'  Here the old gentleman got out and
helped out the old lady, and then took from under the seat a
nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan
with the handle cut short off.  This, the old lady carried into the
house with a staid and stately air, and the old gentleman (who had
a club-foot) followed close upon her.

They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices,
into the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office.  The
day being very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were
wide open; and it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all
that passed inside.

At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet,
succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed
by the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to
exclaim a great many times, 'oh, delicious!' 'oh, fragrant,
indeed!' and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that
gentleman, was heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of
exceeding pleasure.

'I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,' said the old lady.

'Ah! an occasion indeed, ma'am, an occasion which does honour to
me, ma'am, honour to me,' rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary.  'I
have had many a gentleman articled to me, ma'am, many a one.  Some
of them are now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion
and friend, ma'am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to
this day and saying, "Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours
I ever spent in my life were spent in this office--were spent,
Sir, upon this very stool"; but there was never one among the
number, ma'am, attached as I have been to many of them, of whom I
augured such bright things as I do of your only son.'

'Oh dear!' said the old lady.  'How happy you do make us when you
tell us that, to be sure!'

'I tell you, ma'am,' said Mr Witherden, 'what I think as an honest
man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God.  I
agree with the poet in every particular, ma'am.  The mountainous
Alps on the one hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing,
in point of workmanship, to an honest man--or woman--or woman.'

'Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,' observed a small quiet
voice, 'I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.'

'It's a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,' said the
Notary, 'to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and
I hope I know how to appreciate it.  I trust, Mr Garland, my dear
Sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this
auspicious occasion.'

To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might.
There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and
when it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it
who should not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort
to his parents than Abel Garland had been to his.

'Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting
for a great many years, until we were well enough off--coming
together when we were no longer young, and then being blessed with
one child who has always been dutiful and affectionate--why, it's
a source of great happiness to us both, sir.'

'Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,' returned the Notary in a
sympathising voice.  'It's the contemplation of this sort of thing,
that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor.  There was a
young lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of
the first respectability--but that's a weakness.  Chuckster, bring
in Mr Abel's articles.'

'You see, Mr Witherden,' said the old lady, 'that Abel has not been
brought up like the run of young men.  He has always had a pleasure
in our society, and always been with us.  Abel has never been absent
from us, for a day; has he, my dear?'

'Never, my dear,' returned the old gentleman, 'except when he went
to Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher
at that school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he
was very ill after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a
dissipation.'

'He was not used to it, you know,' said the old lady, 'and he
couldn't bear it, that's the truth.  Besides he had no comfort in
being there without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself
with.'

'That was it, you know,' interposed the same small quiet voice that
had spoken once before.  'I was quite abroad, mother, quite
desolate, and to think that the sea was between us--oh, I never
shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was
between us!'

'Very natural under the circumstances,' observed the Notary.  'Mr
Abel's feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your
nature, ma'am, and his father's nature, and human nature.  I trace
the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive
proceedings.---I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot
of the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my
finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am
constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice--don't be
alarmed, ma'am, it is merely a form of law--that I deliver this,
as my act and deed.  Mr Abel will place his name against the other
wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is
over.  Ha ha ha!  You see how easily these things are done!'

There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through
the prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of
feet were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of
wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody.  In
about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear
and his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and
condescending to address Kit by the jocose appellation of 'Young
Snob,' informed him that the visitors were coming out.

Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby,
fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with
extreme politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in
arm.  Mr Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked
nearly of the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful
resemblance to him in face and figure, though wanting something of
his full, round, cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a
timid reserve.  In all other respects, in the neatness of the dress,
and even in the club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely
alike.

Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the
arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an
indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little
box behind which had evidently been made for his express
accommodation, and smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning
with his mother and ending with the pony.  There was then a great
to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the bearing-rein might
be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the old gentleman,
taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket to find
a sixpence for Kit.

He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the
Notary, nor Mr Chuckster.  The old gentleman thought a shilling too
much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he
gave it to the boy.

'There,' he said jokingly, 'I'm coming here again next Monday at
the same time, and mind you're here, my lad, to work it out.'

'Thank you, Sir,' said Kit.  'I'll be sure to be here.'

He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying
so, especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to
relish the joke amazingly.  As the pony, with a presentiment that he
was going home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere
else (which was the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had
no time to justify himself, and went his way also.  Having expended
his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable
at home, not forgetting some seed for the wonderful bird, he
hastened back as fast as he could, so elated with his success and
great good fortune, that he more than half expected Nell and the
old man would have arrived before him.




CHAPTER 15


Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on
the morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled
sensation of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly
seen in the clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest
Kit.  But although she would gladly have given him her hand and
thanked him for what he had said at their last meeting, it was
always a relief to find, when they came nearer to each other, that
the person who approached was not he, but a stranger; for even if
she had not dreaded the effect which the sight of him might have
wrought upon her fellow-traveller, she felt that to bid farewell to
anybody now, and most of all to him who had been so faithful and so
true, was more than she could bear.  It was enough to leave dumb
things behind, and objects that were insensible both to her love
and sorrow.  To have parted from her only other friend upon the
threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung her heart indeed.

Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body,
and while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve
to say it?  On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years,
friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual
look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview
for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint
to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting
will never be.  Should possibilities be worse to bear than
certainties?  We do not shun our dying friends; the not having
distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all
kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of
a life.

The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly
and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling
sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind
and curtain before sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and
chased away the shadows of the night.  Birds in hot rooms, covered
up close and dark, felt it was morning, and chafed and grew
restless in their little cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to
their tiny homes and nestled timidly together; the sleek house-cat,
forgetful of her prey, sat winking at the rays of sun starting
through keyhole and cranny in the door, and longed for her stealthy
run and warm sleek bask outside.  The nobler beasts confined in
dens, stood motionless behind their bars and gazed on fluttering
boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little window, with eyes
in which old forests gleamed--then trod impatiently the track
their prisoned feet had worn--and stopped and gazed again.  Men in
their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the
stone that no bright sky could warm.  The flowers that sleep by
night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day.  The
light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its
power.

The two pilgrims, often pressing each other's hands, or exchanging
a smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence.  Bright and
happy as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted
streets, from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual
character and expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform
repose, that made them all alike.  All was so still at that early
hour, that the few pale people whom they met seemed as much
unsuited to the scene, as the sickly lamp which had been here and
there left burning, was powerless and faint in the full glory of
the sun.

Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men's
abodes which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect
began to melt away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place.  Some
straggling carts and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm,
then others came, then others yet more active, then a crowd.  The
wonder was, at first, to see a tradesman's window open, but it was
a rare thing soon to see one closed; then, smoke rose slowly from
the chimneys, and sashes were thrown up to let in air, and doors
were opened, and servant girls, looking lazily in all directions
but their brooms, scattered brown clouds of dust into the eyes of
shrinking passengers, or listened disconsolately to milkmen who
spoke of country fairs, and told of waggons in the mews, with
awnings and all things complete, and gallant swains to boot, which
another hour would see upon their journey.

This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and
great traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was
already rife.  The old man looked about him with a startled and
bewildered gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun.  He
pressed his finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow
courts and winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had
left it far behind, often casting a backward look towards it,
murmuring that ruin and self-murder were crouching in every street,
and would follow if they scented them; and that they could not fly
too fast.

Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling
neighbourhood, where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and
windows patched with rags and paper, told of the populous poverty
that sheltered there.  The shops sold goods that only poverty could
buy, and sellers and buyers were pinched and griped alike.  Here
were poor streets where faded gentility essayed with scanty space
and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble stand, but
tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the poverty
that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest
than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game.

This was a wide, wide track--for the humble followers of the camp
of wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile--but
its character was still the same.  Damp rotten houses, many to let,
many yet building, many half-built and mouldering away--lodgings,
where it would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who
let or those who came to take--children, scantily fed and clothed,
spread over every street, and sprawling in the dust--scolding
mothers, stamping their slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the
pavement--shabby fathers, hurrying with dispirited looks to the
occupation which brought them 'daily bread' and little more--
mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers, tailors, chandlers,
driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and back room and
garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same roof--
brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or
timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered
by the flames--mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and
oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion--small dissenting chapels
to teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and
plenty of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth,
to show the way to Heaven.

At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and
dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering
the road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of
old timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough
cabbage-stalks that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with
toad-stools and tight-sticking snails.  To these succeeded pert
cottages, two and two with plots of ground in front, laid out in
angular beds with stiff box borders and narrow paths between, where
footstep never strayed to make the gravel rough.  Then came the
public-house, freshly painted in green and white, with tea-gardens
and a bowling green, spurning its old neighbour with the
horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then, fields; and then,
some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns, some even with
a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife.  Then came a turnpike;
then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill, and on
the top of that, the traveller might stop, and--looking back at
old Saint Paul's looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above
the cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and
casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he
traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army of
bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his
feet--might feel at last that he was clear of London.

Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and
his little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were
bound) sat down to rest.  She had had the precaution to furnish her
basket with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their
frugal breakfast.

The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of
the waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the
thousand exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--
deep joys to most of us, but most of all to those whose life is in
a crowd or who live solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of
a human well--sunk into their breasts and made them very glad.
The child had repeated her artless prayers once that morning, more
earnestly perhaps than she had ever done in all her life, but as
she felt all this, they rose to her lips again.  The old man took
off his hat--he had no memory for the words--but he said amen,
and that they were very good.

There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, with strange
plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole
evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where
those distant countries with the curious names might be.  As she
looked back upon the place they had left, one part of it came
strongly on her mind.

'Dear grandfather,' she said, 'only that this place is prettier and
a great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like
it, I feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this
grass all the cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take
them up again.'

'No--never to return--never to return'--replied the old man,
waving his hand towards the city.  'Thou and I are free of it now,
Nell.  They shall never lure us back.'

'Are you tired?' said the child, 'are you sure you don't feel ill
from this long walk?'

'I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,' was his
reply.  'Let us be stirring, Nell.  We must be further away--a long,
long way further.  We are too near to stop, and be at rest.  Come!'

There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child
laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth
to walk again.  She would have the old man refresh himself in this
way too, and making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on
him with her hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

'I can do nothing for myself, my darling,' said the grandfather; 'I
don't know how it is, I could once, but the time's gone.  Don't
leave me, Nell; say that thou'lt not leave me.  I loved thee all the
while, indeed I did.  If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!'

He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously.  The time
had been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have
restrained her tears and must have wept with him.  But now she
soothed him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking
they could ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest.  He
was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice,
like a little child.

He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey.  The road was
pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn,
about which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled
out her happy song.  The air came laden with the fragrance it caught
upon its way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed
forth their drowsy satisfaction as they floated by.

They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and
scattered at long intervals, often miles apart.  Occasionally they
came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low
board put across the open door to keep the scrambling children from
the road, others shut up close while all the family were working in
the fields.  These were often the commencement of a little village:
and after an interval came a wheelwright's shed or perhaps a
blacksmith's forge; then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying
about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall and scampering
away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in
triumph at their freedom.  There were dull pigs too, turning up the
ground in search of dainty food, and grunting their monotonous
grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed each other in their
quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or strutting on the
eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their own conceit,
waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing glibly on
its surface.  The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn; the
humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman's; then the lawyer's
and the parson's, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the
church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there
were a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not
unfrequently, on a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well.
Then came the trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road
again.

They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where
beds were let to travellers.  Next morning they were afoot again,
and though jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long
and proceeded briskly forward.

They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time,
and still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the
morning.  It was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, when drawing
near another cluster of labourers' huts, the child looked wistfully
in each, doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile,
and buy a draught of milk.

It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of
being repulsed.  Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife.  In
this, the people seemed too poor; in that, too many.  At length she
stopped at one where the family were seated round the table--
chiefly because there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair
beside the hearth, and she thought he was a grandfather and would
feel for hers.

There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young
sturdy children, brown as berries.  The request was no sooner
preferred, than granted.  The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk,
the second dragged two stools towards the door, and the youngest
crept to his mother's gown, and looked at the strangers from
beneath his sunburnt hand.

'God save you, master,' said the old cottager in a thin piping
voice; 'are you travelling far?'

'Yes, Sir, a long way'--replied the child; for her grandfather
appealed to her.

'From London?' inquired the old man.

The child said yes.

Ah!  He had been in London many a time--used to go there often
once, with waggons.  It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had
been there last, and he did hear say there were great changes.  Like
enough!  He had changed, himself, since then.  Two-and-thirty year
was a long time and eighty-four a great age, though there was some
he had known that had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not
so hearty as he, neither--no, nothing like it.

'Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,' said the old man,
knocking his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so
sharply.  'Take a pinch out o' that box; I don't take much myself,
for it comes dear, but I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye're
but a boy to me.  I should have a son pretty nigh as old as you if
he'd lived, but they listed him for a so'ger--he come back home
though, for all he had but one poor leg.  He always said he'd be
buried near the sun-dial he used to climb upon when he was a baby,
did my poor boy, and his words come true--you can see the place
with your own eyes; we've kept the turf up, ever since.'

He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes,
said she needn't be afraid that he was going to talk about that,
any more.  He didn't wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled
anybody by what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and
selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a
hearty meal.  The furniture of the room was very homely of course--
a few rough chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little
stock of crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady
in bright red, walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common,
coloured scripture subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an
old dwarf clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright
saucepans and a kettle, comprised the whole.  But everything was
clean and neat, and as the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil
air of comfort and content to which she had long been unaccustomed.

'How far is it to any town or village?' she asked of the husband.

'A matter of good five mile, my dear,' was the reply, 'but you're
not going on to-night?'

'Yes, yes, Nell,' said the old man hastily, urging her too by
signs.  'Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk
till midnight.'

'There's a good barn hard by, master,' said the man, 'or there's
travellers' lodging, I know, at the Plow an' Harrer.  Excuse me, but
you do seem a little tired, and unless you're very anxious to get
on--'

'Yes, yes, we are,' returned the old man fretfully.  'Further away,
dear Nell, pray further away.'

'We must go on, indeed,' said the child, yielding to his restless
wish.  'We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon.  I'm
quite ready, grandfather.'

But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer's gait, that
one of her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman
and a mother too, she would not suffer her to go until she had
washed the place and applied some simple remedy, which she did so
carefully and with such a gentle hand--rough-grained and hard
though it was, with work--that the child's heart was too full to
admit of her saying more than a fervent 'God bless you!' nor could
she look back nor trust herself to speak, until they had left the
cottage some distance behind.  When she turned her head, she saw
that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were standing in
the road watching them as they went, and so, with many waves of the
hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not without
tears, they parted company.

They trudged forward, more slowly and painfully than they had done
yet, for another mile or thereabouts, when they heard the sound of
wheels behind them, and looking round observed an empty cart
approaching pretty briskly.  The driver on coming up to them stopped
his horse and looked earnestly at Nell.

'Didn't you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?' he said.

'Yes, sir,' replied the child.

'Ah!  They asked me to look out for you,' said the man.  'I'm going
your way.  Give me your hand--jump up, master.'

This was a great relief, for they were very much fatigued and could
scarcely crawl along.  To them the jolting cart was a luxurious
carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world.  Nell had
scarcely settled herself on a little heap of straw in one corner,
when she fell asleep, for the first time that day.

She was awakened by the stopping of the cart, which was about to
turn up a bye-lane.  The driver kindly got down to help her out, and
pointing to some trees at a very short distance before them, said
that the town lay there, and that they had better take the path
which they would see leading through the churchyard.  Accordingly,
towards this spot, they directed their weary steps.




CHAPTER 16


The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the
path began, and, as the rain falls upon the just and unjust alike,
it shed its warm tint even upon the resting-places of the dead, and
bade them be of good hope for its rising on the morrow.  The church
was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the
porch.  Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which
slept poor humble men: twining for them the first wreaths they had
ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in
their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble,
and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year,
and only revealed at last to executors and mourning legatees.

The clergyman's horse, stumbling with a dull blunt sound among the
graves, was cropping the grass; at once deriving orthodox
consolation from the dead parishioners, and enforcing last Sunday's
text that this was what all flesh came to; a lean ass who had
sought to expound it also, without being qualified and ordained,
was pricking his ears in an empty pound hard by, and looking with
hungry eyes upon his priestly neighbour.

The old man and the child quitted the gravel path, and strayed
among the tombs; for there the ground was soft, and easy to their
tired feet.  As they passed behind the church, they heard voices
near at hand, and presently came on those who had spoken.

They were two men who were seated in easy attitudes upon the grass,
and so busily engaged as to be at first unconscious of intruders.
It was not difficult to divine that they were of a class of
itinerant showmen--exhibitors of the freaks of Punch--for,
perched cross-legged upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of
that hero himself, his nose and chin as hooked and his face as
beaming as usual.  Perhaps his imperturbable character was never
more strikingly developed, for he preserved his usual equable smile
notwithstanding that his body was dangling in a most uncomfortable
position, all loose and limp and shapeless, while his long peaked
cap, unequally balanced against his exceedingly slight legs,
threatened every instant to bring him toppling down.

In part scattered upon the ground at the feet of the two men, and
in part jumbled together in a long flat box, were the other persons
of the Drama.  The hero's wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the
doctor, the foreign gentleman who not being familiar with the
language is unable in the representation to express his ideas
otherwise than by the utterance of the word 'Shallabalah' three
distinct times, the radical neighbour who will by no means admit
that a tin bell is an organ, the executioner, and the devil, were
all here.  Their owners had evidently come to that spot to make some
needful repairs in the stage arrangements, for one of them was
engaged in binding together a small gallows with thread, while the
other was intent upon fixing a new black wig, with the aid of a
small hammer and some tacks, upon the head of the radical
neighbour, who had been beaten bald.

They raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion
were close upon them, and pausing in their work, returned their
looks of curiosity.  One of them, the actual exhibitor no doubt, was
a little merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who
seemed to have unconsciously imbibed something of his hero's
character.  The other--that was he who took the money--had rather
a careful and cautious look, which was perhaps inseparable from his
occupation also.

The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and
following the old man's eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the
first time he had ever seen a Punch off the stage.  (Punch, it may
be remarked, seemed to be pointing with the tip of his cap to a
most flourishing epitaph, and to be chuckling over it with all his
heart.)

'Why do you come here to do this?' said the old man, sitting down
beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.

'Why you see,' rejoined the little man, 'we're putting up for
to-night at the public-house yonder, and it wouldn't do to let 'em
see the present company undergoing repair.'

'No!' cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, 'why not,
eh?  why not?'

'Because it would destroy all the delusion, and take away all the
interest, wouldn't it?' replied the little man.  'Would you care a
ha'penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know'd him in private and
without his wig?---certainly not.'

'Good!' said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets,
and drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh.  'Are you going to
show 'em to-night?  are you?'

'That is the intention, governor,' replied the other, 'and unless
I'm much mistaken, Tommy Codlin is a calculating at this minute
what we've lost through your coming upon us.  Cheer up, Tommy, it
can't be much.'

The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink,
expressive of the estimate he had formed of the travellers'
finances.

To this Mr Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as
he twitched Punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box,
'I don't care if we haven't lost a farden, but you're too free.  If
you stood in front of the curtain and see the public's faces as I
do, you'd know human natur' better.'

'Ah! it's been the spoiling of you, Tommy, your taking to that
branch,' rejoined his companion.  'When you played the ghost in the
reg'lar drama in the fairs, you believed in everything--except
ghosts.  But now you're a universal mistruster.  I never see a man so
changed.'

'Never mind,' said Mr Codlin, with the air of a discontented
philosopher.  'I know better now, and p'raps I'm sorry for it.'

Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised
them, Mr Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of
his friend:

'Look here; here's all this judy's clothes falling to pieces again.
You haven't got a needle and thread I suppose?'

The little man shook his head, and scratched it ruefully as he
contemplated this severe indisposition of a principal performer.
Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly:

'I have a needle, Sir, in my basket, and thread too.  Will you let
me try to mend it for you?  I think I could do it neater than you
could.'

Even Mr Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so
seasonable.  Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily
engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a miracle.

While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with
an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced
at her helpless companion.  When she had finished her work he
thanked her, and inquired whither they were travelling.

'N--no further to-night, I think,' said the child, looking towards
her grandfather.

'If you're wanting a place to stop at,' the man remarked, 'I should
advise you to take up at the same house with us.  That's it.  The
long, low, white house there.  It's very cheap.'

The old man, notwithstanding his fatigue, would have remained in
the churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had remained
there too.  As he yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous
assent, they all rose and walked away together; he keeping close to
the box of puppets in which he was quite absorbed, the merry little
man carrying it slung over his arm by a strap attached to it for
the purpose, Nelly having hold of her grandfather's hand, and Mr
Codlin sauntering slowly behind, casting up at the church tower and
neighbouring trees such looks as he was accustomed in town-practice
to direct to drawing-room and nursery windows, when seeking for a
profitable spot on which to plant the show.

The public-house was kept by a fat old landlord and landlady who
made no objection to receiving their new guests, but praised
Nelly's beauty and were at once prepossessed in her behalf.  There
was no other company in the kitchen but the two showmen, and the
child felt very thankful that they had fallen upon such good
quarters.  The landlady was very much astonished to learn that they
had come all the way from London, and appeared to have no little
curiosity touching their farther destination.  The child parried her
inquiries as well as she could, and with no great trouble, for
finding that they appeared to give her pain, the old lady desisted.

'These two gentlemen have ordered supper in an hour's time,' she
said, taking her into the bar; 'and your best plan will be to sup
with them.  Meanwhile you shall have a little taste of something
that'll do you good, for I'm sure you must want it after all you've
gone through to-day.  Now, don't look after the old gentleman,
because when you've drank that, he shall have some too.'

As nothing could induce the child to leave him alone, however, or
to touch anything in which he was not the first and greatest
sharer, the old lady was obliged to help him first.  When they had
been thus refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty
stable where the show stood, and where, by the light of a few
flaring candles stuck round a hoop which hung by a line from the
ceiling, it was to be forthwith exhibited.

And now Mr Thomas Codlin, the misanthrope, after blowing away at
the Pan's pipes until he was intensely wretched, took his station
on one side of the checked drapery which concealed the mover of the
figures, and putting his hands in his pockets prepared to reply to
all questions and remarks of Punch, and to make a dismal feint of
being his most intimate private friend, of believing in him to the
fullest and most unlimited extent, of knowing that he enjoyed day
and night a merry and glorious existence in that temple, and that
he was at all times and under every circumstance the same
intelligent and joyful person that the spectators then beheld him.
All this Mr Codlin did with the air of a man who had made up his
mind for the worst and was quite resigned; his eye slowly wandering
about during the briskest repartee to observe the effect upon the
audience, and particularly the impression made upon the landlord
and landlady, which might be productive of very important results
in connexion with the supper.

Upon this head, however, he had no cause for any anxiety, for the
whole performance was applauded to the echo, and voluntary
contributions were showered in with a liberality which testified
yet more strongly to the general delight.  Among the laughter none
was more loud and frequent than the old man's.  Nell's was unheard,
for she, poor child, with her head drooping on his shoulder, had
fallen asleep, and slept too soundly to be roused by any of his
efforts to awaken her to a participation in his glee.

The supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet
would not leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed.
He, happily insensible to every care and anxiety, sat listening
with a vacant smile and admiring face to all that his new friend
said; and it was not until they retired yawning to their room, that
he followed the child up stairs.

It was but a loft partitioned into two compartments, where they
were to rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had
hoped for none so good.  The old man was uneasy when he had lain
down, and begged that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she
had done for so many nights.  She hastened to him, and sat there
till he slept.

There was a little window, hardly more than a chink in the wall, in
her room, and when she left him, she opened it, quite wondering at
the silence.  The sight of the old church, and the graves about it
in the moonlight, and the dark trees whispering among themselves,
made her more thoughtful than before.  She closed the window again,
and sitting down upon the bed, thought of the life that was before them.

She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was
gone, they must begin to beg.  There was one piece of gold among it,
and an emergency might come when its worth to them would be
increased a hundred fold.  It would be best to hide this coin, and
never produce it unless their case was absolutely desperate, and no
other resource was left them.

Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress,
and going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.




CHAPTER 17


Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and
claiming fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her.
At sight of the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she
started up in alarm, wondering how she had been moved from the
familiar chamber in which she seemed to have fallen asleep last
night, and whither she had been conveyed.  But, another glance
around called to her mind all that had lately passed, and she
sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.

It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked
out into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with
her feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer
than in others, that she might not tread upon the graves.  She felt
a curious kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the
dead, and read the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a
great number of good people were buried there), passing on from one
to another with increasing interest.

It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the
cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of
some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in
the air.  First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as
it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by
chance as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but
talking to himself.  Another answered, and he called again, but
louder than before; then another spoke and then another; and each
time the first, aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case
more strongly.  Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs
lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and
from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey
church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose
and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all
this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on
fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirised the
old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the moss and
turf below, and the strife in which they had worn away their lives.

Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came
down, and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than
perfect silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to
grave, now stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which
had started from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and
now peeping through one of the low latticed windows into the
church, with its worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of
whitened-green mouldering from the pew sides and leaving the naked
wood to view.  There were the seats where the poor old people sat,
worn spare, and yellow like themselves; the rugged font where
children had their names, the homely altar where they knelt in
after life, the plain black tressels that bore their weight on
their last visit to the cool old shady church.  Everything told of
long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in the porch was
frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age.

She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had
died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she
heard a faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble
woman bent with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of
that same grave and asked her to read the writing on the stone.  The
old woman thanked her when she had done, saying that she had had
the words by heart for many a long, long year, but could not see
them now.

'Were you his mother?' said the child.

'I was his wife, my dear.'

She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty!  Ah, true!  It was
fifty-five years ago.

'You wonder to hear me say that,' remarked the old woman, shaking
her head.  'You're not the first.  Older folk than you have wondered
at the same thing before now.  Yes, I was his wife.  Death doesn't
change us more than life, my dear.'

'Do you come here often?' asked the child.

'I sit here very often in the summer time,' she answered, 'I used
to come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago,
bless God!'

'I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,' said the
old woman after a short silence.  'I like no flowers so well as
these, and haven't for five-and-fifty years.  It's a long time, and
I'm getting very old.'

Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener
though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and
moaned and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when
she first came to that place, a young creature strong in love and
grief, she had hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to
be.  But that time passed by, and although she continued to be sad
when she came there, still she could bear to come, and so went on
until it was pain no longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she
had learned to like.  And now that five-and-fifty years were gone,
she spoke of the dead man as if he had been her son or grandson,
with a kind of pity for his youth, growing out of her own old age,
and an exalting of his strength and manly beauty as compared with
her own weakness and decay; and yet she spoke about him as her
husband too, and thinking of herself in connexion with him, as she
used to be and not as she was now, talked of their meeting in
another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and she, separated
from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of that comely
girl who seemed to have died with him.

The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave,
and thoughtfully retraced her steps.

The old man was by this time up and dressed.  Mr Codlin, still
doomed to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing
among his linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the
previous night's performance; while his companion received the
compliments of all the loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to
separate him from the master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in
importance to that merry outlaw, and loved him scarcely less.  When
he had sufficiently acknowledged his popularity he came in to
breakfast, at which meal they all sat down together.

'And where are you going to-day?' said the little man, addressing
himself to Nell.

'Indeed I hardly know--we have not determined yet,' replied the child.

'We're going on to the races,' said the little man.  'If that's your
way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together.  If
you prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we
shan't trouble you.'

'We'll go with you,' said the old man.  'Nell--with them, with them.'

The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must
shortly beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place
than where crowds of rich ladies and gentlemen were assembled
together for purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to
accompany these men so far.  She therefore thanked the little man
for his offer, and said, glancing timidly towards his friend, that
if there was no objection to their accompanying them as far as the
race town--

'Objection!' said the little man.  'Now be gracious for once, Tommy,
and say that you'd rather they went with us.  I know you would.  Be
gracious, Tommy.'

'Trotters,' said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very
greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes;
'you're too free.'

'Why what harm can it do?' urged the other.  'No harm at all in this
particular case, perhaps,' replied Mr Codlin; 'but the principle's
a dangerous one, and you're too free I tell you.'

'Well, are they to go with us or not?'

'Yes, they are,' said Mr Codlin; 'but you might have made a favour
of it, mightn't you?'

The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually
merged into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the
prefatory adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason
of the small size of his legs.  Short Trotters however, being a
compound name, inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the
gentleman on whom it had been bestowed was known among his
intimates either as 'Short,' or 'Trotters,' and was seldom accosted
at full length as Short Trotters, except in formal conversations
and on occasions of ceremony.

Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the
remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer
calculated to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with
great relish to the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and
butter, strongly impressed upon his companions that they should do
the like.  Mr Codlin indeed required no such persuasion, as he had
already eaten as much as he could possibly carry and was now
moistening his clay with strong ale, whereof he took deep draughts
with a silent relish and invited nobody to partake--thus again
strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of mind.

Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and
charging the ale to the company generally (a practice also
savouring of misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and
equal parts, assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the
other to Nelly and her grandfather.  These being duly discharged and
all things ready for their departure, they took farewell of the
landlord and landlady and resumed their journey.

And here Mr Codlin's false position in society and the effect it
wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for
whereas he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as 'master,'
and had by inference left the audience to understand that he
maintained that individual for his own luxurious entertainment and
delight, here he was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of
that same Punch's temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders
on a sultry day and along a dusty road.  In place of enlivening his
patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his
quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here
was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and
drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck,
and not one of his social qualities remaining.

Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals
with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally.  Short led
the way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not
extensive) tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his
shoulder-blade.  Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either
hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.

When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house
of good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and
carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to
Punches and their consorts.  If people hurried to the windows, Mr
Codlin pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and
concealing Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes
and performed an air.  Then the entertainment began as soon as might
be; Mr Codlin having the responsibility of deciding on its length
and of protracting or expediting the time for the hero's final
triumph over the enemy of mankind, according as he judged that the
after-crop of half-pence would be plentiful or scant.  When it had
been gathered in to the last farthing, he resumed his load and on
they went again.

Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and
once exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the
collector, being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to
have it to himself.  There was one small place of rich promise in
which their hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the
play having gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling
wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the beadle, for
which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but they
were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a
troop of ragged children shouting at their heels.

They made a long day's journey, despite these interruptions, and
were yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky.  Short
beguiled the time with songs and jests, and made the best of
everything that happened.  Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his
fate, and all the hollow things of earth (but Punch especially),
and limped along with the theatre on his back, a prey to the
bitterest chagrin.

They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads
met, and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery
and seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal
eyes and disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when
two monstrous shadows were seen stalking towards them from a
turning in the road by which they had come.  The child was at first
quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt giants--for such they
looked as they advanced with lofty strides beneath the shadow of
the trees--but Short, telling her there was nothing to fear, blew
a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a cheerful shout.

'It's Grinder's lot, an't it?' cried Mr Short in a loud key.

'Yes,' replied a couple of shrill voices.

'Come on then,' said Short.  'Let's have a look at you.  I thought it
was you.'

Thus invited, 'Grinder's lot' approached with redoubled speed and
soon came up with the little party.

Mr Grinder's company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young
gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who
used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his
back a drum.  The public costume of the young people was of the
Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young
gentleman wore over his kilt a man's pea jacket reaching to his
ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old
cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head.  Their
Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr
Grinder carried on his instrument.

'Bound for the races, I see,' said Mr Grinder coming up out of
breath.  'So are we.  How are you, Short?'  With that they shook hands
in a very friendly manner.  The young people being too high up for
the ordinary salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion.
The young gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on
the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her tambourine.

'Practice?' said Short, pointing to the stilts.

'No,' returned Grinder.  'It comes either to walkin' in 'em or
carryin' of 'em, and they like walkin' in 'em best.  It's wery
pleasant for the prospects.  Which road are you takin'?  We go the
nighest.'

'Why, the fact is,' said Short, 'that we are going the longest way,
because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on.  But
three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and
if you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.'

'Where's your partner?' inquired Grinder.

'Here he is,' cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face
in the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of
countenance not often seen there; 'and he'll see his partner boiled
alive before he'll go on to-night.  That's what he says.'

'Well, don't say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted
to something pleasanter,' urged Short.  'Respect associations,
Tommy, even if you do cut up rough.'

'Rough or smooth,' said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little
footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of
his legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to
exhibit them to popular admiration, 'rough or smooth, I won't go
further than the mile and a half to-night.  I put up at the Jolly
Sandboys and nowhere else.  If you like to come there, come there.
If you like to go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without
me if you can.'

So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately
presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at
a jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.

Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was
fain to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his
morose companion.  After lingering at the finger-post for a few
minutes to see the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the
bearer of the drum toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes
upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and hastened with all speed
to follow Mr Codlin.  With this view he gave his unoccupied hand to
Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would soon be at the
end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the old man
with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards
their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as
the moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.




CHAPTER 18


The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient
date, with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their
jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and
swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road.  As the
travellers had observed that day many indications of their drawing
nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gipsy camps, carts
laden with gambling booths and their appurtenances, itinerant
showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree,
all wending their way in the same direction, Mr Codlin was fearful
of finding the accommodations forestalled; this fear increasing as
he diminished the distance between himself and the hostelry, he
quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had to carry,
maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold.  Here he had
the gratification of finding that his fears were without
foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post
looking lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend
heavily, and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous shout, nor
noisy chorus, gave note of company within.

'All alone?' said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his
forehead.

'All alone as yet,' rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky,
'but we shall have more company to-night I expect.  Here one of you
boys, carry that show into the barn.  Make haste in out of the wet,
Tom; when it came on to rain I told 'em to make the fire up, and
there's a glorious blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you.'

Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the
landlord had not commended his preparations without good reason.  A
mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide
chimney with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron,
bubbling and simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell.
There was a deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the
landlord stirred the fire, sending the flames skipping and leaping
up--when he took off the lid of the iron pot and there rushed out
a savoury smell, while the bubbling sound grew deeper and more
rich, and an unctuous steam came floating out, hanging in a
delicious mist above their heads--when he did this, Mr Codlin's
heart was touched.  He sat down in the chimney-corner and smiled.

Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as
with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning
that his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery,
suffered the delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest.
The glow of the fire was upon the landlord's bald head, and upon
his twinkling eye, and upon his watering mouth, and upon his
pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure.  Mr Codlin drew his
sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice, 'What is
it?'

'It's a stew of tripe,' said the landlord smacking his lips, 'and
cow-heel,' smacking them again, 'and bacon,' smacking them once
more, 'and steak,' smacking them for the fourth time, 'and peas,
cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up
together in one delicious gravy.'  Having come to the climax, he
smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff
of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again
with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.

'At what time will it be ready?' asked Mr Codlin faintly.

'It'll be done to a turn,' said the landlord looking up to the
clock--and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and
looked a clock for jolly Sandboys to consult--'it'll be done to a
turn at twenty-two minutes before eleven.'

'Then,' said Mr Codlin, 'fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don't let
nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time
arrives.'

Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of
procedure, the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently
returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin
vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far
down in the fire and getting at the bright places.  This was soon
done, and he handed it over to Mr Codlin with that creamy froth
upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant
on mulled malt.

Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought
him of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys
that their arrival might be shortly looked for.  The rain was
rattling against the windows and pouring down in torrents,
and such was Mr Codlin's extreme amiability of mind, that
he more than once expressed his earnest hope that they would not be
so foolish as to get wet.

At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a
most miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered
the child as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and
they were nearly breathless from the haste they had made.  But their
steps were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had
been at the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed
into the kitchen and took the cover off.  The effect was electrical.
They all came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping
from their clothes upon the floor, and Short's first remark was,
'What a delicious smell!'

It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a
cheerful fire, and in a bright room.  They were furnished with
slippers and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles
afforded, and ensconcing themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done,
in the warm chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only
remembered them as enhancing the delights of the present time.
Overpowered by the warmth and comfort and the fatigue they had
undergone, Nelly and the old man had not long taken their seats
here, when they fell asleep.

'Who are they?' whispered the landlord.  Short shook his head, and
wished he knew himself.  'Don't you know?' asked the host, turning
to Mr Codlin.  'Not I,' he replied.  'They're no good, I suppose.'

'They're no harm,' said Short.  'Depend upon that.  I tell you what--
it's plain that the old man an't in his right mind--'

'If you haven't got anything newer than that to say,' growled Mr
Codlin, glancing at the clock, 'you'd better let us fix our minds
upon the supper, and not disturb us.'

'Here me out, won't you?' retorted his friend.  'It's very plain to
me, besides, that they're not used to this way of life.  Don't tell
me that that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about
as she's done these last two or three days.  I know better.'

'Well, who DOES tell you she has?' growled Mr Codlin, again
glancing at the clock and from it to the cauldron, 'can't you think
of anything more suitable to present circumstances than saying
things and then contradicting 'em?'

'I wish somebody would give you your supper,' returned Short, 'for
there'll be no peace till you've got it.  Have you seen how anxious
the old man is to get on--always wanting to be furder away--
furder away.  Have you seen that?'

'Ah! what then?' muttered Thomas Codlin.

'This, then,' said Short.  'He has given his friends the slip.  Mind
what I say--he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this
delicate young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his
guide and travelling companion--where to, he knows no more than
the man in the moon.  Now I'm not a going to stand that.'

'YOU'RE not a going to stand that!' cried Mr Codlin, glancing at
the clock again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of
frenzy, but whether occasioned by his companion's observation or
the tardy pace of Time, it was difficult to determine.  'Here's a
world to live in!'

'I,' repeated Short emphatically and slowly, 'am not a-going to
stand it.  I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling
into bad hands, and getting among people that she's no more fit
for, than they are to get among angels as their ordinary chums.
Therefore when they dewelope an intention of parting company from
us, I shall take measures for detaining of 'em, and restoring 'em
to their friends, who I dare say have had their disconsolation
pasted up on every wall in London by this time.'

'Short,' said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his
elbows on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side
to side up to this point and occasionally stamping on the ground,
but who now looked up with eager eyes; 'it's possible that there
may be uncommon good sense in what you've said.  If there is, and
there should be a reward, Short, remember that we're partners in
everything!'

His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position,
for the child awoke at the instant.  They had drawn close together
during the previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were
rather awkwardly endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in
their usual tone, when strange footsteps were heard without, and
fresh company entered.

These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering
in one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly
mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had
got as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and
looked round at his companions, who immediately stood upon their
hind legs, in a grave and melancholy row.  Nor was this the only
remarkable circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a
kind of little coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished
spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head, tied very
carefully under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose and
completely obscured one eye; add to this, that the gaudy coats were
all wet through and discoloured with rain, and that the wearers
were splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual
appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly Sandboys.

Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in
the least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry's dogs
and that Jerry could not be far behind.  So there the dogs stood,
patiently winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the
boiling pot, until Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped
down at once and walked about the room in their natural manner.
This posture it must be confessed did not much improve their
appearance, as their own personal tails and their coat tails--both
capital things in their way--did not agree together.

Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-
whiskered man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the
landlord and his guests and accosted them with great cordiality.
Disencumbering himself of a barrel organ which he placed upon a
chair, and retaining in his hand a small whip wherewith to awe his
company of comedians, he came up to the fire to dry himself, and
entered into conversation.

'Your people don't usually travel in character, do they?' said
Short, pointing to the dresses of the dogs.  'It must come expensive
if they do?'

'No,' replied Jerry, 'no, it's not the custom with us.  But we've
been playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a
new wardrobe at the races, so I didn't think it worth while to stop
to undress.  Down, Pedro!'

This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new
member of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his
unobscured eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually
starting upon his hind legs when there was no occasion, and falling
down again.

'I've got a animal here,' said Jerry, putting his hand into the
capacious pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he
were feeling for a small orange or an apple or some such article,
'a animal here, wot I think you know something of, Short.'

'Ah!' cried Short, 'let's have a look at him.'

'Here he is,' said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his
pocket.  'He was once a Toby of yours, warn't he!'

In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog--
a modern innovation--supposed to be the private property of that
gentleman, whose name is always Toby.  This Toby has been stolen in
youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the
confiding hero, who having no guile himself has no suspicion that
it lurks in others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection
of his old master, and scorning to attach himself to any new
patrons, not only refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch,
but to mark his old fidelity more strongly, seizes him by the nose
and wrings the same with violence, at which instance of canine
attachment the spectators are deeply affected.  This was the
character which the little terrier in question had once sustained;
if there had been any doubt upon the subject he would speedily have
resolved it by his conduct; for not only did he, on seeing Short,
give the strongest tokens of recognition, but catching sight of the
flat box he barked so furiously at the pasteboard nose which he
knew was inside, that his master was obliged to gather him up and
put him into his pocket again, to the great relief of the whole
company.

The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which
process Mr Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own
knife and fork in the most convenient place and establishing
himself behind them.  When everything was ready, the landlord took
off the cover for the last time, and then indeed there burst forth
such a goodly promise of supper, that if he had offered to put it
on again or had hinted at postponement, he would certainly have
been sacrificed on his own hearth.

However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted
a stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into
a large tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various
hot splashes which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible
eagerness.  At length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of
ale having been previously set round, little Nell ventured to say
grace, and supper began.

At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind
legs quite surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about
to cast some morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself,
hungry though she was, when their master interposed.

'No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody's hand but mine if you
please.  That dog,' said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the
troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, 'lost a halfpenny to-day.
He goes without his supper.'

The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly,
wagged his tail, and looked imploringly at his master.

'You must be more careful, Sir,' said Jerry, walking coolly to the
chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop.  'Come
here.  Now, Sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and
leave off if you dare.'

The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music.  His master
having shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the
others, who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright
as a file of soldiers.

'Now, gentlemen,' said Jerry, looking at them attentively.  'The dog
whose name's called, eats.  The dogs whose names an't called, keep
quiet.  Carlo!'

The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel
thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle.  In this
manner they were fed at the discretion of their master.  Meanwhile
the dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick
time, sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant.  When
the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got
an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a
short howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking
round, and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old
Hundredth.




CHAPTER 19


Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys
two more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had
been walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and
heavy with water.  One of these was the proprietor of a giant, and
a little lady without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a
van; the other, a silent gentleman who earned his living by showing
tricks upon the cards, and who had rather deranged the natural
expression of his countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into
his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one of his
professional accomplishments.  The name of the first of these
newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon
his ugliness, was called Sweet William.  To render them as
comfortable as he could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and
in a very short time both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.

'How's the Giant?' said Short, when they all sat smoking round the
fire.

'Rather weak upon his legs,' returned Mr Vuffin.  'I begin to be
afraid he's going at the knees.'

'That's a bad look-out,' said Short.

'Aye!  Bad indeed,' replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with
a sigh.  'Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no
more about him than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.'

'What becomes of old giants?' said Short, turning to him again
after a little reflection.

'They're usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,' said Mr
Vuffin.

'The maintaining of 'em must come expensive, when they can't be
shown, eh?' remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.

'It's better that, than letting 'em go upon the parish or about the
streets," said Mr Vuffin.  'Once make a giant common and giants will
never draw again.  Look at wooden legs.  If there was only one man
with a wooden leg what a property he'd be!'

'So he would!' observed the landlord and Short both together.
'That's very true.'

'Instead of which,' pursued Mr Vuffin, 'if you was to advertise
Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs,' it's my belief you
wouldn't draw a sixpence.'

'I don't suppose you would,' said Short.  And the landlord said so
too.

'This shows, you see,' said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an
argumentative air, 'this shows the policy of keeping the used-up
giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for
nothing, all their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop
there.  There was one giant--a black 'un--as left his carawan some
year ago and took to carrying coach-bills about London, making
himself as cheap as crossing-sweepers.  He died.  I make no
insinuation against anybody in particular,' said Mr Vuffin, looking
solemnly round, 'but he was ruining the trade;--and he died.'

The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the
dogs, who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.

'I know you do, Jerry,' said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning.  'I
know you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it
served him right.  Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had
three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had
in his cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season
was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every
day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red
smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one
dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant
wasn't quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs,
not being able to reach up any higher.  I know that's a fact, for
Maunders told it me himself.'

'What about the dwarfs when they get old?' inquired the landlord.

'The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,' returned Mr Vuffin;
'a grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion.  But
a giant weak in the legs and not standing upright!--keep him in
the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion
that can be offered.'

While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled
the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat
in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth
of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and
rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying
any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him
utterly unnoticed.  At length the weary child prevailed upon her
grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the company yet
seated round the fire, and the dogs fast asleep at a humble
distance.

After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor
garret, but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped
at.  She opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight
of Mr Thomas Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast
asleep down stairs.

'What is the matter?' said the child.

'Nothing's the matter, my dear,' returned her visitor.  'I'm your
friend.  Perhaps you haven't thought so, but it's me that's your
friend--not him.'

'Not who?' the child inquired.

'Short, my dear.  I tell you what,' said Codlin, 'for all his having
a kind of way with him that you'd be very apt to like, I'm the
real, open-hearted man.  I mayn't look it, but I am indeed.'

The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken
effect upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was
the consequence.

'Short's very well, and seems kind,' resumed the misanthrope, 'but
he overdoes it.  Now I don't.'

Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin's usual deportment,
it was that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him,
than overdid it.  But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what
to say.

'Take my advice,' said Codlin: 'don't ask me why, but take it.
As long as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can.  Don't
offer to leave us--not on any account--but always stick to me and
say that I'm your friend.  Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and
always say that it was me that was your friend?'

'Say so where--and when?' inquired the child innocently.

'O, nowhere in particular,' replied Codlin, a little put out as it
seemed by the question; 'I'm only anxious that you should think me
so, and do me justice.  You can't think what an interest I have in
you.  Why didn't you tell me your little history--that about you
and the poor old gentleman?  I'm the best adviser that ever was, and
so interested in you--so much more interested than Short.  I think
they're breaking up down stairs; you needn't tell Short, you know,
that we've had this little talk together.  God bless you.  Recollect
the friend.  Codlin's the friend, not Short.  Short's very well as
far as he goes, but the real friend is Codlin--not Short.'

Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and
protecting looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole
away on tiptoe, leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise.
She was still ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor
of the crazy stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the
other travellers who were passing to their beds.  When they had all
passed, and the sound of their footsteps had died away, one of them
returned, and after a little hesitation and rustling in the
passage, as if he were doubtful what door to knock at, knocked at
hers.

'Yes,' said the child from within.

'It's me--Short'--a voice called through the keyhole.  'I only
wanted to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear,
because unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the
villages won't be worth a penny.  You'll be sure to be stirring
early and go with us?  I'll call you.'

The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his 'good
night' heard him creep away.  She felt some uneasiness at the
anxiety of these men, increased by the recollection of their
whispering together down stairs and their slight confusion when she
awoke, nor was she quite free from a misgiving that they were not
the fittest companions she could have stumbled on.  Her uneasiness,
however, was nothing, weighed against her fatigue; and she soon
forgot it in sleep.  Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his
promise, and knocking softly at her door, entreated that she would
get up directly, as the proprietor of the dogs was still snoring,
and if they lost no time they might get a good deal in advance both
of him and the conjuror, who was talking in his sleep, and from
what he could be heard to say, appeared to be balancing a donkey in
his dreams.  She started from her bed without delay, and roused the
old man with so much expedition that they were both ready as soon
as Short himself, to that gentleman's unspeakable gratification and
relief.

After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the
staple commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave
of the landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys.  The
morning was fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the
late rain, the hedges gayer and more green, the air clear, and
everything fresh and healthful.  Surrounded by these influences,
they walked on pleasantly enough.

They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the
altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on
sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her,
and when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his
companion, warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head
not to put any trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for
Codlin.  Neither did he confine himself to looks and gestures, for
when she and her grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid
Short, and that little man was talking with his accustomed
cheerfulness on a variety of indifferent subjects, Thomas Codlin
testified his jealousy and distrust by following close at her
heels, and occasionally admonishing her ankles with the legs of the
theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner.

All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and
suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to
perform outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while
he went through his share of the entertainments kept his eye
steadily upon her and the old man, or with a show of great
friendship and consideration invited the latter to lean upon his
arm, and so held him tight until the representation was over and
they again went forward.  Even Short seemed to change in this
respect, and to mingle with his good-nature something of a desire
to keep them in safe custody.  This increased the child's
misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy.

Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to
begin next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and
trampers on the road, wending their way towards it, and straggling
out from every by-way and cross-country lane, they gradually fell
into a stream of people, some walking by the side of covered carts,
others with horses, others with donkeys, others toiling on with
heavy loads upon their backs, but all tending to the same point.
The public-houses by the wayside, from being empty and noiseless as
those in the remoter parts had been, now sent out boisterous shouts
and clouds of smoke; and, from the misty windows, clusters of broad
red faces looked down upon the road.  On every piece of waste or
common ground, some small gambler drove his noisy trade, and
bellowed to the idle passersby to stop and try their chance; the
crowd grew thicker and more noisy; gilt gingerbread in
blanket-stalls exposed its glories to the dust; and often a
four-horse carriage, dashing by, obscured all objects in the gritty
cloud it raised, and left them, stunned and blinded, far behind.

It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed
the few last miles had been.  Here all was tumult and confusion; the
streets were filled with throngs of people--many strangers were
there, it seemed, by the looks they cast about--the church-bells
rang out their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and
house-tops.  In the large inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and
ran against each other, horses clattered on the uneven stones,
carriage steps fell rattling down, and sickening smells from many
dinners came in a heavy lukewarm breath upon the sense.  In the
smaller public-houses, fiddles with all their might and main were
squeaking out the tune to staggering feet; drunken men, oblivious
of the burden of their song, joined in a senseless howl, which
drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made them savage for
their drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors to see the
stroller woman dance, and add their uproar to the shrill flageolet
and deafening drum.

Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by
all she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her
conductor, and trembling lest in the press she should be separated
from him and left to find her way alone.  Quickening their steps to
get clear of all the roar and riot, they at length passed through
the town and made for the race-course, which was upon an open
heath, situated on an eminence, a full mile distant from its
furthest bounds.

Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or
best clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground,
and hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath--
although there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw
between the wheels of carts, crying themselves to sleep--and poor
lean horses and donkeys just turned loose, grazing among the men
and women, and pots and kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends
of candles flaring and wasting in the air--for all this, the child
felt it an escape from the town and drew her breath more freely.
After a scanty supper, the purchase of which reduced her little
stock so low, that she had only a few halfpence with which to buy
a breakfast on the morrow, she and the old man lay down to rest in
a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that
were going on around them all night long.

And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread.
Soon after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and
rambling into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild
roses and such humble flowers, purposing to make them into little
nosegays and offer them to the ladies in the carriages when the
company arrived.  Her thoughts were not idle while she was thus
employed; when she returned and was seated beside the old man in
one corner of the tent, tying her flowers together, while the two
men lay dozing in another corner, she plucked him by the sleeve,
and slightly glancing towards them, said, in a low voice--

'Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if
I spoke of anything but what I am about.  What was that you told me
before we left the old house?  That if they knew what we were going
to do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?'

The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she
checked him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she
tied them up, and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said--

'I know that was what you told me.  You needn't speak, dear.  I
recollect it very well.  It was not likely that I should forget it.
Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our
friends, and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us
taken care of and sent back.  If you let your hand tremble so, we
can never get away from them, but if you're only quiet now, we
shall do so, easily.'

'How?' muttered the old man.  'Dear Nelly, how?  They will shut me up
in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell--
flog me with whips, and never let me see thee more!'

'You're trembling again,' said the child.  'Keep close to me all
day.  Never mind them, don't look at them, but me.  I shall find a
time when we can steal away.  When I do, mind you come with me, and
do not stop or speak a word.  Hush!  That's all.'

'Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?' said Mr Codlin, raising his
head, and yawning.  Then observing that his companion was fast
asleep, he added in an earnest whisper, 'Codlin's the friend,
remember--not Short.'

'Making some nosegays,' the child replied; 'I am going to try and
sell some, these three days of the races.  Will you have one--as a
present I mean?'

Mr Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried
towards him and placed it in his hand.  He stuck it in his
buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope,
and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he
laid himself down again, 'Tom Codlin's the friend, by G--!'

As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more
brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling
softly on the turf.  Men who had lounged about all night in
smock-frocks and leather leggings, came out in silken vests and
hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks; or in gorgeous
liveries as soft-spoken servants at gambling booths; or in sturdy
yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games.  Black-eyed gipsy girls,
hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes, and
pale slender women with consumptive faces lingered upon the
footsteps of ventriloquists and conjurors, and counted the
sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained.  As many
of the children as could be kept within bounds, were stowed away,
with all the other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys,
carts, and horses; and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran
in and out in all intricate spots, crept between people's legs and
carriage wheels, and came forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs.
The dancing-dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall man, and
all the other attractions, with organs out of number and bands
innumerable, emerged from the holes and corners in which they had
passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun.

Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the
brazen trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his
heels went Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping
his eye on Nelly and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in
the rear.  The child bore upon her arm the little basket with her
flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid and modest looks, to
offer them at some gay carriage; but alas! there were many bolder
beggars there, gipsies who promised husbands, and other adepts in
their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook
their heads, and others cried to the gentlemen beside them 'See,
what a pretty face!' they let the pretty face pass on, and never
thought that it looked tired or hungry.

There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she
was one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men
in dashing clothes, who had just dismounted from it, talked and
laughed loudly at a little distance, appearing to forget her,
quite.  There were many ladies all around, but they turned their
backs, or looked another way, or at the two young men (not
unfavourably at them), and left her to herself.  She motioned away
a gipsy-woman urgent to tell her fortune, saying that it was told
already and had been for some years, but called the child towards
her, and taking her flowers put money into her trembling hand, and
bade her go home and keep at home for God's sake.

Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang to clear
the course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not
coming out again until the heat was over.  Many a time, too, was
Punch displayed in the full zenith of his humour, but all this
while the eye of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without
notice was impracticable.

At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a
convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph
of the scene.  The child, sitting down with the old man close behind
it, had been thinking how strange it was that horses who were such
fine honest creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men
they drew about them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous
witticism of Mr Short's, having allusion to the circumstances of
the day, roused her from her meditation and caused her to look
around.

If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment.
Short was plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the
characters in the fury of the combat against the sides of the show,
the people were looking on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had
relaxed into a grim smile as his roving eye detected hands going
into waistcoat pockets and groping secretly for sixpences.  If they
were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment.  They seized
it, and fled.

They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of
people, and never once stopped to look behind.  The bell was ringing
and the course was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but
they dashed across it insensible to the shouts and screeching that
assailed them for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under
the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields.




CHAPTER 20


Day after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some
new effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window
of the little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped
to see some indication of her presence.  His own earnest wish,
coupled with the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him
with the belief that she would yet arrive to claim the humble
shelter he had offered, and from the death of each day's hope
another hope sprung up to live to-morrow.

'I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?' said Kit,
laying aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke.
'They have been gone a week.  They surely couldn't stop away more
than a week, could they now?'

The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been
disappointed already.

'For the matter of that,' said Kit, 'you speak true and sensible
enough, as you always do, mother.  Still, I do consider that a week
is quite long enough for 'em to be rambling about; don't you say
so?'

'Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come
back for all that.'

Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction,
and not the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and
knowing how just it was.  But the impulse was only momentary, and
the vexed look became a kind one before it had crossed the room.

'Then what do you think, mother, has become of 'em?  You don't think
they've gone to sea, anyhow?'

'Not gone for sailors, certainly,' returned the mother with a
smile.  'But I can't help thinking that they have gone to some
foreign country.'

'I say,' cried Kit with a rueful face, 'don't talk like that,
mother.'

'I am afraid they have, and that's the truth,' she said.  'It's the
talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of
their having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of
the place they've gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for
it's a very hard one.'

'I don't believe it,' said Kit.  'Not a word of it.  A set of idle
chatterboxes, how should they know!'

'They may be wrong of course,' returned the mother, 'I can't tell
about that, though I don't think it's at all unlikely that they're
in the right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a
little money that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you
talk to me about--what's his name--Quilp; and that he and Miss
Nell have gone to live abroad where it can't be taken from them,
and they will never be disturbed.  That don't seem very far out of
the way now, do it?'

Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it
did not, and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and
set himself to clean it and to feed the bird.  His thoughts
reverting from this occupation to the little old gentleman who had
given him the shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the
very day--nay, nearly the very hour--at which the little old
gentleman had said he should be at the Notary's house again.  He no
sooner remembered this, than he hung up the cage with great
precipitation, and hastily explaining the nature of his errand,
went off at full speed to the appointed place.

It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot,
which was a considerable distance from his home, but by great good
luck the little old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there
was no pony-chaise to be seen, and it was not likely that he had
come and gone again in so short a space.  Greatly relieved to find
that he was not too late, Kit leant against a lamp-post to take
breath, and waited the advent of the pony and his charge.

Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of
the street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his
steps as if he were spying about for the cleanest places, and would
by no means dirty his feet or hurry himself inconveniently.  Behind
the pony sat the little old gentleman, and by the old gentleman's
side sat the little old lady, carrying just such a nosegay as she
had brought before.

The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up
the street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some
half a dozen doors of the Notary's house, when the pony, deceived
by a brass-plate beneath a tailor's knocker, came to a halt, and
maintained by a sturdy silence, that that was the house they
wanted.

'Now, Sir, will you ha' the goodness to go on; this is not the
place,' said the old gentleman.

The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was
near him, and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it.

'Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker" cried the old lady.  'After being
so good too, and coming along so well!  I am quite ashamed of him.
I don't know what we are to do with him, I really don't.'

The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and
properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old
enemies the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling
his ear at that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail,
after which he appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and
collected.  The old gentleman having exhausted his powers of
persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony, perhaps
because he held this to be a sufficient concession, perhaps because
he happened to catch sight of the other brass-plate, or perhaps
because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady
and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come
panting on behind.

It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony's head, and
touched his hat with a smile.

'Why, bless me,' cried the old gentleman, 'the lad is here!  My
dear, do you see?'

'I said I'd be here, Sir,' said Kit, patting Whisker's neck.  'I
hope you've had a pleasant ride, sir.  He's a very nice little
pony.'

'My dear,' said the old gentleman.  'This is an uncommon lad; a good
lad, I'm sure.'

'I'm sure he is,' rejoined the old lady.  'A very good lad, and I am
sure he is a good son.'

Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his
hat again and blushing very much.  The old gentleman then handed the
old lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile,
they went into the house--talking about him as they went, Kit
could not help feeling.  Presently Mr Witherden, smelling very hard
at the nosegay, came to the window and looked at him, and after
that Mr Abel came and looked at him, and after that the old
gentleman and lady came and looked at him again, and after that
they all came and looked at him together, which Kit, feeling very
much embarrassed by, made a pretence of not observing.  Therefore he
patted the pony more and more; and this liberty the pony most
handsomely permitted.

The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr
Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his
head just as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the
pavement, and telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and
he would mind the chaise the while.  In giving him this direction Mr
Chuckster remarked that he wished that he might be blessed if he
could make out whether he (Kit) was 'precious raw' or 'precious
deep,' but intimated by a distrustful shake of the head, that he
inclined to the latter opinion.

Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to
going among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and
bundles of dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air.
Mr Witherden too was a bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast,
and all eyes were upon him, and he was very shabby.

'Well, boy,' said Mr Witherden, 'you came to work out that
shilling;--not to get another, hey?'

'No indeed, sir,' replied Kit, taking courage to look up.  'I never
thought of such a thing.'

'Father alive?' said the Notary.

'Dead, sir.'

'Mother?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Married again--eh?'

Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow
with three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the
gentleman knew her he wouldn't think of such a thing.  At this reply
Mr Witherden buried his nose in the flowers again, and whispered
behind the nosegay to the old gentleman that he believed the lad
was as honest a lad as need be.

'Now,' said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of
him, 'I am not going to give you anything--'

'Thank you, sir,' Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this
announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary
had hinted.

'--But,' resumed the old gentleman, 'perhaps I may want to know
something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I'll put
it down in my pocket-book.'

Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his
pencil.  He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in
the street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that
Whisker had run away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and
the others followed.

It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his
pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting
him with such admonitions as 'Stand still,'--'Be quiet,'--
'Wo-a-a,' and the like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne.
Consequently, the pony being deterred by no considerations of duty
or obedience, and not having before him the slightest fear of the
human eye, had at length started off, and was at that moment
rattling down the street--Mr Chuckster, with his hat off and a
pen behind his ear, hanging on in the rear of the chaise and making
futile attempts to draw it the other way, to the unspeakable
admiration of all beholders.  Even in running away, however, Whisker
was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he suddenly
stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced backing
at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward.  By these means Mr
Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a most
inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and
discomfiture.

The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had
come to fetch) into his.  The old gentleman, after reasoning with
the pony on the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the
best amends in his power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and
they drove away, waving a farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and
more than once turning to nod kindly to Kit as he watched them from
the road.




CHAPTER 21


Kit turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and
the little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little
young gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his
late master and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head
of all his meditations.  Still casting about for some plausible
means of accounting for their non-appearance, and of persuading
himself that they must soon return, he bent his steps
towards home, intending to finish the task which the sudden
recollection of his contract had interrupted, and then to sally
forth once more to seek his fortune for the day.

When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and
behold there was the pony again!  Yes, there he was, looking more
obstinate than ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady
watch upon his every wink, sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by
chance and seeing Kit pass by, nodded to him as though he would
have nodded his head off.

Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but
it never occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come
there, or where the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until
he lifted the latch of the door, and walking in, found them seated
in the room in conversation with his mother, at which unexpected
sight he pulled off his hat and made his best bow in some
confusion.

'We are here before you, you see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland
smiling.

'Yes, sir,' said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his
mother for an explanation of the visit.

'The gentleman's been kind enough, my dear,' said she, in reply to
this mute interrogation, 'to ask me whether you were in a good
place, or in any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not
in any, he was so good as to say that--'

'--That we wanted a good lad in our house,' said the old gentleman
and the old lady both together, 'and that perhaps we might think of
it, if we found everything as we would wish it to be.'

As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit,
he immediately partook of his mother's anxiety and fell into a
great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and
cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid
there was no chance of his success.

'You see, my good woman,' said Mrs Garland to Kit's mother, 'that
it's necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter
as this, for we're only three in family, and are very quiet regular
folks, and it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake,
and found things different from what we hoped and expected.'

To this, Kit's mother replied, that certainly it was quite true,
and quite right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she
should shrink, or have cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her
character or that of her son, who was a very good son though she
was his mother, in which respect, she was bold to say, he took
after his father, who was not only a good son to HIS mother, but
the best of husbands and the best of fathers besides, which Kit
could and would corroborate she knew, and so would little Jacob and
the baby likewise if they were old enough, which unfortunately they
were not, though as they didn't know what a loss they had had,
perhaps it was a great deal better that they should be as young as
they were; and so Kit's mother wound up a long story by wiping her
eyes with her apron, and patting little Jacob's head, who was
rocking the cradle and staring with all his might at the strange
lady and gentleman.

When Kit's mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again,
and said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very
respectable person or she never would have expressed herself in
that manner, and that certainly the appearance of the children and
the cleanliness of the house deserved great praise and did her the
utmost credit, whereat Kit's mother dropped a curtsey and became
consoled.  Then the good woman entered in a long and minute account
of Kit's life and history from the earliest period down to that
time, not omitting to make mention of his miraculous fall out of a
back-parlour window when an infant of tender years, or his uncommon
sufferings in a state of measles, which were illustrated by correct
imitations of the plaintive manner in which he called for toast and
water, day and night, and said, 'don't cry, mother, I shall soon be
better;' for proof of which statements reference was made to Mrs
Green, lodger, at the cheesemonger's round the corner, and divers
other ladies and gentlemen in various parts of England and Wales
(and one Mr Brown who was supposed to be then a corporal in the
East Indies, and who could of course be found with very little
trouble), within whose personal knowledge the circumstances had
occurred.  This narration ended, Mr Garland put some questions to
Kit respecting his qualifications and general acquirements, while
Mrs Garland noticed the children, and hearing from Kit's mother
certain remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of
each, related certain other remarkable circumstances which had
attended the birth of her own son, Mr Abel, from which it appeared
that both Kit's mother and herself had been, above and beyond all
other women of what condition or age soever, peculiarly hemmed in
with perils and dangers.  Lastly, inquiry was made into the nature
and extent of Kit's wardrobe, and a small advance being made to
improve the same, he was formally hired at an annual income of Six
Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by Mr and Mrs
Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley.

It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with
this arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing
but pleasant looks and cheerful smiles on both sides.  It was
settled that Kit should repair to his new abode on the next day but
one, in the morning; and finally, the little old couple, after
bestowing a bright half-crown on little Jacob and another on the
baby, took their leaves; being escorted as far as the street by
their new attendant, who held the obdurate pony by the bridle while
they took their seats, and saw them drive away with a lightened
heart.

'Well, mother,' said Kit, hurrying back into the house, 'I think my
fortune's about made now.'

'I should think it was indeed, Kit,' rejoined his mother.  'Six
pound a year!  Only think!'

'Ah!' said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the
consideration of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in
spite of himself.  'There's a property!'

Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands
deep into his pockets as if there were one year's wages at least in
each, looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down
an immense perspective of sovereigns beyond.

'Please God we'll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such
a scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the
one up stairs!  Six pound a year!'

'Hem!' croaked a strange voice.  'What's that about six pound a
year?  What about six pound a year?'  And as the voice made this
inquiry, Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his
heels.

'Who said he was to have six pound a year?' said Quilp, looking
sharply round.  'Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it?
And what's he to have it for, and where are they, eh!'  The good
woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown
piece of ugliness, that she hastily caught the baby from its cradle
and retreated into the furthest corner of the room; while little
Jacob, sitting upon his stool with his hands on his knees, looked
full at him in a species of fascination, roaring lustily all the
time.  Richard Swiveller took an easy observation of the family over
Mr Quilp's head, and Quilp himself, with his hands in his pockets,
smiled in an exquisite enjoyment of the commotion he occasioned.

'Don't be frightened, mistress,' said Quilp, after a pause.  'Your
son knows me; I don't eat babies; I don't like 'em.  It will be as
well to stop that young screamer though, in case I should be
tempted to do him a mischief.  Holloa, sir!  Will you be quiet?'

Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing
out of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.

'Mind you don't break out again, you villain,' said Quilp, looking
sternly at him, 'or I'll make faces at you and throw you into fits,
I will.  Now you sir, why haven't you been to me as you promised?'

'What should I come for?' retorted Kit.  'I hadn't any business with
you, no more than you had with me.'

'Here, mistress,' said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing
from Kit to his mother.  'When did his old master come or send here
last?  Is he here now?  If not, where's he gone?'

'He has not been here at all,' she replied.  'I wish we knew where
they have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his
mind, and me too.  If you're the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should
have thought you'd have known, and so I told him only this very
day.'

'Humph!' muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that
this was true.  'That's what you tell this gentleman too, is it?'

'If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can't tell him
anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,'
was the reply.

Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met
him on the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some
intelligence of the fugitives.  He supposed he was right?

'Yes,' said Dick, 'that was the object of the present expedition.
I fancied it possible--but let us go ring fancy's knell.  I'll
begin it.'

'You seem disappointed,' observed Quilp.

'A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that's all,' returned Dick.  'I have
entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being
of brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs's
altar.  That's all, sir.'

The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had
been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not,
and continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent
looks.  Quilp plainly discerned that there was some secret reason
for this visit and his uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope
that there might be means of mischief lurking beneath it, resolved
to worm it out.  He had no sooner adopted this resolution, than he
conveyed as much honesty into his face as it was capable of
expressing, and sympathised with Mr Swiveller exceedingly.

'I am disappointed myself,' said Quilp, 'out of mere friendly
feeling for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have
no doubt, for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier
than mine.'

'Why, of course it does,' Dick observed, testily.

'Upon my word, I'm very sorry, very sorry.  I'm rather cast down
myself.  As we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions
in the surest way of forgetting it?  If you had no particular
business, now, to lead you in another direction,' urged Quilp,
plucking him by the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out
of the corners of his eyes, 'there is a house by the water-side
where they have some of the noblest Schiedam--reputed to be
smuggled, but that's between ourselves--that can be got in all the
world.  The landlord knows me.  There's a little summer-house
overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this
delicious liquor with a whiff of the best tobacco--it's in this
case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain knowledge--and be
perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is
there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes you
another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?'

As the dwarf spoke, Dick's face relaxed into a compliant smile, and
his brows slowly unbent.  By the time he had finished, Dick was
looking down at Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking
up at him, and there remained nothing more to be done but to set
out for the house in question.  This they did, straightway.  The
moment their backs were turned, little Jacob thawed, and resumed
his crying from the point where Quilp had frozen him.

The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden
box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river's mud, and
threatened to slide down into it.  The tavern to which it belonged
was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only
upheld by great bars of wood which were reared against its walls,
and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and
yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to
creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling
down.  The house stood--if anything so old and feeble could be said
to stand--on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome
smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron wheels and
rush of troubled water.  Its internal accommodations amply fulfilled
the promise of the outside.  The rooms were low and damp, the clammy
walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had sunk
from their level, the very beams started from their places and warned
the timid stranger from their neighbourhood.

To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as
they passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table
of the summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial
letter, there soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted
liquor.  Drawing it off into the glasses with the skill of a
practised hand, and mixing it with about a third part of water, Mr
Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his portion, and lighting his
pipe from an end of a candle in a very old and battered lantern,
drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away.

'Is it good?' said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips,
'is it strong and fiery?  Does it make you wink, and choke, and your
eyes water, and your breath come short--does it?'

'Does it?' cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his
glass, and filling it up with water, 'why, man, you don't mean to
tell me that you drink such fire as this?'

'No!' rejoined Quilp, 'Not drink it!  Look here.  And here.  And here
again.  Not drink it!'

As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls
of the raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great
many pulls at his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in
a heavy cloud from his nose.  This feat accomplished he drew himself
together in his former position, and laughed excessively.

'Give us a toast!' cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a
dexterous manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of
tune, 'a woman, a beauty.  Let's have a beauty for our toast and
empty our glasses to the last drop.  Her name, come!'

'If you want a name,' said Dick, 'here's Sophy Wackles.'

'Sophy Wackles,' screamed the dwarf, 'Miss Sophy Wackles that is--
Mrs Richard Swiveller that shall be--that shall be--ha ha ha!'

'Ah!' said Dick, 'you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it
won't do now, my buck.  Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs--'

'Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs's ears off,' rejoined Quilp.  'I won't
hear of Cheggs.  Her name is Swiveller or nothing.  I'll drink her
health again, and her father's, and her mother's; and to all her
sisters and brothers--the glorious family of the Wackleses--all
the Wackleses in one glass--down with it to the dregs!'

'Well,' said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of
raising the glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species
of stupor as he flourished his arms and legs about: 'you're a jolly
fellow, but of all the jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you
have the queerest and most extraordinary way with you, upon my life
you have.'

This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr
Quilp's eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see
him in such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself,
for company--began imperceptibly to become more companionable and
confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew
at last very confiding indeed.  Having once got him into this mood,
and knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss,
Daniel Quilp's task was comparatively an easy one, and he was
soon in possession of the whole details of the scheme contrived
between the easy Dick and his more designing friend.

'Stop!' said Quilp.  'That's the thing, that's the thing.  It can be
brought about, it shall be brought about.  There's my hand upon it;
I am your friend from this minute.'

'What! do you think there's still a chance?' inquired Dick, in
surprise at this encouragement.

'A chance!' echoed the dwarf, 'a certainty!  Sophy Wackles may
become a Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller.
Oh you lucky dog!  He's richer than any Jew alive; you're a
made man.  I see in you now nothing but Nelly's husband, rolling
in gold and silver.  I'll help you.  It shall be done.  Mind my words,
it shall be done.'

'But how?' said Dick.

'There's plenty of time,' rejoined the dwarf, 'and it shall be
done.  We'll sit down and talk it over again all the way through.
Fill your glass while I'm gone.  I shall be back directly--
directly.'  With these hasty words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a
dismantled skittle-ground behind the public-house, and, throwing
himself upon the ground actually screamed and rolled about in
uncontrollable delight.

'Here's sport!' he cried, 'sport ready to my hand, all invented and
arranged, and only to be enjoyed.  It was this shallow-pated fellow
who made my bones ache t'other day, was it?  It was his friend and
fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and
leered and looked, was it?  After labouring for two or three years
in their precious scheme, to find that they've got a beggar at
last, and one of them tied for life.  Ha ha ha!  He shall marry
Nell.  He shall have her, and I'll be the first man, when the
knot's tied hard and fast, to tell 'em what they've gained and
what I've helped 'em to.  Here will be a clearing of old scores,
here will be a time to remind 'em what a capital friend I was, and
how I helped them to the heiress.  Ha ha ha!'

In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a
disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel,
there leapt forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was
of the shortest, would have given him a disagreeable salute.  As it
was, the dwarf remained upon his back in perfect safety, taunting
the dog with hideous faces, and triumphing over him in his
inability to advance another inch, though there were not a couple
of feet between them.

'Why don't you come and bite me, why don't you come and tear me to
pieces, you coward?' said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal
till he was nearly mad.  'You're afraid, you bully, you're afraid,
you know you are.'

The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and
furious bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with
gestures of defiance and contempt.  When he had sufficiently
recovered from his delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo,
achieved a kind of demon-dance round the kennel, just without
the limits of the chain, driving the dog quite wild.  Having by this
means composed his spirits and put himself in a pleasant train, he
returned to his unsuspicious companion, whom he found looking at
the tide with exceeding gravity, and thinking of that same gold and
silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned.




CHAPTER 22


The remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy
time for the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with
Kit's outfit and departure was matter of as great moment as if he
had been about to penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take
a cruise round the world.  It would be difficult to suppose that
there ever was a box which was opened and shut so many times within
four-and-twenty hours, as that which contained his wardrobe and
necessaries; and certainly there never was one which to two small
eyes presented such a mine of clothing, as this mighty chest with
its three shirts and proportionate allowance of stockings and
pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the astonished vision of little
Jacob.  At last it was conveyed to the carrier's, at whose house at
Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and the box being gone, there
remained but two questions for consideration: firstly, whether the
carrier would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose, the box upon the
road; secondly, whether Kit's mother perfectly understood how to
take care of herself in the absence of her son.

'I don't think there's hardly a chance of his really losing it, but
carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no
doubt,' said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first
point.

'No doubt about it,' returned Kit, with a serious look; 'upon my
word, mother, I don't think it was right to trust it to itself.
Somebody ought to have gone with it, I'm afraid.'

'We can't help it now,' said his mother; 'but it was foolish and
wrong.  People oughtn't to be tempted.'

Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more,
save with an empty box; and having formed this Christian
determination, he turned his thoughts to the second question.

'YOU know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be
lonesome because I'm not at home.  I shall very often be able to
look in when I come into town I dare say, and I shall send you a
letter sometimes, and when the quarter comes round, I can get a
holiday of course; and then see if we don't take little Jacob to
the play, and let him know what oysters means.'

'I hope plays mayn't be sinful, Kit, but I'm a'most afraid,' said
Mrs Nubbles.

'I know who has been putting that in your head,' rejoined her son
disconsolately; 'that's Little Bethel again.  Now I say, mother,
pray don't take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your
good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into
a grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to
call itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the
devil (which is calling its dead father names); if I was to see
this, and see little Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so
take it to heart that I'm sure I should go and list for a soldier,
and run my head on purpose against the first cannon-ball I saw
coming my way.'

'Oh, Kit, don't talk like that.'

'I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me
feel very wretched and uncomfortable, you'll keep that bow on your
bonnet, which you'd more than half a mind to pull off last week.
Can you suppose there's any harm in looking as cheerful and being
as cheerful as our poor circumstances will permit?  Do I see
anything in the way I'm made, which calls upon me to be a
snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about as if I
couldn't help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant
snuffle?  on the contrary, don't I see every reason why I shouldn't?
just hear this!  Ha ha ha!  An't that as nat'ral as walking, and as
good for the health?  Ha ha ha!  An't that as nat'ral as a sheep's
bleating, or a pig's grunting, or a horse's neighing, or a bird's
singing?  Ha ha ha!  Isn't it, mother?'

There was something contagious in Kit's laugh, for his mother, who
had looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell
to joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew
it was natural, and to laugh the more.  Kit and his mother, laughing
together in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that
there was something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no
sooner in its mother's arms than it began to kick and laugh, most
vigorously.  This new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit,
that he fell backward in his chair in a state of exhaustion,
pointing at the baby and shaking his sides till he rocked again.
After recovering twice or thrice, and as often relapsing, he wiped
his eyes and said grace; and a very cheerful meal their scanty
supper was.

With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen
who start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind
them, would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low
could be herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next
morning, and set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient
pride in his appearance to have warranted his excommunication from
Little Bethel from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that
mournful congregation.

Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it
may be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in
a coat of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and
nether garments of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in
the lustre of a new pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny
hat, which on being struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like
a drum.  And in this attire, rather wondering that he attracted so
little attention, and attributing the circumstance to the insensibility
of those who got up early, he made his way towards Abel Cottage.

Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road,
than meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his
old one, on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit
arrived in course of time at the carrier's house, where, to the
lasting honour of human nature, he found the box in safety.
Receiving from the wife of this immaculate man, a direction to Mr
Garland's, he took the box upon his shoulder and repaired thither
directly.

To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof
and little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in
some of the windows, almost as large as pocket-books.  On one side
of the house was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with
a little room over it, just the size for Kit.  White curtains were
fluttering, and birds in cages that looked as bright as if they
were made of gold, were singing at the windows; plants were
arranged on either side of the path, and clustered about the door;
and the garden was bright with flowers in full bloom, which shed a
sweet odour all round, and had a charming and elegant appearance.
Everything within the house and without, seemed to be the
perfection of neatness and order.  In the garden there was not a
weed to be seen, and to judge from some dapper gardening-tools, a
basket, and a pair of gloves which were lying in one of the walks,
old Mr Garland had been at work in it that very morning.

Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a
great many times before he could make up his mind to turn his head
another way and ring the bell.  There was abundance of time to look
about him again though, when he had rung it, for nobody came, so
after ringing it twice or thrice he sat down upon his box, and
waited.

He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came.  But at
last, as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants'
castles, and princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads,
and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of
the like nature, common in story-books to youths of low degree on
their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened,
and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and demure, but very
pretty too, appeared.  'I suppose you're Christopher,sir,' said the
servant-girl.

Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was.

'I'm afraid you've rung a good many times perhaps,' she rejoined,
'but we couldn't hear you, because we've been catching the pony.'

Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn't stop there,
asking questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl
into the hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland
leading Whisker in triumph up the garden, after that self-willed
pony had (as he afterwards learned) dodged the family round a small
paddock in the rear, for one hour and three quarters.

The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady,
whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his
wiping his boots on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt
again.  He was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his
new clothes; and when he had been surveyed several times, and had
afforded by his appearance unlimited satisfaction, he was taken
into the stable (where the pony received him with uncommon
complaisance); and thence into the little chamber he had already
observed, which was very clean and comfortable: and thence into the
garden, in which the old gentleman told him he would be taught to
employ himself, and where he told him, besides, what great things
he meant to do to make him comfortable, and happy, if he found he
deserved it.  All these kindnesses, Kit acknowledged with various
expressions of gratitude, and so many touches of the new hat, that
the brim suffered considerably.  When the old gentleman had said all
he had to say in the way of promise and advice, and Kit had said
all he had to say in the way of assurance and thankfulness, he was
handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the little
servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take him
down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his
walk.

Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs
there was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out
of a toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing,
and as precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself.  And in this
kitchen, Kit sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth,
to eat cold meat, and drink small ale, and use his knife and fork
the more awkwardly, because there was an unknown Barbara looking on
and observing him.

It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably
tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very
quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and
uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be.
When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of
the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser,
and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara's little
work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and
Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's hymn-book, and Barbara's
Bible.  Barbara's little looking-glass hung in a good light near the
window, and Barbara's bonnet was on a nail behind the door.  From
all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he
naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they,
shelling peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her
eyelashes and wondering--quite in the simplicity of his heart--
what colour her eyes might be, it perversely happened that Barbara
raised her head a little to look at him, when both pair
of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit leant over his plate, and
Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme confusion at having
been detected by the other.




CHAPTER 23


Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such
was the appropriate name of Quilp's choice retreat), after a
sinuous and corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after
stopping suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running
forward for a few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking
his head; doing everything with a jerk and nothing by
premeditation;--Mr Richard Swiveller wending his way homeward
after this fashion, which is considered by evil-minded men to be
symbolical of intoxication, and is not held by such persons to
denote that state of deep wisdom and reflection in which the actor
knows himself to be, began to think that possibly he had misplaced
his confidence and that the dwarf might not be precisely the sort
of person to whom to entrust a secret of such delicacy and
importance.  And being led and tempted on by this remorseful thought
into a condition which the evil-minded class before referred to
would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it occurred
to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan, crying
aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been an
unhappy orphan things had never come to this.

'Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,' said Mr Swiveller,
bewailing his hard lot, 'cast upon the world in my tenderest
period, and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can
wonder at my weakness!  Here's a miserable orphan for you.  Here,'
said Mr Swiveller raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking
sleepily round, 'is a miserable orphan!'

'Then,' said somebody hard by, 'let me be a father to you.'

Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance,
and, looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at
last perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he
observed after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and
mouth.  Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with
reference to a man's face, his legs are usually to be found, he
observed that the face had a body attached; and when he looked more
intently he was satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed
had been in his company all the time, but whom he had some vague
idea of having left a mile or two behind.

'You have deceived an orphan, Sir,' said Mr Swiveller solemnly.'

'I!  I'm a second father to you,' replied Quilp.

'You my father, Sir!' retorted Dick.  'Being all right myself, Sir,
I request to be left alone--instantly, Sir.'

'What a funny fellow you are!' cried Quilp.

'Go, Sir,' returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his
hand.  'Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p'r'aps you'll waken, from
pleasure's dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken.  Will you
go, Sir?'

The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced
with the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement.  But
forgetting his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to
him, he seized his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring
with an agreeable frankness that from that time forth they were
brothers in everything but personal appearance.  Then he told his
secret over again, with the addition of being pathetic on the
subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave Mr Quilp to understand, was
the occasion of any slight incoherency he might observe in his
speech at that moment, which was attributable solely to the
strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other fermented
liquor.  And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together.

'I'm as sharp,' said Quilp to him, at parting, 'as sharp as a
ferret, and as cunning as a weazel.  You bring Trent to me; assure
him that I'm his friend though i fear he a little distrusts me (I
don't know why, I have not deserved it); and you've both of you
made your fortunes--in perspective.'

'That's the worst of it,' returned Dick.  'These fortunes in
perspective look such a long way off.'

'But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,' said
Quilp, pressing his arm.  'You'll have no conception of the value of
your prize until you draw close to it.  Mark that.'

'D'ye think not?' said Dick.

'Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that's better,'
returned the dwarf.  'You bring Trent to me.  Tell him I am his
friend and yours--why shouldn't I be?'

'There's no reason why you shouldn't, certainly,' replied Dick,
'and perhaps there are a great many why you should--at least there
would be nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you
were a choice spirit, but then you know you're not a choice
spirit.'

'I not a choice spirit?' cried Quilp.

'Devil a bit,sir,' returned Dick.  'A man of your appearance
couldn't be.  If you're any spirit at all,sir, you're an evil
spirit.  Choice spirits,' added Dick, smiting himself on the breast,
'are quite a different looking sort of people, you may take your
oath of that,sir.'

Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression
of cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same
moment, declared that he was an uncommon character and had his
warmest esteem.  With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the
best of his way home and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate
upon the discovery he had made, and exult in the prospect of the
rich field of enjoyment and reprisal it opened to him.

It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr
Swiveller, next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the
renowned Schiedam, repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent
(which was in the roof of an old house in an old ghostly inn), and
recounted by very slow degrees what had yesterday taken place
between him and Quilp.  Nor was it without great surprise and much
speculation on Quilp's probable motives, nor without many bitter
comments on Dick Swiveller's folly, that his friend received the
tale.

'I don't defend myself, Fred,' said the penitent Richard; 'but the
fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog,
that first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any
harm in telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of
me.  If you had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn't
have kept anything from him.  He's a Salamander you know, that's
what he is.'

Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good
confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of
course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair,
and, burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the
motives which had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard
Swiveller's confidence;--for that the disclosure was of his
seeking, and had not been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was
sufficiently plain from Quilp's seeking his company and enticing
him away.

The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to
obtain intelligence of the fugitives.  This, perhaps, as he had not
shown any previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken
suspicion in the breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by
nature, setting aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he
might have derived from Dick's incautious manner.  But knowing the
scheme they had planned, why should he offer to assist it?  This was
a question more difficult of solution; but as knaves generally
overreach themselves by imputing their own designs to others, the
idea immediately presented itself that some circumstances of
irritation between Quilp and the old man, arising out of their
secret transactions and not unconnected perhaps with his sudden
disappearance, now rendered the former desirous of revenging
himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of his love
and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread and
hatred.  As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his
sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain,
it seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp's main principle of
action.  Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in
abetting them, which the attainment of their purpose would serve,
it was easy to believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as
there could be no doubt of his proving a powerful and useful
auxiliary, Trent determined to accept his invitation and go to his
house that night, and if what he said and did confirmed him in the
impression he had formed, to let him share the labour of their
plan, but not the profit.

Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this
conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his
meditations as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly
satisfied with less), and giving him the day to recover himself
from his late salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr
Quilp's house.

Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to
be; and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs jiniwin;
and very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she
was affected by the recognition of young Trent.  Mrs Quilp was as
innocent as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant,
which the sight of him awakened, but as her husband's glance made
her timid and confused, and uncertain what to do or what was
required of her, Mr Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment
to the cause he had in his mind, and while he chuckled at his
penetration was secretly exasperated by his jealousy.

Nothing of this appeared, however.  On the contrary, Mr Quilp was
all blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum
with extraordinary open-heartedness.

'Why, let me see,' said Quilp.  'It must be a matter of nearly two
years since we were first acquainted.'

'Nearer three, I think,' said Trent.

'Nearer three!' cried Quilp.  'How fast time flies.  Does it seem as
long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?'

'Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,' was the
unfortunate reply.

'Oh indeed, ma'am,' thought Quilp, 'you have been pining, have you?
Very good, ma'am.'

'It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the
Mary Anne,' said Quilp; 'but yesterday, I declare.  Well, I like a
little wildness.  I was wild myself once.'

Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink,
indicative of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was
indignant, and could not forbear from remarking under her breath
that he might at least put off his confessions until his wife was
absent; for which act of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp
first stared her out of countenance and then drank her health
ceremoniously.

'I thought you'd come back directly, Fred.  I always thought that,'
said Quilp setting down his glass.  'And when the Mary Anne returned
with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart
you had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been
provided for you, I was amused--exceedingly amused.  Ha ha ha!'

The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most
agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment;
and for that reason Quilp pursued it.

'I always will say,' he resumed, 'that when a rich relation having
two young people--sisters or brothers, or brother and sister--
dependent on him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts
off the other, he does wrong.'

The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as
calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which
nobody present had the slightest personal interest.

'It's very true,' said Quilp, 'that your grandfather urged repeated
forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but
as I told him "these are common faults."  "But he's a scoundrel,"
said he.  "Granting that," said I (for the sake of argument of
course), "a great many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels
too!" But he wouldn't be convinced.'

'I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,' said the young man sarcastically.

'Well, so did I at the time,' returned Quilp, 'but he was always
obstinate.  He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always
obstinate and wrong-headed.  Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming
girl, but you're her brother, Frederick.  You're her brother after
all; as you told him the last time you met, he can't alter that.'

'He would if he could, confound him for that and all other
kindnesses,' said the young man impatiently.  'But nothing can come
of this subject now, and let us have done with it in the Devil's
name.'

'Agreed,' returned Quilp, 'agreed on my part readily.  Why have I
alluded to it?  Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always
stood your friend.  You little knew who was your friend, and who
your foe; now did you?  You thought I was against you, and so there
has been a coolness between us; but it was all on your side,
entirely on your side.  Let's shake hands again, Fred.'

With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin
over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short
arm across the table.  After a moment's hesitation, the young man
stretched out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip
that for the moment stopped the current of the blood within them,
and pressing his other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the
unsuspicious Richard, released them and sat down.

This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard
Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his
designs than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf
perfectly understood their relative position, and fully entered
into the character of his friend.  It is something to be
appreciated, even in knavery.  This silent homage to his superior
abilities, no less than a sense of the power with which the dwarf's
quick perception had already invested him, inclined the young man
towards that ugly worthy, and determined him to profit by his aid.

It being now Mr Quilp's cue to change the subject with all
convenient expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness
should reveal anything which it was inexpedient for the women to
know, he proposed a game at four-handed cribbage, and partners
being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself
to Quilp.  Mrs Jiniwin being very fond of cards was carefully
excluded by her son-in-law from any participation in the game, and
had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing the
glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one
eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a
taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the wretched old lady
(who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the cards) in a
double degree and most ingenious manner.

But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp's attention was
restricted, as several other matters required his constant
vigilance.  Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one
of always cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part,
not only a close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in
counting and scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by
looks, and frowns, and kicks under the table, of Richard Swiveller,
who being bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were
told, and the rate at which the pegs travelled down the board,
could not be prevented from sometimes expressing his surprise and
incredulity.  Mrs Quilp too was the partner of young Trent, and for
every look that passed between them, and every word they spoke, and
every card they played, the dwarf had eyes and ears; not occupied
alone with what was passing above the table, but with signals that
might be exchanging beneath it, which he laid all kinds of traps to
detect; besides often treading on his wife's toes to see whether
she cried out or remained silent under the infliction, in which
latter case it would have been quite clear that Trent had been
treading on her toes before.  Yet, in the most of all these
distractions, the one eye was upon the old lady always, and if she
so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring
glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one
sup of its sweet contents, Quilp's hand would overset it in the
very moment of her triumph, and Quilp's mocking voice implore her
to regard her precious health.  And in any one of these his many
cares, from first to last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered.

At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn
pretty freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to
retire to rest, and that submissive wife complying, and being
followed by her indignant mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep.  The
dwarf beckoning his remaining companion to the other end of the
room, held a short conference with him in whispers.

'It's as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy
friend,' said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick.
'Is it a bargain between us, Fred?  Shall he marry little rosy Nell
by-and-by?'

'You have some end of your own to answer, of course,' returned the
other.

'Of course I have, dear Fred,' said Quilp, grinning to think how
little he suspected what the real end was.  'It's retaliation
perhaps; perhaps whim.  I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose.
Which way shall I use it?  There are a pair of scales, and it goes
into one.'

'Throw it into mine then,' said Trent.

'It's done, Fred,' rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand
and opening it as if he had let some weight fall out.  'It's in the
scale from this time, and turns it, Fred.  Mind that.'

'Where have they gone?' asked Trent.

Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be
discovered, which it might be, easily.  When it was, they would
begin their preliminary advances.  He would visit the old man, or
even Richard Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep
concern in his behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy
home, lead to the child's remembering him with gratitude and
favour.  Once impressed to this extent, it would be easy, he said,
to win her in a year or two, for she supposed the old man to be
poor, as it was a part of his jealous policy (in common with many
other misers) to feign to be so, to those about him.

'He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,' said Trent.

'Oh! and to me too!' replied the dwarf.  'Which is more
extraordinary, as I know how rich he really is.'

'I suppose you should,' said Trent.

'I think I should indeed,' rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at
least, he spoke the truth.

After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and
the young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was
waiting to depart.  This was welcome news to Dick, who started up
directly.  After a few words of confidence in the result of their
project had been exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good
night.

Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
listened.  Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they
were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to
marry such a misshapen wretch as he.  The dwarf after watching their
retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet
displayed, stole softly in the dark to bed.

In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had
one thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell.  It
would have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the
butt of both, had been harassed by any such consideration; for his
high opinion of his own merits and deserts rendered the project
rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he had been visited by
so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would--being a brute only in
the gratification of his appetites--have soothed his conscience
with the plea that he did not mean to beat or kill his wife, and
would therefore, after all said and done, be a very tolerable,
average husband.




CHAPTER 24


It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer
maintain the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that
the old man and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest
upon the borders of a little wood.  Here, though the course was
hidden from their view, they could yet faintly distinguish the
noise of distant shouts, the hum of voices, and the beating of
drums.  Climbing the eminence which lay between them and the spot
they had left, the child could even discern the fluttering flags
and white tops of booths; but no person was approaching towards
them, and their resting-place was solitary and still.

Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling
companion, or restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity.  His
disordered imagination represented to him a crowd of persons
stealing towards them beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in
every ditch, and peeping from the boughs of every rustling tree.  He
was haunted by apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy
place where he would be chained and scourged, and worse than all,
where Nell could never come to see him, save through iron bars and
gratings in the wall.  His terrors affected the child.  Separation
from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could dread; and
feeling for the time as though, go where they would, they were to
be hunted down, and could never be safe but in hiding, her heart
failed her, and her courage drooped.

In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had
lately moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising.  But,
Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms--
oftenest, God bless her, in female breasts--and when the child,
casting her tearful eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he
was, and how destitute and helpless he would be if she failed him,
her heart swelled within her, and animated her with new strength
and fortitude.

'We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear
grandfather,' she said.

'Nothing to fear!' returned the old man.  'Nothing to fear if they
took me from thee!  Nothing to fear if they parted us!  Nobody is
true to me.  No, not one.  Not even Nell!'

'Oh! do not say that,' replied the child, 'for if ever anybody was
true at heart, and earnest, I am.  I am sure you know I am.'

'Then how,' said the old man, looking fearfully round, 'how can you
bear to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me
everywhere, and may come here, and steal upon us, even while we're
talking?'

'Because I'm sure we have not been followed,' said the child.
'Judge for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how
quiet and still it is.  We are alone together, and may ramble where
we like.  Not safe!  Could I feel easy--did I feel at ease--when
any danger threatened you?'

'True, too,' he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking
anxiously about.  'What noise was that?'

'A bird,' said the child, 'flying into the wood, and leading the
way for us to follow.'  You remember that we said we would walk in
woods and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would
be--you remember that?  But here, while the sun shines above our
heads, and everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly
down, and losing time.  See what a pleasant path; and there's the
bird--the same bird--now he flies to another tree, and stays to
sing.  Come!'

When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which
led them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny
footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure
and gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured
the old man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now
pointing stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered
on a branch that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen
to the songs that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it
trembled through the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks
of stout old trees, opened long paths of light.  As they passed
onward, parting the boughs that clustered in their way, the
serenity which the child had first assumed, stole into her breast
in earnest; the old man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but
felt at ease and cheerful, for the further they passed into the
deep green shade, the more they felt that the tranquil mind of God
was there, and shed its peace on them.

At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought
them to the end of the wood, and into a public road.  Taking their
way along it for a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded
by the trees on either hand that they met together over-head, and
arched the narrow way.  A broken finger-post announced that this led
to a village three miles off; and thither they resolved to bend
their steps.

The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must
have missed their road.  But at last, to their great joy, it led
downwards in a steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the
footpaths led; and the clustered houses of the village peeped from
the woody hollow below.

It was a very small place.  The men and boys were playing at cricket
on the green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered
up and down, uncertain where to seek a humble lodging.  There was
but one old man in the little garden before his cottage, and him
they were timid of approaching, for he was the schoolmaster, and
had 'School' written up over his window in black letters on a white
board.  He was a pale, simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre
habit, and sat among his flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in
the little porch before his door.

'Speak to him, dear,' the old man whispered.

'I am almost afraid to disturb him,' said the child timidly.  'He
does not seem to see us.  Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look
this way.'

They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and
still sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch.  He had a
kind face.  In his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and
meagre.  They fancied, too, a lonely air about him and his house,
but perhaps that was because the other people formed a merry
company upon the green, and he seemed the only solitary man in all
the place.

They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to
address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which
seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed.  As they stood
hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few
minutes at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his
pipe and took a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate
and looked towards the green, then took up his pipe again with a
sigh, and sat down thoughtfully as before.

As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length
took courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured
to draw near, leading her grandfather by the hand.  The slight noise
they made in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his
attention.  He looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too,
and slightly shook his head.

Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who
sought a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so
far as their means allowed.  The schoolmaster looked earnestly at
her as she spoke, laid aside his pipe, and rose up directly.

'If you could direct us anywhere,sir,' said the child, 'we should
take it very kindly.'

'You have been walking a long way,' said the schoolmaster.

'A long way, Sir,' the child replied.

'You're a young traveller, my child,' he said, laying his hand
gently on her head.  'Your grandchild, friend?  '

'Aye, Sir,' cried the old man, 'and the stay and comfort of my
life.'

'Come in,' said the schoolmaster.

Without further preface he conducted them into his little
school-room, which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them
that they were welcome to remain under his roof till morning.
Before they had done thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth
upon the table, with knives and platters; and bringing out some
bread and cold meat and a jug of beer, besought them to eat and
drink.

The child looked round the room as she took her seat.  There were a
couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal
desk perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few
dog's-eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley
collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles,
half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle urchins.
Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the
cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the
dunce's cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring
wafers of the largest size.  But, the great ornaments of the walls
were certain moral sentences fairly copied in good round text, and
well-worked sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently
achieved by the same hand, which were plentifully pasted all round
the room: for the double purpose, as it seemed, of bearing
testimony to the excellence of the school, and kindling a worthy
emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.

'Yes,' said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was
caught by these latter specimens.  'That's beautiful writing, my
dear.'

'Very, Sir,' replied the child modestly, 'is it yours?'

'Mine!' he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on,
to have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart.  'I
couldn't write like that, now-a-days.  No.  They're all done by one
hand; a little hand it is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.'

As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had
been thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his
pocket, and going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out.  When he
had finished, he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring
it as one might contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something
of sadness in his voice and manner which quite touched the child,
though she was unacquainted with its cause.

'A little hand indeed,' said the poor schoolmaster.  'Far beyond all
his companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever
come to be so fond of me!  That I should love him is no wonder, but
that he should love me--' and there the schoolmaster stopped, and
took off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim.

'I hope there is nothing the matter,sir,' said Nell anxiously.

'Not much, my dear,' returned the schoolmaster.  'I hoped to have
seen him on the green to-night.  He was always foremost among them.
But he'll be there to-morrow.'

'Has he been ill?' asked the child, with a child's quick sympathy.

'Not very.  They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear
boy, and so they said the day before.  But that's a part of that
kind of disorder; it's not a bad sign--not at all a bad sign.'
The child was silent.  He walked to the door, and looked wistfully
out.  The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.

'If he could lean upon anybody's arm, he would come to me, I know,'
he said, returning into the room.  'He always came into the garden
to say good night.  But perhaps his illness has only just taken a
favourable turn, and it's too late for him to come out, for it's
very damp and there's a heavy dew.  it's much better he shouldn't
come to-night.'

The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter,
and closed the door.  But after he had done this, and sat silent a
little time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy
himself, if Nell would sit up till he returned.  The child readily
complied, and he went out.

She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange
and lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed,
and there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock,
and the whistling of the wind among the trees.  When he returned, he
took his seat in the chimney corner, but remained silent for a long
time.  At length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped
she would say a prayer that night for a sick child.

'My favourite scholar!' said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe
he had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the
walls.  'It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away
with sickness.  It is a very, very little hand!'




CHAPTER 25


After a sound night's rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in
which it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but
which he had lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own,
the child rose early in the morning and descended to the room where
she had supped last night.  As the schoolmaster had already left his
bed and gone out, she bestirred herself to make it neat and
comfortable, and had just finished its arrangement when the kind
host returned.

He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually
did such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom
he had told her of.  The child asked how he was, and hoped he was
better.

'No,' rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, 'no
better.  They even say he is worse.'

'I am very sorry for that, Sir,' said the child.

The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest
manner, but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily
that anxious people often magnified an evil and thought it greater
than it was; 'for my part,' he said, in his quiet, patient way, 'I
hope it's not so.  I don't think he can be worse.'

The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather
coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together.  While
the meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man
seemed much fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest.

'If the journey you have before you is a long one,' he said, 'and
don't press you for one day, you're very welcome to pass another
night here.  I should really be glad if you would, friend.'

He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept
or decline his offer; and added,

'I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day.
If you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the
same time, do so.  If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you
well through it, and will walk a little way with you before school
begins.'

'What are we to do, Nell?' said the old man irresolutely, 'say what
we're to do, dear.'

It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that
they had better accept the invitation and remain.  She was happy to
show her gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in
the performance of such household duties as his little cottage
stood in need of.  When these were done, she took some needle-work
from her basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the
lattice, where the honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender
stems, and stealing into the room filled it with their delicious
breath.  Her grandfather was basking in the sun outside, breathing
the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the clouds as they
floated on before the light summer wind.

As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order,
took his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for
school, the child was apprehensive that she might be in the way,
and offered to withdraw to her little bedroom.  But this he would
not allow, and as he seemed pleased to have her there, she
remained, busying herself with her work.

'Have you many scholars, sir?' she asked.

The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely
filled the two forms.

'Are the others clever, sir?' asked the child, glancing at the
trophies on the wall.

'Good boys,' returned the schoolmaster, 'good boys enough, my dear,
but they'll never do like that.'

A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door
while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow,
came in and took his seat upon one of the forms.  The white-headed
boy then put an open book, astonishingly dog's-eared upon his
knees, and thrusting his hands into his pockets began counting the
marbles with which they were filled; displaying in the expression
of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind
from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed.  Soon afterwards
another white-headed little boy came straggling in, and after him
a red-headed lad, and after him two more with white heads, and then
one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the forms were occupied by
a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every colour but grey,
and ranging in their ages from four years old to fourteen years or
more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way from the floor
when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy good-tempered
foolish fellow, about half a head taller than the schoolmaster.

At the top of the first form--the post of honour in the school--
was the vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of
the row of pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont
to hang them up, one was left empty.  No boy attempted to violate
the sanctity of seat or peg, but many a one looked from the empty
spaces to the schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind
his hand.

Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by
heart, the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and
drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor
schoolmaster, the very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly
attempting to fix his mind upon the duties of the day, and to
forget his little friend.  But the tedium of his office reminded him
more strongly of the willing scholar, and his thoughts were
rambling from his pupils--it was plain.

None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder
with impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even
under the master's eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke,
pinching each other in sport or malice without the least reserve,
and cutting their autographs in the very legs of his desk.  The
puzzled dunce, who stood beside it to say his lesson out of book,
looked no longer at the ceiling for forgotten words, but drew
closer to the master's elbow and boldly cast his eye upon the page;
the wag of the little troop squinted and made grimaces (at the
smallest boy of course), holding no book before his face, and his
approving audience knew no constraint in their delight.  If the
master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to what was going
on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his but wore a
studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he relapsed
again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before.

Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how
they looked at the open door and window, as if they half
meditated rushing violently out, plunging into the woods, and being
wild boys and savages from that time forth.  What rebellious
thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath
willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and
urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and
flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with
a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly,
or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day!  Heat!
ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to the door gave him
opportunities of gliding out into the garden and driving his
companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket of the
well and then rolling on the grass--ask him if there were ever
such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into
the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up
their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey
no more.  The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in
green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one
to shut one's eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be
poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the very sun
itself?  Monstrous!

Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still
to all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous
boys.  The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one
desk and that the master's, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured
at his crooked copy, while the master walked about.  This was a
quieter time; for he would come and look over the writer's
shoulder, and tell him mildly to observe how such a letter was
turned in such a copy on the wall, praise such an up-stroke here
and such a down-stroke there, and bid him take it for his model.
Then he would stop and tell them what the sick child had said last
night, and how he had longed to be among them once again; and such
was the poor schoolmaster's gentle and affectionate manner, that
the boys seemed quite remorseful that they had worried him so much,
and were absolutely quiet; eating no apples, cutting no names,
inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for full two minutes
afterwards.

'I think, boys,' said the schoolmaster when the clock struck
twelve, 'that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.'

At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy,
raised a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to
speak, but could not be heard.  As he held up his hand, however, in
token of his wish that they should be silent, they were considerate
enough to leave off, as soon as the longest-winded among them were
quite out of breath.

'You must promise me first,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you'll
not be noisy, or at least, if you are, that you'll go away and be
so--away out of the village I mean.  I'm sure you wouldn't disturb
your old playmate and companion.'

There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for
they were but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as
sincerely as any of them, called those about him to witness that he
had only shouted in a whisper.

'Then pray don't forget, there's my dear scholars,' said the
schoolmaster, 'what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me.
Be as happy as you can, and don't be unmindful that you are blessed
with health.  Good-bye all!'

'Thank'ee, Sir,' and 'good-bye, Sir,' were said a good many times
in a variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and
softly.  But there was the sun shining and there were the birds
singing, as the sun only shines and the birds only sing on holidays
and half-holidays; there were the trees waving to all free boys to
climb and nestle among their leafy branches; the hay, entreating
them to come and scatter it to the pure air; the green corn, gently
beckoning towards wood and stream; the smooth ground, rendered
smoother still by blending lights and shadows, inviting to runs and
leaps, and long walks God knows whither.  It was more than boy could
bear, and with a joyous whoop the whole cluster took to their heels
and spread themselves about, shouting and laughing as they went.

'It's natural, thank Heaven!' said the poor schoolmaster, looking
after them.  'I'm very glad they didn't mind me!'

It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would
have discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and
in the course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils
looked in to express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster's
proceeding.  A few confined themselves to hints, such as politely
inquiring what red-letter day or saint's day the almanack said it
was; a few (these were the profound village politicians) argued
that it was a slight to the throne and an affront to church and
state, and savoured of revolutionary principles, to grant a
half-holiday upon any lighter occasion than the birthday of the
Monarch; but the majority expressed their displeasure on private
grounds and in plain terms, arguing that to put the pupils on this
short allowance of learning was nothing but an act of downright
robbery and fraud: and one old lady, finding that she could not
inflame or irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking to him,
bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour outside
his own window, to another old lady, saying that of course he would
deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge, or of course he
would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him;
there was no want of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old
lady raised her voice), and some chaps who were too idle even to be
schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over
their heads, and so she would have them take care, and look pretty
sharp about them.  But all these taunts and vexations failed to
elicit one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the child
by his side--a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent and
uncomplaining.

Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily
as she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was
to go to Dame West's directly, and had best run on before her.  He
and the child were on the point of going out together for a walk,
and without relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away,
leaving the messenger to follow as she might.

They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly
at it with his hand.  It was opened without loss of time.  They
entered a room where a little group of women were gathered about
one, older than the rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat
wringing her hands and rocking herself to and fro.

'Oh, dame!' said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, 'is it
so bad as this?'

'He's going fast,' cried the old woman; 'my grandson's dying.  It's
all along of you.  You shouldn't see him now, but for his being so
earnest on it.  This is what his learning has brought him to.  Oh
dear, dear, dear, what can I do!'

'Do not say that I am in any fault,' urged the gentle school-
master.  'I am not hurt, dame.  No, no.  You are in great distress of
mind, and don't mean what you say.  I am sure you don't.'

'I do,' returned the old woman.  'I mean it all.  If he hadn't been
poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well
and merry now, I know he would.'

The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat
some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook
their heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought
there was much good in learning, and that this convinced them.
Without saying a word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach,
he followed the old woman who had summoned him (and who had now
rejoined them) into another room, where his infant friend,
half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.

He was a very young boy; quite a little child.  His hair still hung
in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their
light was of Heaven, not earth.  The schoolmaster took a seat beside
him, and stooping over the pillow, whispered his name.  The boy
sprung up, stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted
arms round his neck, crying out that he was his dear kind friend.

'I hope I always was.  I meant to be, God knows,' said the poor
schoolmaster.

'Who is that?' said the boy, seeing Nell.  'I am afraid to kiss her,
lest I should make her ill.  Ask her to shake hands with me.'  The
sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in
hers.  Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him
gently down.

'You remember the garden, Harry,' whispered the schoolmaster,
anxious to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the
child, 'and how pleasant it used to be in the evening time?  You
must make haste to visit it again, for I think the very flowers
have missed you, and are less gay than they used to be.  You will
come soon, my dear, very soon now--won't you?'

The boy smiled faintly--so very, very faintly--and put his hand
upon his friend's grey head.  He moved his lips too, but no voice
came from them; no, not a sound.

In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon
the evening air came floating through the open window.  'What's
that?' said the sick child, opening his eyes.

'The boys at play upon the green.'

He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above
his head.  But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.

'Shall I do it?' said the schoolmaster.

'Please wave it at the window,' was the faint reply.  'Tie it to the
lattice.  Some of them may see it there.  Perhaps they'll think of
me, and look this way.'

He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his
idle bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property
upon a table in the room.  And then he laid him softly down once more,
and asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.

She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the
coverlet.  The two old friends and companions--for such they were,
though they were man and child--held each other in a long embrace,
and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and
fell asleep.

The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold
hand in his, and chafing it.  It was but the hand of a dead child.
He felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.




CHAPTER 26


Almost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the
bedside and returned to his cottage.  In the midst of her grief and
tears she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old
man, for the dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged
relative to mourn his premature decay.

She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was
alone, gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was
overcharged.  But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without
its lesson of content and gratitude; of content with the lot which
left her health and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to
the one relative and friend she loved, and to live and move in a
beautiful world, when so many young creatures--as young and full
of hope as she--were stricken down and gathered to their graves.
How many of the mounds in that old churchyard where she had lately
strayed, grew green above the graves of children!  And though she
thought as a child herself, and did not perhaps sufficiently
consider to what a bright and happy existence those who die young
are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of seeing others die
around them, bearing to the tomb some strong affection of their
hearts (which makes the old die many times in one long life), still
she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy moral from what
she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her mind.

Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up,
but mingling with angels, and smiling happily.  The sun darting his
cheerful rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but
to take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more.

By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun.  In the
darkened room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little
sobered and softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at
all.  The schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to
the gate.

It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out
to him the money which the lady had given her at the races for her
flowers: faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum
was, and blushing as she offered it.  But he bade her put it up,
and stooping to kiss her cheek, turned back into his house.

They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again;
the old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did
the same.

'Good fortune and happiness go with you!' said the poor
schoolmaster.  'I am quite a solitary man now.  If you ever pass
this way again, you'll not forget the little village-school.'

'We shall never forget it, sir,' rejoined Nell; 'nor ever forget to
be grateful to you for your kindness to us.'

'I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,'
said the schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully,
'but they were soon forgotten.  I had attached one young friend to
me, the better friend for being young--but that's over--God bless
you!'

They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking
slowly and often looking back, until they could see him no more.
At length they had left the village far behind, and even lost sight
of the smoke among the trees.  They trudged onward now, at a
quicker pace, resolving to keep the main road, and go wherever it
might lead them.

But main roads stretch a long, long way.  With the exception of two
or three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed,
without stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they
had some bread and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing--
late in the afternoon--and still lengthened out, far in the
distance, the same dull, tedious, winding course, that they had
been pursuing all day.  As they had no resource, however, but to go
forward, they still kept on, though at a much slower pace, being
very weary and fatigued.

The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they
arrived at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck
across a common.  On the border of this common, and close to the
hedge which divided it from the cultivated fields, a caravan was
drawn up to rest; upon which, by reason of its situation, they came
so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would.

It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house
upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and
window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red,
in which happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone
brilliant.  Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey
or emaciated horse, for a pair of horses in pretty
good condition were released from the shafts and grazing on the
frouzy grass.  Neither was it a gipsy caravan, for at the open door
(graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a Christian lady, stout
and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling
with bows.  And that it was not an unprovided or destitute caravan
was clear from this lady's occupation, which was the very pleasant
and refreshing one of taking tea.  The tea-things, including a
bottle of rather suspicious character and a cold knuckle of ham,
were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and there,
as if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat
this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect.

It happened that at that moment the lady of the caravan had her cup
(which, that everything about her might be of a stout and
comfortable kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having
her eyes lifted to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavour of
the tea, not unmingled possibly with just the slightest
dash or gleam of something out of the suspicious bottle--but this
is mere speculation and not distinct matter of history--it
happened that being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the
travellers when they first came up.  It was not until she was in
the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a long breath after
the exertion of causing its contents to disappear, that the lady of
the caravan beheld an old man and a young child walking slowly by,
and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest but hungry
admiration.

'Hey!' cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of
her lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips.  'Yes, to
be sure--Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?'

'Won what, ma'am?' asked Nell.

'The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was
run for on the second day.'

'On the second day, ma'am?'

'Second day!  Yes, second day,' repeated the lady with an air of
impatience.  'Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when
you're asked the question civilly?'

'I don't know, ma'am.'

'Don't know!' repeated the lady of the caravan; 'why, you were
there.  I saw you with my own eyes.'

Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady
might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin;
but what followed tended to reassure her.

'And very sorry I was,' said the lady of the caravan, 'to see you
in company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar wretch, that
people should scorn to look at.'

'I was not there by choice,' returned the child; 'we didn't know
our way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel
with them.  Do you--do you know them, ma'am?'

'Know 'em, child!' cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of
shriek.  'Know them!  But you're young and inexperienced, and
that's your excuse for asking sich a question.  Do I look as if I
know'd 'em, does the caravan look as if it know'd 'em?'

'No, ma'am, no,' said the child, fearing she had committed some
grievous fault.  'I beg your pardon.'

It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much
ruffled and discomposed by the degrading supposition.  The child
then explained that they had left the races on the first day, and
were travelling to the next town on that road, where they purposed
to spend the night.  As the countenance of the stout lady began to
clear up, she ventured to inquire how far it was.  The reply--which
the stout lady did not come to, until she had thoroughly explained
that she went to the races on the first day in a gig, and as an
expedition of pleasure, and that her presence there had no
connexion with any matters of business or profit--was, that the
town was eight miles off.

This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could
scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road.
Her grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he
leaned upon his staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty
distance.

The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea
equipage together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the
child's anxious manner she hesitated and stopped.  The child
curtseyed, thanked her for her information, and giving her hand to
the old man had already got some fifty yards or so away, when the
lady of the caravan called to her to return.

'Come nearer, nearer still,' said she, beckoning to her to ascend
the steps.  'Are you hungry, child?'

'Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it IS a long way.'

'Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,' rejoined her
new acquaintance.  'I suppose you are agreeable to that, old
gentleman?'

The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her.  The
lady of the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but
the drum proving an inconvenient table for two, they descended
again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the
tea-tray, the bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short
everything of which she had partaken herself, except the bottle
which she had already embraced an opportunity of slipping into her
pocket.

'Set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place,'
said their friend, superintending the arrangements from above.
'Now hand up the teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of
fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can,
and don't spare anything; that's all I ask of you.'

They might perhaps have carried out the lady's wish, if it had been
less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all.
But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or
uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.

While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted
on the earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large
bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured
tread and very stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to
time with an air of calm delight, and deriving particular
gratification from the red panels and the brass knocker.  When she
had taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the
steps and called 'George'; whereupon a man in a carter's frock, who
had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see
everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs
that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting attitude, supporting
on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone bottle, and
bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.

'Yes, Missus,' said George.

'How did you find the cold pie, George?'

'It warn't amiss, mum.'

'And the beer,' said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of
being more interested in this question than the last; 'is it
passable, George?'

'It's more flatterer than it might be,' George returned, 'but it
an't so bad for all that.'

To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting
in quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and
then smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head.  No
doubt with the same amiable desire, he immediately resumed his
knife and fork, as a practical assurance that the beer had wrought
no bad effect upon his appetite.

The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and
then said,

'Have you nearly finished?'

'Wery nigh, mum.'  And indeed, after scraping the dish all round
with his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth,
and after taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that,
by degrees almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went further
and further back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the
ground, this gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came
forth from his retreat.

'I hope I haven't hurried you, George,' said his mistress, who
appeared to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.

'If you have,' returned the follower, wisely reserving himself
for any favourable contingency that might occur, 'we must make up
for it next time, that's all.'

'We are not a heavy load, George?'

'That's always what the ladies say,' replied the man, looking a
long way round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general
against such monstrous propositions.  'If you see a woman a
driving, you'll always perceive that she never will keep her whip
still; the horse can't go fast enough for her.  If cattle have got
their proper load, you never can persuade a woman that they'll not
bear something more.  What is ' the cause of this here?'

'Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if
we took them with us?' asked his mistress, offering no reply to the
philosophical inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who
were painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot.

'They'd make a difference in course,' said George doggedly.

'Would they make much difference?' repeated his mistress.  'They
can't be very heavy.'

'The weight o' the pair, mum,' said George, eyeing them with the
look of a man who was calculating within half an ounce or so,
'would be a trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell."

Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately
acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as
having lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot
the subject in the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in
the caravan, for which she thanked its lady with unaffected
earnestness.  She helped with great readiness and alacrity to put
away the tea-things and other matters that were lying about, and,
the horses being by that time harnessed, mounted into the vehicle,
followed by her delighted grandfather.  Their patroness then shut
the door and sat herself down by her drum at an open window; and,
the steps being struck by George and stowed under the carriage,
away they went, with a great noise of flapping and creaking and
straining, and the bright brass knocker, which nobody ever knocked
at, knocking one perpetual double knock of its own accord as they
jolted heavily along.




CHAPTER 27


When they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance,
Nell ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more
closely.  One half of it--that moiety in which the comfortable
proprietress was then seated--was carpeted, and so partitioned off
at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed
after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which was shaded, like
the little windows, with fair white curtains, and looked
comfortable enough, though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the
lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it, was an
unfathomable mystery.  The other half served for a kitchen, and was
fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof.
It held also a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of
water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery.  These
latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that portion of
the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were
ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle
and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines.

The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and
poetry of the musical instruments, and little Nell and her
grandfather sat at the other in all the humility of the kettle and
saucepans, while the machine jogged on and shifted the darkening
prospect very slowly.  At first the two travellers spoke little,
and only in whispers, but as they grew more familiar with the place
they ventured to converse with greater freedom, and talked about
the country through which they were passing, and the different
objects that presented themselves, until the old man fell asleep;
which the lady of the caravan observing, invited Nell to come and
sit beside her.

'Well, child,' she said, 'how do you like this way of travelling?'

Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which
the lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits.  For
herself, she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect
which required a constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid
stimulant was derived from the suspicious bottle of which mention
has been already made or from other sources, she did not say.

'That's the happiness of you young people,' she continued.  'You
don't know what it is to be low in your feelings.  You always have
your appetites too, and what a comfort that is.'

Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own
appetite very conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was
nothing either in the lady's personal appearance or in her manner
of taking tea, to lead to the conclusion that her natural relish
for meat and drink had at all failed her.  She silently assented,
however, as in duty bound, to what the lady had said, and waited
until she should speak again.

Instead of speaking, however, she sat looking at the child for a
long time in silence, and then getting up, brought out from a
corner a large roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid
upon the floor and spread open with her foot until it nearly
reached from one end of the caravan to the other.

'There, child,' she said, 'read that.'

Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the
inscription, 'Jarley's WAX-WORK.'

'Read it again,' said the lady, complacently.

'Jarley's Wax-Work,' repeated Nell.

'That's me,' said the lady.  'I am Mrs Jarley.'

Giving the child an encouraging look, intended to reassure her and
let her know, that, although she stood in the presence of the
original Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly
overwhelmed and borne down, the lady of the caravan unfolded
another scroll, whereon was the inscription, 'One hundred figures
the full size of life,' and then another scroll, on which was
written, 'The only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the
world,' and then several smaller scrolls with such inscriptions as
'Now exhibiting within'--'The genuine and only Jarley'--'Jarley's
unrivalled collection'--'Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and
Gentry'--'The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.'  When she
had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the
astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in
the shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of
parodies on popular melodies, as 'Believe me if all Jarley's
wax-work so rare'--'I saw thy show in youthful prime'--'Over the
water to Jarley;' while, to consult all tastes, others were
composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as
a parody on the favourite air of 'If I had a donkey,' beginning


If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go
To see Mrs JARLEY'S wax-work show,
Do you think I'd acknowledge him?   Oh no no!
Then run to Jarley's--


--besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues
between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of
Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all
having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to
Jarley's, and that children and servants were admitted at
half-price.  When she had brought all these testimonials of her
important position in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs
Jarley rolled them up, and having put them carefully away, sat down
again, and looked at the child in triumph.

'Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,' said Mrs
Jarley, 'after this.'

'I never saw any wax-work, ma'am,' said Nell.  'Is it funnier than Punch?'

'Funnier!' said Mrs Jarley in a shrill voice.  'It is not funny at all.'

'Oh!' said Nell, with all possible humility.

'It isn't funny at all,' repeated Mrs Jarley.  'It's calm and--
what's that word again--critical? --no--classical, that's it--
it's calm and classical.  No low beatings and knockings about, no
jokings and squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the
same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility;
and so like life, that if wax-work only spoke and walked about,
you'd hardly know the difference.  I won't go so far as to say,
that, as it is, I've seen wax-work quite like life, but I've
certainly seen some life that was exactly like wax-work.'

'Is it here, ma'am?' asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by
this description.

'Is what here, child?'

'The wax-work, ma'am.'

'Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of?  How could such
a collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of
one little cupboard and a few boxes?  It's gone on in the other
wans to the assembly-rooms, and there it'll be exhibited the day
after to-morrow.  You are going to the same town, and you'll see it
I dare say.  It's natural to expect that you'll see
it, and I've no doubt you will.  I suppose you couldn't stop away
if you was to try ever so much.'

'I shall not be in the town, I think, ma'am,' said the child.

'Not there!' cried Mrs Jarley.  'Then where will you be?'

'I--I--don't quite know.  I am not certain.'

'You don't mean to say that you're travelling about the country
without knowing where you're going to?' said the lady of the
caravan.  'What curious people you are!  What line are you in?  You
looked to me at the races, child, as if you were quite out of your
element, and had got there by accident.'

'We were there quite by accident,' returned Nell, confused by this
abrupt questioning.  'We are poor people, ma'am, and are only
wandering about.  We have nothing to do;--I wish we had.'

'You amaze me more and more,' said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for
some time as mute as one of her own figures.  'Why, what do you
call yourselves?  Not beggars?'

'Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what else we are,' returned the child.

'Lord bless me,' said the lady of the caravan.  'I never heard of
such a thing.  Who'd have thought it!'

She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell
feared she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection
and conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her
dignity that nothing could repair.  This persuasion was rather
confirmed than otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke
silence and said,

'And yet you can read.  And write too, I shouldn't wonder?'

'Yes, ma'am,' said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the
confession.

'Well, and what a thing that is,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'I can't!'

Nell said 'indeed' in a tone which might imply, either that she was
reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was
the delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the
Royal Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she
presumed so great a lady could scarcely stand in need of such
ordinary accomplishments.  In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the
response, it did not provoke her to further questioning, or tempt
her into any more remarks at the time, for she relapsed into a
thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long that Nell
withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who was
now awake.

At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation,
and, summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was
seated, held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice,
as if she were asking his advice on an important point, and
discussing the pros and cons of some very weighty matter.  This
conference at length concluded, she drew in her head again, and
beckoned Nell to approach.

'And the old gentleman too,' said Mrs Jarley; 'for I want to have
a word with him.  Do you want a good situation for your
grand-daughter, master?  If you do, I can put her in the way of
getting one.  What do you say?'

'I can't leave her,' answered the old man.  'We can't separate.
What would become of me without her?'

'I should have thought you were old enough to take care of
yourself, if you ever will be,' retorted Mrs Jarley sharply.

'But he never will be,' said the child in an earnest whisper.  'I
fear he never will be again.  Pray do not speak harshly to him.  We
are very thankful to you,' she added aloud; 'but neither of us
could part from the other if all the wealth of the world were
halved between us.'

Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her
proposal, and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell's hand
and detained it in his own, as if she could have very well
dispensed with his company or even his earthly existence.  After an
awkward pause, she thrust her head out of the window again, and had
another conference with the driver upon some point on which they
did not seem to agree quite so readily as on their former topic of
discussion; but they concluded at last, and she addressed the
grandfather again.

'If you're really disposed to employ yourself,' said Mrs Jarley,
'there would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust
the figures, and take the checks, and so forth.  What I want your
grand-daughter for, is to point 'em out to the company; they would
be soon learnt, and she has a way with her that people wouldn't
think unpleasant, though she does come after me; for I've been
always accustomed to go round with visitors myself, which I should
keep on doing now, only that my spirits make a little ease
absolutely necessary.  It's not a common offer, bear in mind,' said
the lady, rising into the tone and manner in
which she was accustomed to address her audiences; 'it's Jarley's
wax-work, remember.  The duty's very light and genteel, the company
particularly select, the exhibition takes place in assembly-rooms,
town-halls, large rooms at inns, or auction galleries.  There is
none of your open-air wagrancy at Jarley's, recollect; there is no
tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley's, remember.  Every expectation
held out in the handbills is realised to the utmost, and the whole
forms an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this
kingdom.  Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence,
and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again!'

Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the
details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to
salary she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had
sufficiently tested Nell's abilities, and narrowly watched her in
the performance of her duties.  But board and lodging, both for her
and her grandfather, she bound herself to provide, and she
furthermore passed her word that the board should always be good in
quality, and in quantity plentiful.

Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so
engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down
the caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with
uncommon dignity and self-esteem.  Nor will this appear so slight
a circumstance as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered
that the caravan was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none
but a person of great natural stateliness and acquired grace could
have forborne to stagger.

'Now, child?' cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned
towards her.

'We are very much obliged to you, ma'am,' said Nell, 'and
thankfully accept your offer.'

'And you'll never be sorry for it,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'I'm
pretty sure of that.  So as that's all settled, let us have a bit
of supper.'

In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been
drinking strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the
paved streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet,
for it was by this time near midnight, and the townspeople were all
abed.  As it was too late an hour to repair to the exhibition room,
they turned aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within
the old town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another
caravan, which, notwithstanding that it bore on the lawful panel
the great name of Jarley, and was employed besides in conveying
from place to place the wax-work which was its country's pride,
was designated by a grovelling stamp-office as a 'Common Stage
Waggon,' and numbered too--seven thousand odd hundred--as though
its precious freight were mere flour or coals!

This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden
at the place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services
were again required) was assigned to the old man as his
sleeping-place for the night; and within its wooden walls, Nell
made him up the best bed she could, from the materials at hand.
For herself, she was to sleep in Mrs Jarley's own travelling-
carriage, as a signal mark of that lady's favour and confidence.

She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the
other waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to
linger for a little while in the air.  The moon was shining down
upon the old gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very
black and dark; and with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear,
she slowly approached the gate, and stood still to look up at it,
wondering to see how dark, and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.

There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or
been carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what
strange people it must have looked down upon when it stood there,
and how many hard struggles might have taken place, and how many
murders might have been done, upon that silent spot, when there
suddenly emerged from the black shade of the arch, a man.  The
instant he appeared, she recognised him--Who could have failed to
recognise, in that instant, the ugly misshapen Quilp!

The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on
one side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of
the earth.  But there he was.  The child withdrew into a dark
corner, and saw him pass close to her.  He had a stick in his hand,
and, when he had got clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant
upon it, looked back--directly, as it seemed, towards where she
stood--and beckoned.

To her?  oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an
extremity of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come
from her hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer,
there issued slowly forth from the arch another figure--that of a
boy--who carried on his back a trunk.

'Faster, sirrah!' cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and
showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come
down from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old
house, 'faster!'

'It's a dreadful heavy load, Sir,' the boy pleaded.  'I've come on
very fast, considering.'

'YOU have come fast, considering!' retorted Quilp; 'you creep, you
dog, you crawl, you measure distance like a worm.  There are the
chimes now, half-past twelve.'

He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a
suddenness and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour
that London coach passed the corner of the road.  The boy replied,
at one.

'Come on then,' said Quilp, 'or I shall be too late.  Faster--do
you hear me?  Faster.'

The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward,
constantly turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater
haste.  Nell did not dare to move until they were out of sight and
hearing, and then hurried to where she had left her grandfather,
feeling as if the very passing of the dwarf so near him must have
filled him with alarm and terror.  But he was sleeping soundly, and
she softly withdrew.

As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say
nothing of this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had
come (and she feared it must have been in search of them) it was
clear by his inquiry about the London coach that he was on his way
homeward, and as he had passed through that place, it was but
reasonable to suppose that they were safer from his inquiries
there, than they could be elsewhere.  These reflections did not
remove her own alarm, for she had been too much terrified to be
easily composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in by a legion of
Quilps, and the very air itself were filled with them.

The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of
Royalty had, by some process of self-abridgment known only to
herself, got into her travelling bed, where she was snoring
peacefully, while the large bonnet, carefully disposed upon the
drum, was revealing its glories by the light of a dim lamp that
swung from the roof.  The child's bed was already made upon the
floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear the steps removed
as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy communication
between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this means
effectually prevented.  Certain guttural sounds, too, which from
time to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a
rustling of straw in the same direction, apprised her that the
driver was couched upon the ground beneath, and gave her an
additional feeling of security.

Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken
sleep by fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who
throughout her uneasy dreams was somehow connected with the
wax-work, or was wax-work himself, or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work
too, or was himself, Mrs Jarley, wax-work, and a barrel organ all
in one, and yet not exactly any of them either.  At length, towards
break of day, that deep sleep came upon her which succeeds to
weariness and over-watching, and which has no consciousness
but one of overpowering and irresistible enjoyment.





CHAPTER 28


Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she
awoke, Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and
actively engaged in preparing breakfast.  She received Nell's
apology for being so late with perfect good humour, and said that
she should not have roused her if she had slept on until noon.

'Because it does you good,' said the lady of the caravan, 'when
you're tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue
quite off; and that's another blessing of your time of life--you
can sleep so very sound.'

'Have you had a bad night, ma'am?' asked Nell.

'I seldom have anything else, child,' replied Mrs Jarley, with the
air of a martyr.  'I sometimes wonder how I bear it.'

Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the
caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night,
Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake.
However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal
account of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down
with her grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast.  The meal
finished, Nell assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them
in their proper places, and these household duties performed, Mrs
Jarley arrayed herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the
purpose of making a progress through the streets of the town.

'The wan will come on to bring the boxes,' said Mrs Jarley, and you
had better come in it, child.  I am obliged to walk, very much
against my will; but the people expect it of me, and public
characters can't be their own masters and mistresses in such
matters as these.  How do I look, child?'

Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking
a great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making
several abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back,
was at last satisfied with her appearance, and went forth
majestically.

The caravan followed at no great distance.  As it went jolting
through the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in
what kind of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at
every turn the dreaded face of Quilp.  It was a pretty large town,
with an open square which they were crawling slowly across, and in
the middle of which was the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a
weather-cock.  There were houses of stone, houses of red brick,
houses of yellow brick, houses of lath and plaster; and houses of
wood, many of them very old, with withered faces carved upon the
beams, and staring down into the street.  These had very little
winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in some of the narrower
ways, quite overhung the pavement.  The streets were very clean,
very sunny, very empty, and very dull.  A few idle men lounged
about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the tradesmen's
doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an
alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on
going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if
perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot
bright pavement for minutes afterwards.  Nothing seemed to be going
on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy
hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too
slow.  The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with
moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness,
and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.

Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at
last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an
admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an
important item of the curiosities, and were fully impressed with
the belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax.  The
chests were taken out with all convenient despatch, and taken in to
be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man
in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with turnpike
tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red
festoons and other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the
best advantage in the decoration of the room.

They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were.
As the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the
envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred
herself to assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her
grandfather also was of great service.  The two men being well used
to it, did a great deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out
the tin tacks from a linen pocket like a toll-collector's which she
wore for the purpose, and encouraged her assistants to renewed
exertion.

While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose
and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight
in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all
over, but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare--
dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg,
and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence--looked in at
the door and smiled affably.  Mrs Jarley's back being then towards
him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her
myrmidons were not to apprise her of his presence, and stealing up
close behind her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully
'Boh!'

'What, Mr Slum!' cried the lady of the wax-work.  'Lot! who'd have
thought of seeing you here!'

''Pon my soul and honour,' said Mr Slum, 'that's a good remark.
'Pon my soul and honour that's a wise remark.  Who would have
thought it!  George, my faithful feller, how are you?'

George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing
that he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering
lustily all the time.

'I came here,' said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley--
''pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for.  It
would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad.  I wanted a little
inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and--
'Pon my soul and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking
himself and looking round the room, 'what a devilish classical
thing this is! by Gad, it's quite Minervian.'

'It'll look well enough when it comes to be finished,' observed Mrs Jarley.

'Well enough!' said Mr Slum.  'Will you believe me when I say it's
the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've
exercised my pen upon this charming theme?  By the way--any
orders?  Is there any little thing I can do for you?'

'It comes so very expensive, sir,' replied Mrs Jarley, 'and I
really don't think it does much good.'

'Hush!  No, no!' returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand.  'No fibs.
I'll not hear it.  Don't say it don't do good.  Don't say it.  I
know better!'

'I don't think it does,' said Mrs Jarley.

'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Slum, 'you're giving way, you're coming down.
Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask
the old lottery-office-keepers--ask any man among 'em what my
poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of
Slum.  If he's an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and
blesses the name of Slum--mark that!  You are acquainted with
Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?'

'Yes, surely.'

'Then upon my soul and honour, ma'am, you'll find in a certain
angle of that dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller
names than Slum,' retorted that gentleman, tapping himself
expressively on the forehead to imply that there was some slight
quantity of brain behind it.  'I've got a little trifle here, now,'
said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full of scraps of paper,
'a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the moment, which
I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this place on
fire with.  It's an acrostic--the name at this moment is Warren,
and the idea's a convertible one, and a positive inspiration for
Jarley.  Have the acrostic.'

'I suppose it's very dear,' said Mrs Jarley.

'Five shillings,' returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a
toothpick.  'Cheaper than any prose.'

'I couldn't give more than three,' said Mrs Jarley.

'--And six,' retorted Slum.  'Come.  Three-and-six.'

Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet's insinuating manner, and
Mr Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a
three-and-sixpenny one.  Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the
acrostic, after taking a most affectionate leave of his patroness,
and promising to return, as soon as he possibly could, with a fair
copy for the printer.

As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the
preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed
shortly after his departure.  When the festoons were all put up as
tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered,
and there were displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from
the floor, running round the room and parted from the rude public
by a crimson rope breast high, divers sprightly effigies of
celebrated characters, singly and in groups, clad in glittering
dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or less
unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and
their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs
and arms very strongly developed, and all their countenances
expressing great surprise.  All the gentlemen were very
pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies
were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen
were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary
earnestness at nothing.

When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight,
Mrs Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and
the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre,
formally invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for
pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her
in her duty.

'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a
figure at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of
Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her
finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday.  Observe the blood
which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of
the period, with which she is at work.'

All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and
the needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.

'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is jasper
Packlemerton of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen
wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet
when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and
virtue.  On being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry
for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let
'em off so easy, and hoped all Christian husbands would pardon him
the offence.  Let this be a warning to all young ladies to be
particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice.
Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling,
and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when
committing his barbarous murders.'

When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without
faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the
thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of
dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the
woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and
other historical characters and interesting but misguided
individuals.  And so well did Nell profit by her instructions, and
so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been
shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full possession
of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly competent
to the enlightenment of visitors.

Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy
result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the
remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage
had been already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with
the inscription she had already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and
a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley
herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company
with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary
Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion,
and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the
imposition of the window duty.  The preparations without doors had
not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was
telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a
brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest
possible complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a
cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.

It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be
judiciously distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find
their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the
parody commencing 'If I know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the
taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers' clerks and choice
spirits of the place.  When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had
waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill
composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that
wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the
sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down
to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing
campaign.




CHAPTER 29


Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius.  In the midst of
the various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition,
little Nell was not forgotten.  The light cart in which the Brigand
usually made his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and
streamers, and the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the
miniature of his beloved as usual, Nell was accommodated with a
seat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and in this
state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning,
dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of drum and
trumpet.  The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and
timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country
place.  The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in
the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be
important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief
attraction.  Grown-up folks began to be interested in the
bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in
love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed
in small-text, at the wax-work door.

This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest
Nell should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone
again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the
figures every half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring
audiences.  And these audiences were of a very superior
description, including a great many young ladies' boarding-schools,
whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great pains to conciliate, by
altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as clown to represent
Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the composition of
his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great renown into
Mrs Hannah More--both of which likenesses were admitted by Miss
Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day
Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private
View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from
their extreme correctness.  Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and
without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect
exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white
shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord
Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it.  Miss
Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to
reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:
observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite
incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a
Dean and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.

Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the
lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not
only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for
making everybody about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it
may be remarked, is, even in persons who live in much finer places
than caravans, a far more rare and uncommon one than the first, and
is not by any means its necessary consequence.  As her popularity
procured her various little fees from the visitors on which her
patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was
well-treated and useful, she had no cause of anxiety in connexion
with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her recollection
of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day suddenly
encounter them.

Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was
constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure.
She slept, for their better security, in the room where the
wax-work figures were, and she never retired to this place at night
but she tortured herself--she could not help it--with imagining
a resemblance, in some one or other of their death-like faces, to
the dwarf, and this fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she
would almost believe he had removed the figure and stood within the
clothes.  Then there were so many of them with their great glassy
eyes--and, as they stood one behind the other all about her bed,
they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their
grim stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them
for their own sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky
figures until she was obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and
sit at the open window and feel a companionship in the bright
stars.  At these times, she would recall the old house and the
window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think of
poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes,
and she would weep and smile together.

Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to
her grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of
their former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the
change in their condition and of their late helplessness and
destitution.  When they were wandering about, she seldom thought of
this, but now she could not help considering what would become of
them if he fell sick, or her own strength were to fail her.  He was
very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and
glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no
prospect of improvement--a mere child--a poor, thoughtless,
vacant creature--a harmless fond old man, susceptible of tender
love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions,
but alive to nothing more.  It made her very sad to know that this
was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by,
smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he
caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was
fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple
questions, yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost
conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--
so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would burst into
tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon her
knees and pray that he might be restored.

But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this
condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her
solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials
for a young heart.  Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to
come.

One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather
went out to walk.  They had been rather closely confined for some
days, and the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance.
Clear of the town, they took a footpath which struck through some
pleasant fields, judging that it would terminate in the road they
quitted and enable them to return that way.  It made, however, a
much wider circuit than they had supposed, and thus they were
tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of which
they were in search, and stopped to rest.

It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark
and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up
masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed
here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon
the earth.  The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun
went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds
coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning.  Large drops
of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing
onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over
all the sky.  Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder,
then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour
seemed to have gathered in an instant.

Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and
the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in
which they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst
forth in earnest, and every moment increased in violence.  Drenched
with the pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and
bewildered by the glare of the forked lightning, they would have
passed a solitary house without being aware of its vicinity, had
not a man, who was standing at the door, called lustily to them to
enter.

'Your ears ought to be better than other folks' at any rate, if you
make so little of the chance of being struck blind,' he said,
retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the
jagged lightning came again.  'What were you going past for, eh?'
he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to
a room behind.

'We didn't see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,' Nell
replied.

'No wonder,' said the man, 'with this lightning in one's eyes,
by-the-by.  You had better stand by the fire here, and dry
yourselves a bit.  You can call for what you like if you want
anything.  If you don't want anything, you are not obliged to give
an order.  Don't be afraid of that.  This is a public-house, that's
all.  The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.'

'Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?' asked Nell.

'I thought everybody knew that,' replied the landlord.  'Where have
you come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the
church catechism?  This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves--
Jem Groves--honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral
character, and has a good dry skittle-ground.  If any man has got
anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and
Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from
four pound a side to forty.

With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to
intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred
scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at
society in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and,
applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips,
drank Jem Groves's health.

The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the
room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire.  It seemed as if
somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating
doubts of Mr Groves's prowess, and had thereby given rise to these
egotistical expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by
giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a
reply from the other side.

'There an't many men,' said Mr Groves, no answer being returned,
'who would ventur' to cross Jem Groves under his own roof.  There's
only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that
man's not a hundred mile from here neither.  But he's worth a dozen
men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence--he
knows that.'

In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice
bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.'  And the same
voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in
brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was
made of.'

'Nell, they're--they're playing cards,' whispered the old man,
suddenly interested.  'Don't you hear them?'

'Look sharp with that candle,' said the voice; 'it's as much as I
can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter
closed as quick as you can, will you?  Your beer will be the worse
for to-night's thunder I expect. --Game!  Seven-and-sixpence to
me, old Isaac.  Hand over.'

'Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?' whispered the old man again,
with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.

'I haven't seen such a storm as this,' said a sharp cracked voice
of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had
died away, 'since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen
times running on the red.  We all said he had the Devil's luck and
his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out
and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody
could have seen him.'

'Ah!' returned the gruff voice; 'for all old Luke's winning through
thick and thin of late years, I remember the time when he was the
unluckiest and unfortunatest of men.  He never took a dice-box in
his hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned
out completely.'

'Do you hear what he says?' whispered the old man.  'Do you hear
that, Nell?'

The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance
had undergone a complete change.  His face was flushed and eager,
his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and
thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that
she shook beneath its grasp.

'Bear witness,' he muttered, looking upward, 'that I always said
it; that I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that
it must be so!  What money have we, Nell?  Come!  I saw you with
money yesterday.  What money have we?  Give it to me.'

'No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,' said the frightened child.
'Let us go away from here.  Do not mind the rain.  Pray let us go.'

'Give it to me, I say,' returned the old man fiercely.  'Hush,
hush, don't cry, Nell.  If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn't mean it.
It's for thy good.  I have wronged thee, Nell, but I will right
thee yet, I will indeed.  Where is the money?'

'Do not take it,' said the child.  'Pray do not take it, dear.  For
both our sakes let me keep it, or let me throw it away--better let
me throw it away, than you take it now.  Let us go; do let us go.'

'Give me the money,' returned the old man, 'I must have it.  There--
there--that's my dear Nell.  I'll right thee one day, child,
I'll right thee, never fear!'

She took from her pocket a little purse.  He seized it with the
same rapid impatience which had characterised his speech, and
hastily made his way to the other side of the screen.  It was
impossible to restrain him, and the trembling child followed close
behind.

The landlord had placed a light upon the table, and was engaged in
drawing the curtain of the window.  The speakers whom they had
heard were two men, who had a pack of cards and some silver money
between them, while upon the screen itself the games they had
played were scored in chalk.  The man with the rough voice was a
burly fellow of middle age, with large black whiskers, broad
cheeks, a coarse wide mouth, and bull neck, which was pretty freely
displayed as his shirt collar was only confined by a loose red
neckerchief.  He wore his hat, which was of a brownish-white, and
had beside him a thick knotted stick.  The other man, whom his
companion had called Isaac, was of a more slender figure--
stooping, and high in the shoulders--with a very ill-favoured
face, and a most sinister and villainous squint.

'Now old gentleman,' said Isaac, looking round.  'Do you know
either of us?  This side of the screen is private, sir.'

'No offence, I hope,' returned the old man.

'But by G--, sir, there is offence,' said the other, interrupting
him, 'when you intrude yourself upon a couple of gentlemen who are
particularly engaged.'

'I had no intention to offend,' said the old man, looking anxiously
at the cards.  'I thought that--'

'But you had no right to think, sir,' retorted the other.  'What
the devil has a man at your time of life to do with thinking?'

'Now bully boy,' said the stout man, raising his eyes from his
cards for the first time, 'can't you let him speak?'

The landlord, who had apparently resolved to remain neutral until
he knew which side of the question the stout man would espouse,
chimed in at this place with 'Ah, to be sure, can't you let him
speak, Isaac List?'

'Can't I let him speak,' sneered Isaac in reply, mimicking as
nearly as he could, in his shrill voice, the tones of the landlord.
'Yes, I can let him speak, Jemmy Groves.'

'Well then, do it, will you?' said the landlord.

Mr List's squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to
threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion,
who had been looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to
it.

'Who knows,' said he, with a cunning look, 'but the gentleman may
have civilly meant to ask if he might have the honour to take a
hand with us!'

'I did mean it,' cried the old man.  'That is what I mean.  That is
what I want now!'

'I thought so,' returned the same man.  'Then who knows but the
gentleman, anticipating our objection to play for love, civilly
desired to play for money?'

The old man replied by shaking the little purse in his eager hand,
and then throwing it down upon the table, and gathering up the
cards as a miser would clutch at gold.

'Oh!  That indeed,' said Isaac; 'if that's what the gentleman
meant, I beg the gentleman's pardon.  Is this the gentleman's
little purse?  A very pretty little purse.  Rather a light purse,'
added Isaac, throwing it into the air and catching it dexterously,
'but enough to amuse a gentleman for half an hour or so.'

'We'll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,' said the
stout man.  'Come, Jemmy.'

The landlord, who conducted himself like one who was well used to
such little parties, approached the table and took his seat.  The
child, in a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored
him, even then, to come away.

'Come; and we may be so happy,' said the child.

'We WILL be happy,' replied the old man hastily.  'Let me go, Nell.
The means of happiness are on the cards and the dice.  We must rise
from little winnings to great.  There's little to be won here; but
great will come in time.  I shall but win back my own, and it's all
for thee, my darling.'

'God help us!' cried the child.  'Oh! what hard fortune brought us
here?'

'Hush!' rejoined the old man laying his hand upon her mouth,
'Fortune will not bear chiding.  We must not reproach her, or she
shuns us; I have found that out.'

'Now, mister,' said the stout man.  'If you're not coming yourself,
give us the cards, will you?'

'I am coming,' cried the old man.  'Sit thee down, Nell, sit thee
down and look on.  Be of good heart, it's all for thee--all--
every penny.  I don't tell them, no, no, or else they wouldn't
play, dreading the chance that such a cause must give me.  Look at
them.  See what they are and what thou art.  Who doubts that we
must win!'

'The gentleman has thought better of it, and isn't coming,' said
Isaac, making as though he would rise from the table.  'I'm sorry
the gentleman's daunted--nothing venture, nothing have--but the
gentleman knows best.'

'Why I am ready.  You have all been slow but me,' said the old man.
'I wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.'

As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three
closing round it at the same time, the game commenced.

The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind.
Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate
passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains
were to her alike.  Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by
a defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and
intensely anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry
stakes, that she could have almost better borne to see him dead.
And yet she was the innocent cause of all this torture, and he,
gambling with such a savage thirst for gain as the most insatiable
gambler never felt, had not one selfish thought!

On the contrary, the other three--knaves and gamesters by their
trade--while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as
if every virtue had been centered in their breasts.  Sometimes one
would look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle,
or to glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window
and fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder
than the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put
him out; but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything
but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no
greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been
made of stone.

The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown
fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and
break above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse
distance; and still the game went on, and still the anxious child
was quite forgotten.




CHAPTER 30


At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only
winner.  Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional
fortitude.  Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had
quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised
nor pleased.

Nell's little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his
side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old
man sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt
before, and turning up the different hands to see what each man
would have held if they had still been playing.  He was quite
absorbed in this occupation, when the child drew near and laid her
hand upon his shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.

'See the curse of poverty, Nell,' he said, pointing to the packs he
had spread out upon the table.  'If I could have gone on a little
longer, only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my
side.  Yes, it's as plain as the marks upon the cards.  See here--
and there--and here again.'

'Put them away,' urged the child.  'Try to forget them.'

'Try to forget them!' he rejoined, raising his haggard face to
hers, and regarding her with an incredulous stare.  'To forget
them!  How are we ever to grow rich if I forget them?'

The child could only shake her head.

'No, no, Nell,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'they must not
be forgotten.  We must make amends for this as soon as we can.
Patience--patience, and we'll right thee yet, I promise thee.
Lose to-day, win to-morrow.  And nothing can be won without anxiety
and care--nothing.  Come, I am ready.'

'Do you know what the time is?' said Mr Groves, who was smoking
with his friends.  'Past twelve o'clock--'

'--And a rainy night,' added the stout man.

'The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves.  Good beds.  Cheap
entertainment for man and beast,' said Mr Groves, quoting his
sign-board.  'Half-past twelve o'clock.'

'It's very late,' said the uneasy child.  'I wish we had gone
before.  What will they think of us!  It will be two o'clock by the
time we get back.  What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?'

'Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling;
total two shillings and sixpence,' replied the Valiant Soldier.

Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when
she came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent
habits of Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in
which they would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up
in the middle of the night--and when she reflected, on the other
hand, that if they remained where they were, and rose early in the
morning, they might get back before she awoke, and could plead the
violence of the storm by which they had been overtaken, as a good
apology for their absence--she decided, after a great deal of
hesitation, to remain.  She therefore took her grandfather aside,
and telling him that she had still enough left to defray the cost
of their lodging, proposed that they should stay there for the
night.

'If I had had but that money before--If I had only known of it a
few minutes ago!' muttered the old man.

'We will decide to stop here if you please,' said Nell, turning
hastily to the landlord.

'I think that's prudent,' returned Mr Groves.  'You shall have your
suppers directly.'

Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out
the ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place,
with the bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and
beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his
guests fall to, and make themselves at home.  Nell and her
grandfather ate sparingly, for both were occupied with their own
reflections; the other gentlemen, for whose constitutions beer was
too weak and tame a liquid, consoled themselves with spirits and
tobacco.

As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child
was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to
bed.  But as she felt the necessity of concealing her
little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of
gold, she took it secretly from its place of concealment, and
embraced an opportunity of following the landlord when he went out
of the room, and tendered it to him in the little bar.

'Will you give me the change here, if you please?' said the child.

Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money,
and rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as
though he had a mind to inquire how she came by it.  The coin being
genuine, however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like
a wise landlord, that it was no business of his.  At any rate, he
counted out the change, and gave it her.  The child was returning
to the room where they had passed the evening, when she fancied she
saw a figure just gliding in at the door.  There was nothing but a
long dark passage between this door and the place where she had
changed the money, and, being very certain that no person had
passed in or out while she stood there, the thought struck her that
she had been watched.

But by whom?  When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates
exactly as she had left them.  The stout fellow lay upon two
chairs, resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed
in a similar attitude on the opposite side of the table.  Between
them sat her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a
kind of hungry admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were
some superior being.  She was puzzled for a moment, and looked
round to see if any else were there.  No.  Then she asked her
grandfather in a whisper whether anybody had left the room while
she was absent.  'No,' he said, 'nobody.'

It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that,
without anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should
have imagined this figure so very distinctly.  She was still
wondering and thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed.

The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they
went up stairs together.  It was a great, rambling house, with dull
corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to
make more gloomy.  She left her grandfather in his chamber, and
followed her guide to another, which was at the end of a passage,
and approached by some half-dozen crazy steps.  This was prepared
for her.  The girl lingered a little while to talk, and tell her
grievances.  She had not a good place, she said; the wages were
low, and the work was hard.  She was going to leave it in a
fortnight; the child couldn't recommend her to another, she
supposed?  Instead she was afraid another would be difficult to
get after living there, for the house had a very indifferent
character; there was far too much card-playing, and such like.
She was very much mistaken if some of the people who
came there oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she
wouldn't have it known that she had said so, for the world.  Then
there were some rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who
had threatened to go a soldiering--a final promise of knocking at
the door early in the morning--and 'Good night.'

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone.  She
could not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage
down stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure
her.  The men were very ill-looking.  They might get their living
by robbing and murdering travellers.  Who could tell?

Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for
a little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of
the night gave rise.  Here was the old passion awakened again in
her grandfather's breast, and to what further distraction it might
tempt him Heaven only knew.  What fears their absence might have
occasioned already!  Persons might be seeking for them even then.
Would they be forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again!  Oh!
why had they stopped in that strange place?  It would have been
better, under any circumstances, to have gone on!

At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,
troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a
start and in great terror.  A deeper slumber followed this--and
then--What!  That figure in the room.

A figure was there.  Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the
light when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the
bed and the dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its
way with noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed.  She had no
voice to cry for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching
it.

On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed's head.  The
breath so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those
wandering hands should light upon her face.  Back again it stole to
the window--then turned its head towards her.

The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the
room, but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how
the eyes looked and the ears listened.  There it remained,
motionless as she.  At length, still keeping the face towards her,
it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money.

Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and
replacing the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon
its hands and knees, and crawled away.  How slowly it seemed to
move, now that she could hear but not see it, creeping along the
floor!  It reached the door at last, and stood upon its feet.  The
steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being
by herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--
and then her power of speech would be restored.  With no
consciousness of having moved, she gained the door.

There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.

She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the
darkness without being seized, but her blood curdled at the
thought.  The figure stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly,
but of necessity; for going back into the room was hardly less
terrible than going on.

The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing
streams from the thatched roof.  Some summer insect, with no escape
into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the
walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs.  The
figure moved again.  The child involuntarily did the same.  Once in
her grandfather's room, she would be safe.

It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she
longed so ardently to reach.  The child, in the agony of being so
near, had almost darted forward with the design of bursting into
the room and closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.

The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and
had a design upon the old man's life!  She turned faint and sick.
It did.  It went in.  There was a light inside.  The figure was now
within the chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost
senseless--stood looking on.

The door was partly open.  Not knowing what she meant to do, but
meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward
and looked in.

What sight was that which met her view!

The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty.  And at a
table sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his
white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his
eyes unnaturally bright--counting the money of which his hands had
robbed her.




CHAPTER 31


With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she
had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and
groped her way back to her own chamber.  The terror she had lately
felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her.  No
strange robber, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his
guests, or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no
nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have awakened in
her bosom half the dread which the recognition of her silent
visitor inspired.  The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost
into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast
asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the
ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse--immeasurably
worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon--
than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested.  If he should
return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if,
distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come
back to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea
of his slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face
toward the empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to
avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable.  She sat and
listened.  Hark!  A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was
slowly opening.  It was but imagination, yet imagination had all
the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would
have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was
always coming, and never went away.

The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror.
She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose
love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the
man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking
in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed
like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his
image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of,
because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he
did.  She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion,
save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him.
She had wept to see him dull and quiet.  How much greater cause she
had for weeping now!

The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the
phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt
it would be a relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were
asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that
clustered round his image.  She stole down the stairs and passage
again.  The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle
burning as before.

She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were
waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see
if his were still alight.  Looking into the room, she saw him lying
calmly on his bed, and so took courage to enter.

Fast asleep.  No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no
wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace.  This was not the
gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and
jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning
light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-
traveller, her good, kind grandfather.

She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she
had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.

'God bless him!' said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid
cheek.  'I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they
found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky.
He has only me to help him.  God bless us both!'

Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come,
and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of
that long, long, miserable night.

At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep.
She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed;
and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down
to her grandfather.  But first she searched her pocket and found
that her money was all gone--not a sixpence remained.

The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their
road.  The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to
expect that she would tell him of her loss.  She felt she must do
that, or he might suspect the truth.

'Grandfather,' she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked
about a mile in silence, 'do you think they are honest people at
the house yonder?'

'Why?' returned the old man trembling.  'Do I think them honest--
yes, they played honestly.'

'I'll tell you why I ask,' rejoined Nell.  'I lost some money last
night--out of my bedroom, I am sure.  Unless it was taken by
somebody in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make
me laugh heartily if I could but know it--'

'Who would take money in jest?' returned the old man in a hurried manner.
'Those who take money, take it to keep.  Don't talk of jest.'

'Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,' said the child, whose
last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.

'But is there no more, Nell?' said the old man; 'no more anywhere?
Was it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?'

'Nothing,' replied the child.

'We must get more,' said the old man, 'we must earn it, Nell, hoard
it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow.  Never mind this
loss.  Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it.  Don't ask
how;--we may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody,
or trouble may come of it.  And so they took it out of thy room,
when thou wert asleep!' he added in a compassionate tone, very
different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken
until now.  'Poor Nell, poor little Nell!'

The child hung down her head and wept.  The sympathising tone in
which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that.  It was not
the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.

'Not a word about it to any one but me,' said the old man, 'no, not
even to me,' he added hastily, 'for it can do no good.  All the
losses that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling.
Why should they be, when we will win them back?'

'Let them go,' said the child looking up.  'Let them go, once and
for ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had
been a thousand pounds.'

'Well, well,' returned the old man, checking himself as some
impetuous answer rose to his lips, 'she knows no better.  I ought
to be thankful of it.'

'But listen to me,' said the child earnestly, 'will you listen to me?'

'Aye, aye, I'll listen,' returned the old man, still without
looking at her; 'a pretty voice.  It has always a sweet sound to
me.  It always had when it was her mother's, poor child.'

'Let me persuade you, then--oh, do let me persuade you,' said the
child, 'to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune
but the fortune we pursue together.'

'We pursue this aim together,' retorted her grandfather, still
looking away and seeming to confer with himself.  'Whose image
sanctifies the game?'

'Have we been worse off,' resumed the child, 'since you forgot
these cares, and we have been travelling on together?  Have we not
been much better and happier without a home to shelter us, than
ever we were in that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?'

'She speaks the truth,' murmured the old man in the same tone as
before.  'It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it
is.'

'Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we
turned our backs upon it for the last time,' said Nell, 'only
remember what we have been since we have been free of all those
miseries--what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had--what
pleasant times we have known--what happiness we have enjoyed.  If
we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and
slept the sounder for it.  Think what beautiful things we have
seen, and how contented we have felt.  And why was this blessed
change?'

He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him
no more just then, for he was busy.  After a time he kissed her
cheek, still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far
before him, and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow
upon the ground, as if he were painfully trying to collect his
disordered thoughts.  Once she saw tears in his eyes.  When he had
gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his as he was
accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his
late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child could not
trace them, he settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered
her to lead him where she would.

When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous
collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley
was not yet out of bed, and that, although she had suffered some
uneasiness on their account overnight, and had indeed sat up for
them until past eleven o'clock, she had retired in the persuasion,
that, being overtaken by storm at some distance from home, they had
sought the nearest shelter, and would not return before morning.
Nell immediately applied herself with great assiduity to the
decoration and preparation of the room, and had the satisfaction of
completing her task, and dressing herself neatly, before the
beloved of the Royal Family came down to breakfast.

'We haven't had,' said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, 'more
than eight of Miss Monflathers's young ladies all the time we've
been here, and there's twenty-six of 'em, as I was told by the cook
when I asked her a question or two and put her on the free-list.
We must try 'em with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it,
my dear, and see what effect that has upon 'em.'

The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs
Jarley adjusted Nell's bonnet with her own hands, and declaring
that she certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on
the establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and
certain needful directions as to the turnings on the right which
she was to take, and the turnings on the left which she was to
avoid.  Thus instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss
Monflathers's Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large
house, with a high wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass
plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflathers's
parlour-maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for
nothing in the shape of a man--no, not even a milkman--was
suffered, without special license, to pass that gate.  Even the
tax-gatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a
broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating.  More
obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss
Monflathers's frowned on all mankind.  The very butcher respected
it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the
bell.

As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges
with a creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond,
came a long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books
in their hands, and some with parasols likewise.  And last of the
goodly procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol
of lilac silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally
envious of the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers.

Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with
downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss
Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she
curtseyed and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss
Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.

'You're the wax-work child, are you not?' said Miss Monflathers.

'Yes, ma'am,' replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies
had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes
were fixed.

'And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child,' said
Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no
opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the
young ladies, 'to be a wax-work child at all?'

Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not
knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than
before.

'Don't you know,' said Miss Monflathers, 'that it's very naughty
and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and
benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused
from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?'

The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this
home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that
there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard.  Then they
smiled and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes
meeting, they exchanged looks which plainly said that each
considered herself smiler in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and
regarded the other as having no right to smile, and that her so
doing was an act of presumption and impertinence.

'Don't you feel how naughty it is of you,' resumed Miss
Monflathers, 'to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud
consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers,
the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the
constant contemplation of the steam-engine; and of earning a
comfortable and independent subsistence of from two-and-ninepence
to three shillings per week?  Don't you know that the harder you
are at work, the happier you are?'

'"How doth the little--"' murmured one of the teachers, in
quotation from Doctor Watts.

'Eh?' said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round.  'Who said
that?'

Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who
had, whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace;
by that means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.

'The little busy bee,' said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up,
'is applicable only to genteel children.

"In books, or work, or healthful play"

is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means
painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery.  In such
cases as these,' pointing to Nell, with her parasol, 'and in the
case of all poor people's children, we should read it thus:


"In work, work, work.  In work alway
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for ev'ry day
Some good account at last."'


A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but
from all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss
Monflathers improvising after this brilliant style; for although
she had been long known as a politician, she had never appeared
before as an original poet.  Just then somebody happened to
discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned
towards her.

There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her
handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall.
Before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about
fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the
others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang
forward and put it in her hand.  She was gliding timidly away
again, when she was arrested by the governess.

'It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,' said Miss Monflathers
predictively.  'Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.'

It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and
Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was.

'Is it not,' said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to
take a severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss
Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which
always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most
extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from
propensities which your original station in life have unhappily
rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?'

'I really intended no harm, ma'am,' said a sweet voice.  'It was a
momentary impulse, indeed.'

'An impulse!' repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully.  'I wonder that
you presume to speak of impulses to me'--both the teachers assented--
'I am astonished'--both the teachers were astonished--'I suppose
it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every
grovelling and debased person that comes in your way'--both the
teachers supposed so too.

'But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,' resumed the governess in
a tone of increased severity, 'that you cannot be permitted--if it
be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in
this establishment--that you cannot be permitted, and that you
shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in
this exceedingly gross manner.  If you have no reason to feel a
becoming pride before wax-work children, there are young ladies
here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or
leave the establishment, Miss Edwards.'

This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the
school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learnt, for
nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down
and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the
dwellers in the house.  The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for
they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in
their stations with much more respect.  The teachers were
infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their
time, and were paid now.  The pupils cared little for a companion
who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come
with post-horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and
wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear
her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and
nothing to display.  But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and
irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass?

Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the
brightest glory of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's
daughter--the real live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by
some extraordinary reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only
plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice
had both a ready wit, and a handsome face and figure.  It seems
incredible.  Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid a small premium
which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling
the baronet's daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught
them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to double that of any
other young lady's in the school, making no account of the honour
and reputation of her pupilage.  Therefore, and because she was a
dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards,
and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had
compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as
we have already seen.

'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss
Monflathers.  'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and
not to leave it without permission.'

The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in
nautical phrase, 'brought to' by a subdued shriek from Miss
Monflathers.

'She has passed me without any salute!' cried the governess,
raising her eyes to the sky.  'She has actually passed me without
the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!'

The young lady turned and curtsied.  Nell could see that she raised
her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their
expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one
of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage.
Miss Monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate
closed upon a bursting heart.

'As for you, you wicked child,' said Miss Monflathers, turning to
Nell, 'tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty
of sending to me any more, I will write to the legislative
authorities and have her put in the stocks, or compelled to do
penance in a white sheet; and you may depend upon it that you shall
certainly experience the treadmill if you dare to come here again.
Now ladies, on.'

The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols,
and Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet's daughter to walk with
her and smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers--
who by this time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy--
and left them to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little
more for being obliged to walk together.




CHAPTER 32


Mrs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened
with the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description.
The genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by
children, and flouted by beadles!  The delight of the Nobility and
Gentry shorn of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to
wear, and arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification
and humility!  And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who
presumed, even in the dimmest and remotest distance of her
imagination, to conjure up the degrading picture, 'I am a'most
inclined,' said Mrs Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger
and the weakness of her means of revenge, 'to turn atheist when I
think of it!'

But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on
second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering
glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into
a chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them
several times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had
received.  This done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to
drink; then laughed, then cried, then took a little sip herself,
then laughed and cried again, and took a little more; and so, by
degrees, the worthy lady went on, increasing in smiles and
decreasing in tears, until at last she could not laugh enough at
Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object of dire vexation,
became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.

'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she or
me!  It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks
of me in the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is
a good deal funnier if we come to that.  Lord, what does it matter,
after all!'

Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had
been greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of
the philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind
words, and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought
of Miss Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her,
all the days of her life.

So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the going
down of the sun.  Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind,
and the checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so
easily removed.

That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and
did not come back until the night was far spent.  Worn out as she
was, and fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the
minutes, until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and
wretched, but still hotly bent upon his infatuation.

'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night.  'I
must have money, Nell.  It shall be paid thee back with gallant
interest one day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must
be mine--not for myself, but to use for thee.  Remember, Nell, to
use for thee!'

What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him
every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on
to rob their benefactress?  If she told the truth (so thought the
child) he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him
with money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the
fire that burnt him up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery.
Distracted by these thoughts, borne down by the weight of the
sorrow which she dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of
apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, and dreading alike
his stay and his return, the colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew
dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy.  All her old sorrows
had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and doubts; by day
they were ever present to her mind; by night they hovered round her
pillow, and haunted her in dreams.

It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should
often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught
a hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief
action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years.  She
would often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell
her griefs, how much lighter her heart would be--that if she were
but free to hear that voice, she would be happier.  Then she would
wish that she were something better, that she were not quite so
poor and humble, that she dared address her without fearing a
repulse; and then feel that there was an immeasurable distance
between them, and have no hope that the young lady thought of her
any more.

It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had
gone home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in
London, and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but
nobody said anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home,
or whether she had any home to go to, whether she was still at the
school, or anything about her.  But one evening, as Nell was
returning from a lonely walk, she happened to pass the inn where
the stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and there was the
beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to embrace
a young child whom they were helping down from the roof.

Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than
Nell, whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five
years, and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had
been saving her poor means all that time.  Nell felt as if her
heart would break when she saw them meet.  They went a little apart
from the knot of people who had congregated about the coach, and
fell upon each other's neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy.  Their
plain and simple dress, the distance which the child had come
alone, their agitation and delight, and the tears they shed, would
have told their history by themselves.

They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away,
not so much hand in hand as clinging to each other.  'Are you sure
you're happy, sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell was
standing.  'Quite happy now,' she answered.  'But always?' said the
child.  'Ah, sister, why do you turn away your face?'

Nell could not help following at a little distance.  They went to
the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a
bed-room for the child.  'I shall come to you early every morning,'
she said, 'and we can be together all the day.-'-'Why not at
night-time too?  Dear sister, would they be angry with you for
that?'

Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like
those of the two sisters?  Why did she bear a grateful heart
because they had met, and feel it pain to think that they would
shortly part?  Let us not believe that any selfish reference--
unconscious though it might have been--to her own trials awoke
this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can
strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one
source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!

By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle
light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy
intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and
say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them
at a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they
stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they
went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near
them.  Their evening walk was by a river's side.  Here, every
night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded;
but feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences
and trusts together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to
bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, and found mutual
consolation.  It was a weak fancy perhaps, the childish fancy of a
young and lonely creature; but night after night, and still the
sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child followed
with a mild and softened heart.

She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that
Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the
effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its
present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for
all announcements connected with public amusements are well known
to be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut
up next day.

'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.

'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'That'll inform you.'
And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it
was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the
wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been
disappointed in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be
continued for one week longer, and would re-open next day.

'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers
exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and
they want stimulating.'

Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself
behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished
effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open
for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public.  But
the first day's operations were by no means of a successful
character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested
a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen
satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any
impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head.  Thus,
notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the
entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with
great perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ
played and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were
kind enough to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition
in the like manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by
half the population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were
relieved by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was
any the richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at
all encouraging.

In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made
extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the
popular curiosity.  Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the
leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the
figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great
admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way,
who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the
degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of
the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great
eloquence and morality.  The two carters constantly passed in and
out of the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting
aloud that the sight was better worth the money than anything they
had beheld in all their lives, and urging the bystanders, with
tears in their eyes, not to neglect such a brilliant gratification.
Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon
till night, and solemnly calling upon the crowd to take notice that
the price of admission was only sixpence, and that the departure of
the whole collection, on a short tour among the Crowned Heads of
Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.

'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the
close of every such address.  'Remember that this is Jarley's
stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that
it is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters
and deceptions.  Be in time, be in time, be in time!'




CHAPTER 33


As the course of this tale requires that we should become
acquainted, somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected
with the domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more
convenient place than the present is not likely to occur for that
purpose, the historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and
springing with him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater
rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar
travelled through that pleasant region in company, alights with him
upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.

The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the
residence of Mr Sampson Brass.

In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close
upon the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the
dim glass with his coat sleeve--much to its improvement, for it is
very dirty--in this parlour window in the days of its occupation
by Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured
by the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long
service as by no means to intercept the view of the little dark
room, but rather to afford a favourable medium through which to
observe it accurately.  There was not much to look at.  A rickety
table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long
carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a
couple of stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy
piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place,
whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to
squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository for
blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the
sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged
to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common
books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted
hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with
the tightness of desperation to its tacks--these, with the yellow
wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and
cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of
Mr Sampson Brass.

But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the
plate, 'BRASS, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First
floor to let to a single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker.
The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to
the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest
and more particular concern.

Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in
these pages.  The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper,
secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of
cost increaser, Miss Brass--a kind of amazon at common law, of
whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.

Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts,
of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it
repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a
distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts
of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her.  In
face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson--so
exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted
with Miss Brass's maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have
assumed her brother's clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him,
it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to
determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady
carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which,
if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been
mistaken for a beard.  These were, however, in all probability,
nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss
Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies.  In
complexion Miss Brass was sallow--rather a dirty sallow, so to
speak--but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow
which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose.  Her voice
was exceedingly impressive--deep and rich in quality, and, once
heard, not easily forgotten.  Her usual dress was a green gown, in
colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to
the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened
behind by a peculiarly large and massive button.  Feeling, no
doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss
Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was
invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of
the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened
to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.

Such was Miss Brass in person.  In mind, she was of a strong and
vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with
uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations
upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively
through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it
commonly pursues its way.  Nor had she, like many persons of great
intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where
practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross,
fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in
short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a
skin of parchment or mending a pen.  It is difficult to understand
how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain
Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind,
or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by
fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her
fingers' ends those particular statutes which regulate what are
familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was
still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her
old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson.  And equally
certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great
many people had come to the ground.

One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal
process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if
he were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it
was directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new
pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her
favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time,
until Miss Brass broke silence.

'Have you nearly done, Sammy?' said Miss Brass; for in her mild and
feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened
down.

'No,' returned her brother.  'It would have been all done though,
if you had helped at the right time.'

'Oh yes, indeed,' cried Miss Sally; 'you want my help, don't you? --
YOU, too, that are going to keep a clerk!'

'Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my
own wish, you provoking rascal!' said Mr Brass, putting his pen in
his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister.  'What do you
taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?'

It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling
a lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that
he was so habituated to having her near him in a man's capacity,
that he had gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though
she were really a man.  And this feeling was so perfectly
reciprocal, that not only did Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a
rascal, or even put an adjective before the rascal, but Miss Brass
looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was as little moved
as any other lady would be by being called an angel.

'What do you taunt me, after three hours' talk last night, with
going to keep a clerk for?' repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with
the pen in his mouth, like some nobleman's or gentleman's crest.
Is it my fault?'

'All I know is,' said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted
in nothing so much as irritating her brother, 'that if every one of
your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or
not, you had better leave off business, strike yourself off the
roll, and get taken in execution, as soon as you can.'

'Have we got any other client like him?' said Brass.  'Have we got
another client like him now--will you answer me that?'

'Do you mean in the face!' said his sister.

'Do I mean in the face!' sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to
take up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly.  'Look
here--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp,
Esquire--all through.  Whether should I take a clerk that he
recommends, and says, "this is the man for you," or lose all this,
eh?'

Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on
with her work.

'But I know what it is,' resumed Brass after a short silence.
'You're afraid you won't have as long a finger in the business as
you've been used to have.  Do you think I don't see through that?'

'The business wouldn't go on very long, I expect, without me,'
returned his sister composedly.  'Don't you be a fool and provoke
me, Sammy, but mind what you're doing, and do it.'

Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister,
sulkily bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:

'If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he
wouldn't be allowed to come.  You know that well enough, so don't
talk nonsense.'

Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely
remarking, under his breath, that he didn't like that kind of
joking, and that Miss Sally would be 'a much better fellow' if she
forbore to aggravate him.  To this compliment Miss Sally replied,
that she had a relish for the amusement, and had no intention to
forego its gratification.  Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to
pursue the subject any further, they both plied their pens at a
great pace, and there the discussion ended.

While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as
by some person standing close against it.  As Mr Brass and Miss
Sally looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly
lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.

'Hallo!' he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and
looking down into the room.  'is there anybody at home?  Is there
any of the Devil's ware here?  Is Brass at a premium, eh?'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy.  'Oh, very
good, Sir!  Oh, very good indeed!  Quite eccentric!  Dear me, what
humour he has!'

'Is that my Sally?' croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass.
'Is it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword
and scales?  Is it the Strong Arm of the Law?  Is it the Virgin of
Bevis?'

'What an amazing flow of spirits!' cried Brass.  'Upon my word,
it's quite extraordinary!'

'Open the door,' said Quilp, 'I've got him here.  Such a clerk for
you, Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps.  Be quick and open
the door, or if there's another lawyer near and he should happen to
look out of window, he'll snap him up before your eyes, he will.'

It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a
rival practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass's heart; but,
pretending great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the
door, returned, introducing his client, who led by the hand no less
a person than Mr Richard Swiveller.

'There she is,' said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and
wrinkling up his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; 'there
is the woman I ought to have married--there is the beautiful Sarah--
there is the female who has all the charms of her sex and none of
their weaknesses.  Oh Sally, Sally!'

To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded 'Bother!'

'Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,' said
Quilp.  'Why don't she change it--melt down the brass, and take
another name?'

'Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,' returned Miss Sally, with a
grim smile.  'I wonder you're not ashamed of yourself before a
strange young man.'

'The strange young man,' said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller
forward, 'is too susceptible himself not to understand me well.
This is Mr Swiveller, my intimate friend--a gentleman of good
family and great expectations, but who, having rather involved
himself by youthful indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the
humble station of a clerk--humble, but here most enviable.  What
a delicious atmosphere!'

If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air
breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that
dainty creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said.
But if he spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass's
office in a literal sense, he had certainly a peculiar taste, as it
was of a close and earthy kind, and, besides being frequently
impregnated with strong whiffs of the second-hand wearing apparel
exposed for sale in Duke's Place and Houndsditch, had a decided
flavour of rats and mice, and a taint of mouldiness.  Perhaps some
doubts of its pure delight presented themselves to Mr Swiveller, as
he gave vent to one or two short abrupt sniffs, and looked
incredulously at the grinning dwarf.

'Mr Swiveller,' said Quilp, 'being pretty well accustomed to the
agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently
considers that half a loaf is better than no bread.  To be out of
harm's way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he
accepts your brother's offer.  Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.'

'I am very glad, Sir,' said Mr Brass, 'very glad indeed.  Mr
Swiveller, Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship.  You
may be very proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.'

Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to
give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing
of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties
appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass,
at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the
watchful dwarf beyond measure.  As to the divine Miss Sally
herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few
turns up and down the office with her pen behind her ear.

'I suppose,' said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend,
'that Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once?  It's Monday
morning.'

'At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,' returned Brass.

'Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,'
said Quilp; 'she'll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his
Blackstone, his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer's Best
Companion.'

'He is exceedingly eloquent,' said Brass, like a man abstracted,
and looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in
his pockets; 'he has an extraordinary flow of language.  Beautiful,
really.'

'With Miss Sally,' Quilp went on, 'and the beautiful fictions of
the law, his days will pass like minutes.  Those charming creations
of the poet, John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon
him, will open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the
improvement of his heart.'

'Oh, beautiful, beautiful!  Beau-ti-ful indeed!' cried Brass.
'It's a treat to hear him!'

'Where will Mr Swiveller sit?' said Quilp, looking round.

'Why, we'll buy another stool, sir,' returned Brass.  'We hadn't
any thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were
kind enough to suggest it, and our accommodation's not extensive.
We'll look about for a second-hand stool, sir.  In the meantime, if
Mr Swiveller will take my seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of
this ejectment, as I shall be out pretty well all the morning--'

'Walk with me,' said Quilp.  'I have a word or two to say to you on
points of business.  Can you spare the time?'

'Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir?  You're joking, sir,
you're joking with me,' replied the lawyer, putting on his hat.
'I'm ready, sir, quite ready.  My time must be fully occupied
indeed, sir, not to leave me time to walk with you.  It's not
everybody, sir, who has an opportunity of improving himself by the
conversation of Mr Quilp.'

The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a
short dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally.
After a very gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and
gentlemanly sort of one on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and
withdrew with the attorney.

Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring
with all his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some
curious animal whose like had never lived.  When the dwarf got into
the street, he mounted again upon the window-sill, and looked into
the office for a moment with a grinning face, as a man might peep
into a cage.  Dick glanced upward at him, but without any token of
recognition; and long after he had disappeared, still stood gazing
upon Miss Sally Brass, seeing or thinking of nothing else, and
rooted to the spot.

Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no
notice whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen,
scoring down the figures with evident delight, and working like a
steam-engine.  There stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now
at the brown head-dress, now at the face, and now at the rapid pen,
in a state of stupid perplexity, wondering how he got into the
company of that strange monster, and whether it was a dream and he
would ever wake.  At last he heaved a deep sigh, and began slowly
pulling off his coat.

Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great
elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue
jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally
ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that
morning for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her,
suffered himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass's stool.  Then
he underwent a relapse, and becoming powerless again, rested his
chin upon his hand, and opened his eyes so wide, that it appeared
quite out of the question that he could ever close them any more.

When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his
eyes off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves
of the draft he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and
at last, and by slow approaches, began to write.  But he had not
written half-a-dozen words when, reaching over to the inkstand to
take a fresh dip, he happened to raise his eyes.  There was the
intolerable brown head-dress--there was the green gown--there, in
short, was Miss Sally Brass, arrayed in all her charms, and more
tremendous than ever.

This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel
strange influences creeping over him--horrible desires to
annihilate this Sally Brass--mysterious promptings to knock her
head-dress off and try how she looked without it.  There was a very
large ruler on the table; a large, black, shining ruler.  Mr
Swiveller took it up and began to rub his nose with it.

From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and
giving it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the
transition was easy and natural.  In some of these flourishes it
went close to Miss Sally's head; the ragged edges of the head-
dress fluttered with the wind it raised; advance it but an inch,
and that great brown knot was on the ground: yet still the
unconscious maiden worked away, and never raised her eyes.

Well, this was a great relief.  It was a good thing to write
doggedly and obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up
the ruler and whirl it about the brown head-dress with the
consciousness that he could have it off if he liked.  It was a good
thing to draw it back, and rub his nose very hard with it, if he
thought Miss Sally was going to look up, and to recompense himself
with more hardy flourishes when he found she was still absorbed.
By these means Mr Swiveller calmed the agitation of his feelings,
until his applications to the ruler became less fierce and
frequent, and he could even write as many as half-a-dozen
consecutive lines without having recourse to it--which was a
great victory.




CHAPTER 34


In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so,
of diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of
her task, and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green
gown, and taking a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which
she carried in her pocket.  Having disposed of this temperate
refreshment, she arose from her stool, tied her papers into a
formal packet with red tape, and taking them under her arm, marched
out of the office.

Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the
performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the
fulness of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the
door, and the reappearance of Miss Sally's head.

'I am going out,' said Miss Brass.

'Very good, ma'am,' returned Dick.  'And don't hurry yourself on my
account to come back, ma'am,' he added inwardly.

'If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say
that the gentleman who attends to that matter isn't in at present,
will you?' said Miss Brass.

'I will, ma'am,' replied Dick.

'I shan't be very long,' said Miss Brass, retiring.

'I'm sorry to hear it, ma'am,' rejoined Dick when she had shut the
door.  'I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma'am.  If you
could manage to be run over, ma'am, but not seriously, so much the
better.'

Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr
Swiveller sat down in the client's chair and pondered; then took a
few turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.

'So I'm Brass's clerk, am I?' said Dick.  'Brass's clerk, eh?  And
the clerk of Brass's sister--clerk to a female Dragon.  Very good,
very good!  What shall I be next?  Shall I be a convict in a felt
hat and a grey suit, trotting about a dockyard with my number
neatly embroidered on my uniform, and the order of the garter on my
leg, restrained from chafing my ankle by a twisted belcher
handkerchief?  Shall I be that?  Will that do, or is it too
genteel?  Whatever you please, have it your own way, of course.'

As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these
remarks, Mr Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny,
whom, as we learn by the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to
taunt in a very bitter and ironical manner when they find
themselves in situations of an unpleasant nature.  This is the more
probable from the circumstance of Mr Swiveller directing his
observations to the ceiling, which these bodily personages are
usually supposed to inhabit--except in theatrical cases, when they
live in the heart of the great chandelier.

'Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,'
resumed Dick after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the
circumstances of his position, one by one, upon his fingers; 'Fred,
who, I could have taken my affidavit, would not have heard of such
a thing, backs Quilp to my astonishment, and urges me to take it
also--staggerer, number one!  My aunt in the country stops the
supplies, and writes an affectionate note to say that she has made
a new will, and left me out of it--staggerer, number two.  No
money; no credit; no support from Fred, who seems to turn steady
all at once; notice to quit the old lodgings--staggerers, three,
four, five, and six!  Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man
can be considered a free agent.  No man knocks himself down; if his
destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again.  Then
I'm very glad that mine has brought all this upon itself, and I
shall be as careless as I can, and make myself quite at home to
spite it.  So go on my buck,' said Mr Swiveller, taking his leave
of the ceiling with a significant nod, 'and let us see which of us
will be tired first!'

Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections,
which were no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether
unknown in certain systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook
off his despondency and assumed the cheerful ease of an
irresponsible clerk.

As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered
into a more minute examination of the office than he had yet had
time to make; looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle;
untied and inspected all the papers; carved a few devices on the
table with a sharp blade of Mr Brass's penknife; and wrote his name
on the inside of the wooden coal-scuttle.  Having, as it were,
taken formal possession of his clerkship in virtue of these
proceedings, he opened the window and leaned negligently out of it
until a beer-boy happened to pass, whom he commanded to set down
his tray and to serve him with a pint of mild porter, which he
drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with the view of
breaking ground for a system of future credit and opening a
correspondence tending thereto, without loss of time.  Then, three
or four little boys dropped in, on legal errands from three or four
attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr Swiveller received and
dismissed with about as professional a manner, and as correct and
comprehensive an understanding of their business, as would have
been shown by a clown in a pantomime under similar circumstances.
These things done and over, he got upon his stool again and tried
his hand at drawing caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink,
whistling very cheerfully all the time.

He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the
door, and presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock.  As
this was no business of Mr Swiveller's, the person not ringing the
office bell, he pursued his diversion with perfect composure,
notwithstanding that he rather thought there was nobody else in the
house.

In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been
repeated with increased impatience, the door was opened, and
somebody with a very heavy tread went up the stairs and into the
room above.  Mr Swiveller was wondering whether this might be
another Miss Brass, twin sister to the Dragon, when there came a
rapping of knuckles at the office door.

'Come in!' said Dick.  'Don't stand upon ceremony.  The business
will get rather complicated if I've many more customers.  Come in!'

'Oh, please,' said a little voice very low down in the doorway,
'will you come and show the lodgings?'

Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a
dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but
her face and feet.  She might as well have been dressed in a
violin-case.

'Why, who are you?' said Dick.

To which the only reply was, 'Oh, please will you come and show the
lodgings?'

There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and
manner.  She must have been at work from her cradle.  She seemed as
much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.

'I hav'n't got anything to do with the lodgings,' said Dick.  'Tell
'em to call again.'

'Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,' returned the
girl; 'It's eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and
linen.  Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is
eightpence a day.'

'Why don't you show 'em yourself?  You seem to know all about 'em,'
said Dick.

'Miss Sally said I wasn't to, because people wouldn't believe the
attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.'

'Well, but they'll see how small you are afterwards, won't they?'
said Dick.

'Ah!  But then they'll have taken 'em for a fortnight certain,'
replied the child with a shrewd look; 'and people don't like moving
when they're once settled.'

'This is a queer sort of thing,' muttered Dick, rising.  'What do
you mean to say you are--the cook?'

'Yes, I do plain cooking;' replied the child.  'I'm housemaid too;
I do all the work of the house.'

'I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,'
thought Dick.  And he might have thought much more, being in a
doubtful and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her
request, and certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and
staircase seemed to give note of the applicant's impatience.
Richard Swiveller, therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and
carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance
and devotion to business, hurried out to meet and treat with the
single gentleman.

He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were
occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman's
trunk, which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and
exceedingly heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united
exertions of the single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the
steep ascent.  But there they were, crushing each other, and
pushing and pulling with all their might, and getting the trunk
tight and fast in all kinds of impossible angles, and to pass them
was out of the question; for which sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller
followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair
against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.

To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word,
but when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon
it and wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief.  He was
very warm, and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion
of getting the trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter
garments, though the thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in
the shade.

'I believe, sir,' said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his
mouth, 'that you desire to look at these apartments.  They are very
charming apartments, sir.  They command an uninterrupted view of--
of over the way, and they are within one minute's walk of--of the
corner of the street.  There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in
the immediate vicinity, and the contingent advantages are
extraordinary.'

'What's the rent?' said the single gentleman.

'One pound per week,' replied Dick, improving on the terms.

'I'll take 'em.'

'The boots and clothes are extras,' said Dick; 'and the fires in
winter time are--'

'Are all agreed to,' answered the single gentleman.

'Two weeks certain,' said Dick, 'are the--'

'Two weeks!' cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from
top to toe.  'Two years.  I shall live here for two years.  Here.
Ten pounds down.  The bargain's made.'

'Why you see,' said Dick, 'my name is not Brass, and--'

'Who said it was?  My name's not Brass.  What then?'

'The name of the master of the house is,' said Dick.

'I'm glad of it,' returned the single gentleman; 'it's a good name
for a lawyer.  Coachman, you may go.  So may you, Sir.'

Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding
roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him
almost as hard as he had looked at Miss Sally.  The single
gentleman, however, was not in the slightest degree affected by
this circumstance, but proceeded with perfect composure to unwind
the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then to pull off his
boots.  Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to divest himself
of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece, and
ranged in order on the trunk.  Then, he pulled down the
window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his watch, and, quite
leisurely and methodically, got into bed.

'Take down the bill,' were his parting words, as he looked out from
between the curtains; 'and let nobody call me till I ring the
bell.'

With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.

'This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!' said Mr
Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.
'She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like
professional gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing
mysteriously from under ground; strangers walking in and going to
bed without leave or licence in the middle of the day!  If he
should be one of the miraculous fellows that turn up now and then,
and has gone to sleep for two years, I shall be in a pleasant
situation.  It's my destiny, however, and I hope Brass may like it.
I shall be sorry if he don't.  But it's no business of mine--I
have nothing whatever to do with it!'




CHAPTER 35


Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with
much complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring
after the ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a
good and lawful note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of
England, increased his good-humour considerably.  Indeed he so
overflowed with liberality and condescension, that, in the fulness
of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch
with him at that remote and indefinite period which is currently
denominated 'one of these days,' and paid him many handsome
compliments on the uncommon aptitude for business which his conduct
on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.

It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments
kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful
member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges
in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be
always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving
himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic
expressions.  And this had passed into such a habit with him, that,
if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his
fingers' ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but
in his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and
repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but frowned above all
the smooth speeches--one of nature's beacons, warning off those
who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that
dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less
treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere.

While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and
inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and
that of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal
practice had been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings,
and to whet and sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little
disappointed that the single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at
such an easy rate, arguing that when he was seen to have set his
mind upon them, he should have been at the least charged double or
treble the usual terms, and that, in exact proportion as he pressed
forward, Mr Swiveller should have hung back.  But neither the good
opinion of Mr Brass, nor the dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought
any impression upon that young gentleman, who, throwing the
responsibility of this and all other acts and deeds thereafter to
be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was quite resigned and
comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and philosophically
indifferent to the best.


'Good morning, Mr Richard,' said Brass, on the second day of Mr
Swiveller's clerkship.  'Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir,
yesterday evening, in Whitechapel.  She's a rare fellow at a
bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard.  You'll find that a first-rate
stool, Sir, take my word for it.'

'It's rather a crazy one to look at,' said Dick.

'You'll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may
depend,' returned Mr Brass.  'It was bought in the open street just
opposite the hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of
two, it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the
sun, that's all.'

'I hope it hasn't got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,'
said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson
and the chaste Sally.  'One of the legs is longer than the others.'

'Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,' retorted Brass.  'Ha, ha,
ha!  We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that's another advantage
of my sister's going to market for us.  Miss Brass, Mr Richard is
the--'

'Will you keep quiet?' interrupted the fair subject of these
remarks, looking up from her papers.  'How am I to work if you keep
on chattering?'

'What an uncertain chap you are!' returned the lawyer.  'Sometimes
you're all for a chat.  At another time you're all for work.  A man
never knows what humour he'll find you in.'

'I'm in a working humour now,' said Sally, 'so don't disturb me, if
you please.  And don't take him,' Miss Sally pointed with the
feather of her pen to Richard, 'off his business.  He won't do more
than he can help, I dare say.'

Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply,
but was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only
muttered something about aggravation and a vagabond; not
associating the terms with any individual, but mentioning them as
connected with some abstract ideas which happened to occur to him.
They went on writing for a long time in silence after this--in
such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who required excitement) had
several times fallen asleep, and written divers strange words in an
unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally at length
broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the little
tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her
opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had 'done it.'

'Done what, ma'am?' said Richard.

'Do you know,' returned Miss Brass, 'that the lodger isn't up yet--
that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed
yesterday afternoon?'

'Well, ma'am,' said Dick, 'I suppose he may sleep his ten pound
out, in peace and quietness, if he likes.'

'Ah!  I begin to think he'll never wake,' observed Miss Sally.

'It's a very remarkable circumstance,' said Brass, laying down his
pen; 'really, very remarkable.  Mr Richard, you'll remember, if
this gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the
bed-post, or any unpleasant accident of that kind should happen--
you'll remember, Mr Richard, that this ten pound note was given to
you in part payment of two years' rent?  You'll bear that in mind,
Mr Richard; you had better make a note of it, sir, in case you
should ever be called upon to give evidence.'

Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance
of profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.

'We can never be too cautious,' said Mr Brass.  'There is a deal of
wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness.  Did the
gentleman happen to say, Sir--but never mind that at present, sir;
finish that little memorandum first.'

Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his
stool, and was walking up and down the office.

'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye
over the document.  'Very good.  Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman
say anything else?'

'No.'

'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the
gentleman said nothing else?'

'Devil a word, Sir,' replied Dick.

'Think again, Sir,' said Brass; 'it's my duty, Sir, in the position
in which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal
profession--the first profession in this country, Sir, or in any
other country, or in any of the planets that shine above us at
night and are supposed to be inhabited--it's my duty, Sir, as an
honourable member of that profession, not to put to you a leading
question in a matter of this delicacy and importance.  Did the
gentleman, Sir, who took the first floor of you yesterday
afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property--a box of
property--say anything more than is set down in this memorandum?'

'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.

Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally
again, and still said 'No.'

'Pooh, pooh!  Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried
Brass, relaxing into a smile.  'Did he say anything about his
property? --there!'

'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her
brother.

'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass, in a kind of comfortable,
cozy tone--'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask
you, to refresh your memory--did he say, for instance, that he was
a stranger in London--that it was not his humour or within his
ability to give any references--that he felt we had a right to
require them--and that, in case anything should happen to him, at
any time, he particularly desired that whatever property he had
upon the premises should be considered mine, as some slight
recompense for the trouble and annoyance I should sustain--and
were you, in short,' added Brass, still more comfortably and cozily
than before, 'were you induced to accept him on my behalf, as a
tenant, upon those conditions?'

'Certainly not,' replied Dick.

'Why then, Mr Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious
and reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your
calling, and will never make a lawyer.'

'Not if you live a thousand years,' added Miss Sally.  Whereupon
the brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the
little tin box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.

Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller's dinner-time, which was
at three o'clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming.  At the
first stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared.  At the last
stroke of five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic,
became fragrant with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.

'Mr Richard,' said Brass, 'this man's not up yet.  Nothing will
wake him, sir.  What's to be done?'

'I should let him have his sleep out,' returned Dick.

'Sleep out!' cried Brass; 'why he has been asleep now, six-
and-twenty hours.  We have been moving chests of drawers over his
head, we have knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have
made the servant-girl fall down stairs several times (she's a light
weight, and it don't hurt her much,) but nothing wakes him.'

'Perhaps a ladder,' suggested Dick, 'and getting in at the first-
floor window--'

'But then there's a door between; besides, the neighbours would be
up in arms,' said Brass.

'What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the
trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?' suggested Dick.

'That would be an excellent plan,' said Brass, 'if anybody would
be--' and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller--'would be kind,
and friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it.  I dare say it
would not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.'

Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly
fall within Miss Sally's department.  As he said nothing further,
and declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that
they should go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken
the sleeper by some less violent means, which, if they failed on
this last trial, must positively be succeeded by stronger measures.
Mr Swiveller, assenting, armed himself with his stool and the large
ruler, and repaired with his employer to the scene of action, where
Miss Brass was already ringing a hand-bell with all her might, and
yet without producing the smallest effect upon their mysterious
lodger.

'There are his boots, Mr Richard!' said Brass.

'Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,' quoth Richard
Swiveller.  And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of
boots as one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as
if their owner's legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with
their broad soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place
by main force.

'I can't see anything but the curtain of the bed,' said Brass,
applying his eye to the keyhole of the door.  'Is he a strong man,
Mr Richard?'

Very,' answered Dick.

It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to
bounce out suddenly,' said Brass.  'Keep the stairs clear.  I
should be more than a match for him, of course, but I'm the master
of the house, and the laws of hospitality must be respected. --
Hallo there!  Hallo, hallo!'

While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole,
uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger's
attention, and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller
put his stool close against the wall by the side of the door, and
mounting on the top and standing bolt upright, so that if the
lodger did make a rush, he would most probably pass him in its
onward fury, began a violent battery with the ruler upon the upper
panels of the door.  Captivated with his own ingenuity, and
confident in the strength of his position, which he had taken up
after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and
gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained
down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the bell was
drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs below,
ready to fly at a moment's notice, was obliged to hold her ears
lest she should be rendered deaf for life.

Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently
open.  The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived
into her own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for
personal courage, ran into the next street, and finding that nobody
followed him, armed with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his
hands in his pockets, walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.

Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into
as flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not
unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the
door growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the
boots in his hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down
stairs on speculation.  This idea, however, he abandoned.  He was
turning into his room again, still growling vengefully, when his
eyes met those of the watchful Richard.

'Have YOU been making that horrible noise?' said the single
gentleman.

'I have been helping, sir,' returned Dick, keeping his eye upon
him, and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an
indication of what the single gentleman had to expect if he
attempted any violence.

'How dare you then,' said the lodger, 'Eh?'

To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the
lodger held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of
a gentleman to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch,
and whether the peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to
weigh as nothing in the balance.

'Is my peace nothing?' said the single gentleman.

'Is their peace nothing, sir?' returned Dick.  'I don't wish to
hold out any threats, sir--indeed the law does not allow of
threats, for to threaten is an indictable offence--but if ever you
do that again, take care you're not sat upon by the coroner and
buried in a cross road before you wake.  We have been distracted
with fears that you were dead, Sir,' said Dick, gently sliding to
the ground, 'and the short and the long of it is, that we cannot
allow single gentlemen to come into this establishment and sleep
like double gentlemen without paying extra for it.'

'Indeed!' cried the lodger.

'Yes, Sir, indeed,' returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and
saying whatever came uppermost; 'an equal quantity of slumber was
never got out of one bed and bedstead, and if you're going to sleep
in that way, you must pay for a double-bedded room.' .

Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks,
the lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with
twinkling eyes.  He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared
browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on.  As it
was clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr
Swiveller was relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to
encourage him in it, smiled himself.

The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed
his nightcap very much on one side of his bald head.  This gave him
a rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe
it, charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of
propitiation, he expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to
get up, and further that he would never do so any more.

'Come here, you impudent rascal!' was the lodger's answer as he
re-entered his room.

Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but
reserving the ruler in case of a surprise.  He rather congratulated
himself on his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice
or explanation of any kind, double-locked the door.

'Can you drink anything?' was his next inquiry.

Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the
pangs of thirst, but that he was still open to 'a modest quencher,'
if the materials were at hand.  Without another word spoken on
either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of
temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on
the table.

Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him
closely.  Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an
egg; into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw
steak from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water.
Then, with the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he
procured a light and applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place
of its own below the temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the
little chambers; then he opened them; and then, by some wonderful
and unseen agency, the steak was done, the egg was boiled, the
coffee was accurately prepared, and his breakfast was ready.

'Hot water--' said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as
much coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him--
'extraordinary rum--sugar--and a travelling glass.  Mix for
yourself.  And make haste.'

Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on
the table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which
seemed to hold everything.  The lodger took his breakfast like a
man who was used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of
them.

'The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?' said the lodger.

Dick nodded.  The rum was amazing.

'The woman of the house--what's she?'

'A dragon,' said Dick.

The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things
in his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman,
evinced no surprise, but merely inquired 'Wife or Sister?'--
'Sister,' said Dick.--'So much the better,' said the single
gentleman, 'he can get rid of her when he likes.'

'I want to do as I like, young man,' he added after a short
silence; 'to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in
when I like, go out when I like--to be asked no questions and be
surrounded by no spies.  In this last respect, servants are the
devil.  There's only one here.'

'And a very little one,' said Dick.

'And a very little one,' repeated the lodger.  'Well, the place
will suit me, will it?'

'Yes,' said Dick.

'Sharks, I suppose?' said the lodger.

Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.

'Let them know my humour,' said the single gentleman, rising.  'If
they disturb me, they lose a good tenant.  If they know me to be
that, they know enough.  If they try to know more, it's a notice to
quit.  It's better to understand these things at once.  Good day.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Dick, halting in his passage to the door,
which the lodger prepared to open.  'When he who adores thee has
left but the name--'

'What do you mean?'

'--But the name,' said Dick--'has left but the name--in case of
letters or parcels--'

'I never have any,' returned the lodger.

'Or in the case anybody should call.'

'Nobody ever calls on me.'

'If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it
was my fault, Sir,' added Dick, still lingering.--'Oh blame
not the bard--'

'I'll blame nobody,' said the lodger, with such irascibility that
in a moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked
door between them.

Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed,
only routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller's abrupt exit.  As
their utmost exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of
the interview, however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence,
which, though limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such
quiet pantomime, had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down
to the office to hear his account of the conversation.

This Mr Swiveller gave them--faithfully as regarded the wishes and
character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the
great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for
brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring,
with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of
every kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in
particular that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever
was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them
to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of
sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two
minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved
by his sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was
produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when
the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr Swiveller)
was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or chemist,
or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at some
future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of
Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.

There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to
enlarge upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which,
by reason of its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the
heels of the temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner,
awakened a slight degree of fever, and rendered necessary two or
three other modest quenchers at the public-house in the course of
the evening.




CHAPTER 36


As the single gentleman after some weeks' occupation of his
lodgings, still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either
with Mr Brass or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard
Swiveller as his channel of communication; and as he proved himself
in all respects a highly desirable inmate, paying for everything
beforehand, giving very little trouble, making no noise, and
keeping early hours; Mr Richard imperceptibly rose to an important
position in the family, as one who had influence over this
mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with him, for good or evil,
when nobody else durst approach his person.

If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller's approaches to the
single gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small
encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic
conference with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as
'Swiveller, I know I can rely upon you,'--'I have no hesitation in
saying, Swiveller, that I entertain a regard for you,'--'Swiveller,
you are my friend, and will stand by me I am sure,' with many other
short speeches of the same familiar and confiding kind, purporting
to have been addressed by the single gentleman to himself, and to
form the staple of their ordinary discourse, neither Mr Brass nor
Miss Sally for a moment questioned the extent of his influence, but
accorded to him their fullest and most unqualified belief.
But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of
popularity, Mr Swiveller had another, which promised to be equally
enduring, and to lighten his position considerably.

He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass.  Let not the light
scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new
tale of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass,
however accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving
kind.  That amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law
from her earliest youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as
it were, in her first running alone, and maintained a firm grasp
upon them ever since; had passed her life in a kind of legal
childhood.  She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler for an
uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff:
in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on
the shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses,
with a correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight
of all who witnessed her performances, and which was only to be
exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an execution into her
doll's house, and taking an exact inventory of the chairs and
tables.  These artless sports had naturally soothed and cheered the
decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman (called
'old Foxey' by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who
encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding
that he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter
could not take out an attorney's certificate and hold a place upon
the roll.  Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he
had solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable
auxiliary; and from the old gentleman's decease to the period of
which we treat, Miss Sally Brass had been the prop and pillar of
his business.

It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the
world, otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a
lady gifted with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and
softer arts in which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked
for.  Miss Sally's accomplishments were all of a masculine and
strictly legal kind.  They began with the practice of an attorney
and they ended with it.  She was in a state of lawful innocence, so
to speak.  The law had been her nurse.  And, as bandy-legs or such
physical deformities in children are held to be the consequence of
bad nursing, so, if in a mind so beautiful any moral twist or
handiness could be found, Miss Sally Brass's nurse was alone to
blame.

It was on this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full
freshness as something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up
the office with scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with
inkstands and boxes of wafers, catching three oranges in one hand,
balancing stools upon his chin and penknives on his nose, and
constantly performing a hundred other feats with equal ingenuity;
for with such unbendings did Richard, in Mr Brass's absence,
relieve the tedium of his confinement.  These social qualities,
which Miss Sally first discovered by accident, gradually made such
an impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr Swiveller to
relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller, nothing loth,
would readily consent to do.  By these means a friendship sprung up
between them.  Mr Swiveller gradually came to look upon her as her
brother Sampson did, and as he would have looked upon any other
clerk.  He imparted to her the mystery of going the odd man or
plain Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked potatoes, or even a
modest quencher, of which Miss Brass did not scruple to partake.
He would often persuade her to undertake his share of writing in
addition to her own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a
hearty slap on the back, and protest that she was a devilish good
fellow, a jolly dog, and so forth; all of which compliments Miss
Sally would receive in entire good part and with perfect
satisfaction.

One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller's mind very much, and that
was that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels
of the earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface
unless the single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it
and immediately disappear again.  She never went out, or came into
the office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or
looked out of any one of the windows, or stood at the street-door
for a breath of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever.  Nobody
ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her.
Mr Brass had said once, that he believed she was a 'love-child'
(which means anything but a child of love), and that was all the
information Richard Swiveller could obtain.

'It's of no use asking the dragon,' thought Dick one day, as he sat
contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass.  'I suspect if I
asked any questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end.
I wonder whether she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the
mermaid way.  She has rather a scaly appearance.  But mermaids are
fond of looking at themselves in the glass, which she can't be.
And they have a habit of combing their hair, which she hasn't.  No,
she's a dragon.'

'Where are you going, old fellow?' said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally
wiped her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her
seat.

'To dinner,' answered the dragon.

'To dinner!' thought Dick, 'that's another circumstance.  I don't
believe that small servant ever has anything to eat.'

'Sammy won't be home,' said Miss Brass.  'Stop till I come back.
I sha'n't be long.'

Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass--with his eyes to the door,
and with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her
brother took their meals.

'Now,' said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his
pockets, 'I'd give something--if I had it--to know how they use
that child, and where they keep her.  My mother must have been a
very inquisitive woman; I have no doubt I'm marked with a note of
interrogation somewhere.  My feelings I smother, but thou hast been
the cause of this anguish, my--upon my word,' said Mr Swiveller,
checking himself and falling thoughtfully into the client's chair,
'I should like to know how they use her!'

After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly
opened the office door, with the intention of darting across the
street for a glass of the mild porter.  At that moment he caught a
parting glimpse of the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down
the kitchen stairs.  'And by Jove!' thought Dick, 'she's going to
feed the small servant.  Now or never!'

First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to
disappear in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and
arrived at the door of a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass
had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton.  It
was a very dark miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls
disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches.  The water was
trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping
up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation.  The grate,
which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold
no more than a little thin sandwich of fire.  Everything was locked
up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe,
were all padlocked.  There was nothing that a beetle could have
lunched upon.  The pinched and meagre aspect of the place would
have killed a chameleon.  He would have known, at the first
mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up the
ghost in despair.

The small servant stood with humility in presence of Miss Sally,
and hung her head.

'Are you there?' said Miss Sally.

'Yes, ma'am,' was the answer in a weak voice.

'Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it,
I know,' said Miss Sally.

The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key
from her pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary
waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge.  This she
placed before the small servant, ordering her to sit down before
it, and then, taking up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show
of sharpening it upon the carving-fork.

'Do you see this?' said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square
inches of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it
out on the point of the fork.

The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to
see every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, 'yes.'

'Then don't you ever go and say,' retorted Miss Sally, 'that you
hadn't meat here.  There, eat it up.'

This was soon done.  'Now, do you want any more?' said Miss Sally.

The hungry creature answered with a faint 'No.'  They were
evidently going through an established form.

'You've been helped once to meat,' said Miss Brass, summing up the
facts; 'you have had as much as you can eat, you're asked if you
want any more, and you answer, 'no!' Then don't you ever go and say
you were allowanced, mind that.'

With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe,
and then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while
she finished the potatoes.

It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss
Brass's gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her,
without the smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade
of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her
back, as if she found it quite impossible to stand so close to her
without administering a few slight knocks.  But Mr Swiveller was
not a little surprised to see his fellow-clerk, after walking
slowly backwards towards the door, as if she were trying to
withdraw herself from the room but could not accomplish it, dart
suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant give her some
hard blows with her clenched hand.  The victim cried, but in a
subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss Sally,
comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs, just
as Richard had safely reached the office.




CHAPTER 37


The single gentleman among his other peculiarities--and he had a
very plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new
specimen--took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the
exhibition of Punch.  If the sound of a Punch's voice, at ever so
remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman,
though in bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his
clothes, make for the spot with all speed, and presently return at
the head of a long procession of idlers, having in the midst the
theatre and its proprietors.  Straightway, the stage would be set
up in front of Mr Brass's house; the single gentleman would
establish himself at the first floor window; and the entertainment
would proceed, with all its exciting accompaniments of fife and
drum and shout, to the excessive consternation of all sober
votaries of business in that silent thoroughfare.  It might have
been expected that when the play was done, both players and
audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as bad as the
play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of the
puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to
his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his
private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the
purport of which no human being could fathom.  But the secret of
these discussions was of little importance.  It was sufficient to
know that while they were proceeding, the concourse without still
lingered round the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their
fists, and imitated Punch with their tender voices; that the
office-window was rendered opaque by flattened noses, and the
key-hole of the street-door luminous with eyes; that every time the
single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper
window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible,
there was a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who
remained howling and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the
exhibitors were delivered up to them to be attended elsewhere.  It
was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis Marks was
revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and
quietness fled from its precincts.

Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr
Sampson Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so
profitable an inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger's
affront along with his cash, and to annoy the audiences who
clustered round his door by such imperfect means of retaliation as
were open to him, and which were confined to the trickling down of
foul water on their heads from unseen watering pots, pelting them
with fragments of tile and mortar from the roof of the house, and
bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to come suddenly round
the corner and dash in among them precipitately.  It may, at first
sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few that Mr Brass,
being a professional gentleman, should not have legally indicted
some party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but
they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take
their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what
they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their
own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain
application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable
for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving
the right person.

'Come,' said Mr Brass one afternoon, 'this is two days without a
Punch.  I'm in hopes he has run through 'em all, at last.'

'Why are you in hopes?' returned Miss Sally.  'What harm do they
do?'

'Here's a pretty sort of a fellow!' cried Brass, laying down his
pen in despair.  'Now here's an aggravating animal!'

'Well, what harm do they do?' retorted Sally.

'What harm!' cried Brass.  'Is it no harm to have a constant
hallooing and hooting under one's very nose, distracting one from
business, and making one grind one's teeth with vexation?  Is it no
harm to be blinded and choked up, and have the king's highway
stopped with a set of screamers and roarers whose throats must be
made of--of--'

'Brass,' suggested Mr Swiveller.

'Ah! of brass,' said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure
himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without
any sinister intention.  'Is that no harm?'

The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a
moment, and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon
his hand, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly,

'There's another!'

Up went the single gentleman's window directly.

'There's another,' repeated Brass; 'and if I could get a break and
four blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its
thickest, I'd give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!'

The distant squeak was heard again.  The single gentleman's door
burst open.  He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street,
and so past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence
the sound proceeded--bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers'
services directly.

'I wish I only knew who his friends were,' muttered Sampson,
filling his pocket with papers; 'if they'd just get up a pretty
little Commission de lunatico at the Gray's Inn Coffee House and
give me the job, I'd be content to have the lodgings empty for one
while, at all events.'

With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the
purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation,
Mr Brass rushed from the house and hurried away.

As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances,
upon the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at
anything out of window, was better than working; and as he had
been, for this reason, at some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk
a sense of their beauties and manifold deserts; both he and Miss
Sally rose as with one accord and took up their positions at the
window: upon the sill whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young
ladies and gentlemen who were employed in the dry nurture of
babies, and who made a point of being present, with their young
charges, on such occasions, had already established themselves as
comfortably as the circumstances would allow.

The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom
which he had established between them, hitched off the brown
head-dress from Miss Sally's head, and dusted it carefully
therewith.  By the time he had handed it back, and its beautiful
wearer had put it on again (which she did with perfect composure
and indifference), the lodger returned with the show and showmen at
his heels, and a strong addition to the body of spectators.  The
exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind the drapery; and his
partner, stationing himself by the side of the Theatre, surveyed
the audience with a remarkable expression of melancholy, which
became more remarkable still when he breathed a hornpipe tune into
that sweet musical instrument which is popularly termed a
mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful expression of the
upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were, of
necessity, in lively spasms.

The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained
in the customary manner.  The sensation which kindles in large
assemblies, when they are relieved from a state of breathless
suspense and are again free to speak and move, was yet rife, when
the lodger, as usual, summoned the men up stairs.

'Both of you,' he called from the window; for only the actual
exhibitor--a little fat man--prepared to obey the summons.  'I
want to talk to you.  Come both of you!'

Come, Tommy,' said the little man.

I an't a talker,' replied the other.  'Tell him so.  What should I
go and talk for?'

'Don't you see the gentleman's got a bottle and glass up there?'
returned the little man.

'And couldn't you have said so at first?' retorted the other with
sudden alacrity.  'Now, what are you waiting for?  Are you going to
keep the gentleman expecting us all day?  haven't you no manners?'

With this remonstrance, the melancholy man, who was no other than
Mr Thomas Codlin, pushed past his friend and brother in the craft,
Mr Harris, otherwise Short or Trotters, and hurried before him to
the single gentleman's apartment.

'Now, my men,' said the single gentleman; 'you have done very well.
What will you take?  Tell that little man behind, to shut the
door.'

'Shut the door, can't you?' said Mr Codlin, turning gruffly to his
friend.  'You might have knowed that the gentleman wanted the door
shut, without being told, I think.'

Mr Short obeyed, observing under his breath that his friend seemed
unusually 'cranky,' and expressing a hope that there was no dairy
in the neighbourhood, or his temper would certainly spoil its
contents.

The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and intimated by an
emphatic nod of his head that he expected them to be seated.
Messrs Codlin and Short, after looking at each other with
considerable doubt and indecision, at length sat down--each on the
extreme edge of the chair pointed out to him--and held their hats
very tight, while the single gentleman filled a couple of glasses
from a bottle on the table beside him, and presented them in due
form.

'You're pretty well browned by the sun, both of you,' said their
entertainer.  'Have you been travelling?'

Mr Short replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile.  Mr
Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan, as if he still
felt the weight of the Temple on his shoulders.

'To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?' pursued the
single gentleman.

'Yes, sir,' returned Short, 'pretty nigh all over the West of
England.'

'I have talked to men of your craft from North, East, and South,'
returned their host, in rather a hasty manner; 'but I never lighted
on any from the West before.'

'It's our reg'lar summer circuit is the West, master,' said Short;
'that's where it is.  We takes the East of London in the spring and
winter, and the West of England in the summer time.  Many's the
hard day's walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned,
we've had down in the West.'

'Let me fill your glass again.'

'Much obleeged to you sir, I think I will,' said Mr Codlin,
suddenly thrusting in his own and turning Short's aside.  'I'm the
sufferer, sir, in all the travelling, and in all the staying at
home.  In town or country, wet or dry, hot or cold, Tom Codlin
suffers.  But Tom Codlin isn't to complain for all that.  Oh, no!
Short may complain, but if Codlin grumbles by so much as a word--
oh dear, down with him, down with him directly.  It isn't his place
to grumble.  That's quite out of the question.'

'Codlin an't without his usefulness,' observed Short with an arch
look, 'but he don't always keep his eyes open.  He falls asleep
sometimes, you know.  Remember them last races, Tommy.'

'Will you never leave off aggravating a man?' said Codlin.  'It's
very like I was asleep when five-and-tenpence was collected, in one
round, isn't it?  I was attending to my business, and couldn't have
my eyes in twenty places at once, like a peacock, no more than you
could.  If I an't a match for an old man and a young child, you
an't neither, so don't throw that out against me, for the cap fits
your head quite as correct as it fits mine."

'You may as well drop the subject, Tom,' said Short.  'It isn't
particular agreeable to the gentleman, I dare say.'

'Then you shouldn't have brought it up,' returned Mr Codlin; 'and
I ask the gentleman's pardon on your account, as a giddy chap that
likes to hear himself talk, and don't much care what he talks
about, so that he does talk.'

Their entertainer had sat perfectly quiet in the beginning of this
dispute, looking first at one man and then at the other, as if he
were lying in wait for an opportunity of putting some further
question, or reverting to that from which the discourse had
strayed.  But, from the point where Mr Codlin was charged with
sleepiness, he had shown an increasing interest in the discussion:
which now attained a very high pitch.

'You are the two men I want,' he said, 'the two men I have been
looking for, and searching after!  Where are that old man and that
child you speak of?'

'Sir?' said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.

'The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you--where are
they?  It will be worth your while to speak out, I assure you; much
better worth your while than you believe.  They left you, you say--
at those races, as I understand.  They have been traced to that
place, and there lost sight of.  Have you no clue, can you suggest
no clue, to their recovery?'

'Did I always say, Thomas,' cried Short, turning with a look of
amazement to his friend, 'that there was sure to be an inquiry
after them two travellers?'

'YOU said!' returned Mr Codlin.  'Did I always say that that 'ere
blessed child was the most interesting I ever see?  Did I always
say I loved her, and doated on her?  Pretty creetur, I think I hear
her now.  "Codlin's my friend," she says, with a tear of gratitude
a trickling down her little eye; "Codlin's my friend," she says--
"not Short.  Short's very well," she says; "I've no quarrel with
Short; he means kind, I dare say; but Codlin," she says, "has the
feelings for my money, though he mayn't look it."'

Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr Codlin rubbed the
bridge of his nose with his coat-sleeve, and shaking his head
mournfully from side to side, left the single gentleman to infer
that, from the moment when he lost sight of his dear young charge,
his peace of mind and happiness had fled.

'Good Heaven!' said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the
room, 'have I found these men at last, only to discover that they
can give me no information or assistance!  It would have been
better to have lived on, in hope, from day to day, and never to
have lighted on them, than to have my expectations scattered thus.'

'Stay a minute,' said Short.  'A man of the name of Jerry--you
know Jerry, Thomas?'

'Oh, don't talk to me of Jerrys,' replied Mr Codlin.  'How can I
care a pinch of snuff for Jerrys, when I think of that 'ere darling
child?  "Codlin's my friend," she says, "dear, good, kind Codlin,
as is always a devising pleasures for me!  I don't object to
Short," she says, "but I cotton to Codlin." Once,' said that
gentleman reflectively, 'she called me Father Codlin.  I thought I
should have bust!'

'A man of the name of Jerry, sir,' said Short, turning from his
selfish colleague to their new acquaintance, 'wot keeps a company
of dancing dogs, told me, in a accidental sort of way, that he had
seen the old gentleman in connexion with a travelling wax-work,
unbeknown to him.  As they'd given us the slip, and nothing had
come of it, and this was down in the country that he'd been seen,
I took no measures about it, and asked no questions--But I can, if
you like.'

'Is this man in town?' said the impatient single gentleman.  'Speak
faster.'

'No he isn't, but he will be to-morrow, for he lodges in our
house,' replied Mr Short rapidly.

'Then bring him here,' said the single gentleman.  'Here's a
sovereign a-piece.  If I can find these people through your means,
it is but a prelude to twenty more.  Return to me to-morrow, and
keep your own counsel on this subject--though I need hardly tell
you that; for you'll do so for your own sakes.  Now, give me your
address, and leave me.'

The address was given, the two men departed, the crowd went with
them, and the single gentleman for two mortal hours walked in
uncommon agitation up and down his room, over the wondering heads
of Mr Swiveller and Miss Sally Brass.




CHAPTER 38


Kit--for it happens at this juncture, not only that we have
breathing time to follow his fortunes, but that the necessities of
these adventures so adapt themselves to our ease and inclination as
to call upon us imperatively to pursue the track we most desire to
take--Kit, while the matters treated of in the last fifteen
chapters were yet in progress, was, as the reader may suppose,
gradually familiarising himself more and more with Mr and Mrs
Garland, Mr Abel, the pony, and Barbara, and gradually coming to
consider them one and all as his particular private friends, and
Abel Cottage, Finchley, as his own proper home.

Stay--the words are written, and may go, but if they convey any
notion that Kit, in the plentiful board and comfortable lodging of
his new abode, began to think slightingly of the poor fare and
furniture of his old dwelling, they do their office badly and
commit injustice.  Who so mindful of those he left at home--albeit
they were but a mother and two young babies--as Kit?  What
boastful father in the fulness of his heart ever related such
wonders of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied of telling
Barbara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob?  Was there
ever such a mother as Kit's mother, on her son's showing; or was
there ever such comfort in poverty as in the poverty of Kit's
family, if any correct judgment might be arrived at, from his own
glowing account!

And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if
ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are
graceful in the poor.  The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud
to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man
to his humble hearth are of the truer metal and bear the stamp of
Heaven.  The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of
his inheritance as part of himself: as trophies of his birth and
power; his associations with them are associations of pride and
wealth and triumph; the poor man's attachment to the tenements he
holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy
again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil.  His
household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver,
gold, or precious stone; he has no property but in the affections
of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls,
despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love of
home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place.

Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember
this--if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to
have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all
domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses
where social decency is lost, or rather never found--if they
would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses,
and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only
Poverty may walk--many low roofs would point more truly to the
sky, than the loftiest steeple that now rears proudly up from the
midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible disease, to mock them by
its contrast.  In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and jail,
this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for
years.  It is no light matter--no outcry from the working vulgar--
no mere question of the people's health and comforts that may be
whistled down on Wednesday nights.  In love of home, the love of
country has its rise; and who are the truer patriots or the better
in time of need--those who venerate the land, owning its wood, and
stream, and earth, and all that they produce?  or those who love
their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide
domain!

Kit knew nothing about such questions, but he knew that his old
home was a very poor place, and that his new one was very unlike
it, and yet he was constantly looking back with grateful
satisfaction and affectionate anxiety, and often indited square-
folded letters to his mother, enclosing a shilling or eighteenpence
or such other small remittance, which Mr Abel's liberality enabled
him to make.  Sometimes being in the neighbourhood, he had leisure
to call upon her, and then great was the joy and pride of Kit's
mother, and extremely noisy the satisfaction of little Jacob and
the baby, and cordial the congratulations of the whole court, who
listened with admiring ears to the accounts of Abel Cottage, and
could never be told too much of its wonders and magnificence.

Although Kit was in the very highest favour with the old lady and
gentleman, and Mr Abel, and Barbara, it is certain that no member
of the family evinced such a remarkable partiality for him as the
self-willed pony, who, from being the most obstinate and
opinionated pony on the face of the earth, was, in his hands, the
meekest and most tractable of animals.  It is true that in exact
proportion as he became manageable by Kit he became utterly
ungovernable by anybody else (as if he had determined to keep him
in the family at all risks and hazards), and that, even under the
guidance of his favourite, he would sometimes perform a great
variety of strange freaks and capers, to the extreme discomposure
of the old lady's nerves; but as Kit always represented that this
was only his fun, or a way he had of showing his attachment to his
employers, Mrs Garland gradually suffered herself to be persuaded
into the belief, in which she at last became so strongly confirmed,
that if, in one of these ebullitions, he had overturned the chaise,
she would have been quite satisfied that he did it with the very
best intentions.

Besides becoming in a short time a perfect marvel in all stable
matters, Kit soon made himself a very tolerable gardener, a handy
fellow within doors, and an indispensable attendant on Mr Abel, who
every day gave him some new proof of his confidence and
approbation.  Mr Witherden the notary, too, regarded him with a
friendly eye; and even Mr Chuckster would sometimes condescend to
give him a slight nod, or to honour him with that peculiar form of
recognition which is called 'taking a sight,' or to favour him with
some other salute combining pleasantry with patronage.

One morning Kit drove Mr Abel to the Notary's office, as he
sometimes did, and having set him down at the house, was about to
drive off to a livery stable hard by, when this same Mr Chuckster
emerged from the office door, and cried 'Woa-a-a-a-a-a!'--dwelling
upon the note a long time, for the purpose of striking terror into
the pony's heart, and asserting the supremacy of man over the
inferior animals.

'Pull up, Snobby,' cried Mr Chuckster, addressing himself to Kit.
'You're wanted inside here.'

'Has Mr Abel forgotten anything, I wonder?' said Kit as he
dismounted.

'Ask no questions, Snobby,' returned Mr Chuckster, 'but go and see.
Woa-a-a then, will you?  If that pony was mine, I'd break him.'

'You must be very gentle with him, if you please,' said Kit, 'or
you'll find him troublesome.  You'd better not keep on pulling his
ears, please.  I know he won't like it.'

To this remonstrance Mr Chuckster deigned no other answer, than
addressing Kit with a lofty and distant air as 'young feller,' and
requesting him to cut and come again with all speed.  The 'young
feller' complying, Mr Chuckster put his hands in his pockets, and
tried to look as if he were not minding the pony, but happened to
be lounging there by accident.

Kit scraped his shoes very carefully (for he had not yet lost his
reverence for the bundles of papers and the tin boxes,) and tapped
at the office-door, which was quickly opened by the Notary himself.

'Oh! come in, Christopher,' said Mr Witherden.

'Is that the lad?' asked an elderly gentleman, but of a stout,
bluff figure--who was in the room.

'That's the lad,' said Mr Witherden.  'He fell in with my client,
Mr Garland, sir, at this very door.  I have reason to think he is
a good lad, sir, and that you may believe what he says.  Let me
introduce Mr Abel Garland, sir--his young master; my articled
pupil, sir, and most particular friend:--my most particular
friend, sir,' repeated the Notary, drawing out his silk
handkerchief and flourishing it about his face.

'Your servant, sir,' said the stranger gentleman.

'Yours, sir, I'm sure,' replied Mr Abel mildly.  'You were wishing
to speak to Christopher, sir?'

'Yes, I was.  Have I your permission?'

'By all means.'

'My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no
secret here,' said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the
Notary were preparing to retire.  'It relates to a dealer in
curiosities with whom he lived, and in whom I am earnestly and
warmly interested.  I have been a stranger to this country,
gentlemen, for very many years, and if I am deficient in form and
ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.'

'No forgiveness is necessary, sir;--none whatever,' replied the
Notary.  And so said Mr Abel.

'I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old
master lived,' said the stranger, 'and I learn that he was served
by this lad.  I have found out his mother's house, and have been
directed by her to this place as the nearest in which I should be
likely to find him.  That's the cause of my presenting myself here
this morning.'

'I am very glad of any cause, sir,' said the Notary, 'which
procures me the honour of this visit.'

'Sir,' retorted the stranger, 'you speak like a mere man of the
world, and I think you something better.  Therefore, pray do not
sink your real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.'

'Hem!' coughed the Notary.  'You're a plain speaker, sir.'

'And a plain dealer,' returned the stranger.  'It may be my long
absence and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if
plain speakers are scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain
dealers are still scarcer.  If my speaking should offend you, sir,
my dealing, I hope, will make amends.'

Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly
gentleman's mode of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he
looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of
language he would address to him, if he talked in that free and
easy way to a Notary.  It was with no harshness, however, though
with something of constitutional irritability and haste, that he
turned to Kit and said:

'If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any
other view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search
of, you do me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself.  Don't be
deceived, I beg of you, but rely upon my assurance.  The fact is,
gentlemen,' he added, turning again to the Notary and his pupil,
'that I am in a very painful and wholly unexpected position.  I
came to this city with a darling object at my heart, expecting to
find no obstacle or difficulty in the way of its attainment.  I
find myself suddenly checked and stopped short, in the execution of
my design, by a mystery which I cannot penetrate.  Every effort I
have made to penetrate it, has only served to render it darker and
more obscure; and I am afraid to stir openly in the matter, lest
those whom I anxiously pursue, should fly still farther from me.
I assure you that if you could give me any assistance, you would
not be sorry to do so, if you knew how greatly I stand in need of
it, and what a load it would relieve me from.'

There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to
find a quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who
replied, in the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his
desire, and that if he could be of service to him, he would, most
readily.

Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the
unknown gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their
lonely way of life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion.
The nightly absence of the old man, the solitary existence of the
child at those times, his illness and recovery, Quilp's possession
of the house, and their sudden disappearance, were all the subjects
of much questioning and answer.  Finally, Kit informed the
gentleman that the premises were now to let, and that a board upon
the door referred all inquirers to Mr Sampson Brass, Solicitor, of
Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps learn some further
particulars.

'Not by inquiry,' said the gentleman shaking his head.  'I live
there.'

'Live at Brass's the attorney's!' cried Mr Witherden in some
surprise: having professional knowledge of the gentleman in
question.

'Aye,' was the reply.  'I entered on his lodgings t'other day,
chiefly because I had seen this very board.  it matters little to
me where I live, and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence
might be cast in my way there, which would not reach me elsewhere.
Yes, I live at Brass's--more shame for me, I suppose?'

'That's a mere matter of opinion,' said the Notary, shrugging his
shoulders.  'He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.'

'Doubtful?' echoed the other.  'I am glad to hear there's any doubt
about it.  I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago.
But will you let me speak a word or two with you in private?'

Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman's private
closet, and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter
of an hour, when they returned into the outer office.  The stranger
had left his hat in Mr Witherden's room, and seemed to have
established himself in this short interval on quite a friendly
footing.

'I'll not detain you any longer now,' he said, putting a crown into
Kit's hand, and looking towards the Notary.  'You shall hear from
me again.  Not a word of this, you know, except to your master and
mistress.'

'Mother, sir, would be glad to know--' said Kit, faltering.

'Glad to know what?'

'Anything--so that it was no harm--about Miss Nell.'

'Would she?  Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret.
But mind, not a word of this to anybody else.  Don't forget that.
Be particular.'

'I'll take care, sir,' said Kit.  'Thankee, sir, and good morning.'

Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon
Kit that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them,
followed him out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further
happened that at that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were
turned in that direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit
together.

It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was
this.  Mr Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and
refined spirit, was one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof
Mr Swiveller was Perpetual Grand.  Mr Swiveller, passing through
the street in the execution of some Brazen errand, and beholding
one of his Glorious Brotherhood intently gazing on a pony, crossed
over to give him that fraternal greeting with which Perpetual
Grands are, by the very constitution of their office, bound to
cheer and encourage their disciples.  He had scarcely bestowed upon
him his blessing, and followed it with a general remark touching
the present state and prospects of the weather, when, lifting up
his eyes, he beheld the single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest
conversation with Christopher Nubbles.

'Hallo!' said Dick, 'who is that?'

'He called to see my Governor this morning,' replied Mr Chuckster;
'beyond that, I don't know him from Adam.'

'At least you know his name?' said Dick.

To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming
a Glorious Apollo, that he was 'everlastingly blessed' if he did.

'All I know, my dear feller,' said Mr Chuckster, running his
fingers through his hair, 'is, that he is the cause of my having
stood here twenty minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and
undying hatred, and would pursue him to the confines of eternity if
I could afford the time.'

While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation
(who had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered
the house, and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr
Swiveller again propounded his inquiry with no better success.

'He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,' said Kit, 'and that's all I
know about him.'

Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the
remark to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that
it was expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their
noses.  Without expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr
Swiveller after a few moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit
was driving, and, being informed, declared it was his way, and that
he would trespass on him for a lift.  Kit would gladly have
declined the proffered honour, but as Mr Swiveller was already
established in the seat beside him, he had no means of doing so,
otherwise than by a forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove
briskly off--so briskly indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking
between Mr Chuckster and his Grand Master, and to occasion the
former gentleman some inconvenience from having his corns squeezed
by the impatient pony.

As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough
to stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries,
they rattled off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation:
especially as the pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller's admonitions,
took a particular fancy for the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and
evinced a strong desire to run on the pavement and rasp himself
against the brick walls.  It was not, therefore, until they had
arrived at the stable, and the chaise had been extricated from a
very small doorway, into which the pony dragged it under the
impression that he could take it along with him into his usual
stall, that Mr Swiveller found time to talk.

'It's hard work,' said Richard.  'What do you say to some beer?'

Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned
to the neighbouring bar together.

'We'll drink our friend what's-his-name,' said Dick, holding up the
bright frothy pot; '--that was talking to you this morning, you
know--I know him--a good fellow, but eccentric--very--here's
what's-his-name!'

Kit pledged him.

'He lives in my house,' said Dick; 'at least in the house occupied
by the firm in which I'm a sort of a--of a managing partner--a
difficult fellow to get anything out of, but we like him--we like
him.'

'I must be going, sir, if you please,' said Kit, moving away.

'Don't be in a hurry, Christopher,' replied his patron, 'we'll
drink your mother.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,' said Mr
Swiveller.  'Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place
to make it well?  My mother.  A charming woman.  He's a liberal
sort of fellow.  We must get him to do something for your mother.
Does he know her, Christopher?'

Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked
him, and made off before he could say another word.

'Humph!' said Mr Swiveller pondering, 'this is queer.  Nothing but
mysteries in connection with Brass's house.  I'll keep my own
counsel, however.  Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence
as yet, but now I think I'll set up in business for myself.  Queer--
very queer!'

After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some
time, Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a
small boy who had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the
few remaining drops as a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry
the empty vessel to the bar with his compliments, and above all
things to lead a sober and temperate life, and abstain from all
intoxicating and exciting liquors.  Having given him this piece of
moral advice for his trouble (which, as he wisely observed, was far
better than half-pence) the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious
Apollos thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered away: still
pondering as he went.




CHAPTER 39


All that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept
clear of his mother's house, determined not to anticipate the
pleasures of the morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of
delight; for to-morrow was the great and long looked-for epoch in
his life--to-morrow was the end of his first quarter--the day of
receiving, for the first time, one fourth part of his annual income
of Six Pounds in one vast sum of Thirty Shillings--to-morrow was
to be a half-holiday devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and
little Jacob was to know what oysters meant, and to see a play.

All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not
only had Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to
make no deduction for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay
it him unbroken in all its gigantic grandeur; not only had the
unknown gentleman increased the stock by the sum of five shillings,
which was a perfect god-send and in itself a fortune; not only had
these things come to pass which nobody could have calculated upon,
or in their wildest dreams have hoped; but it was Barbara's quarter
too--Barbara's quarter, that very day--and Barbara had a
half-holiday as well as Kit, and Barbara's mother was going to make
one of the party, and to take tea with Kit's mother, and cultivate
her acquaintance.

To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to
see which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would
have been at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night,
starching and ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them
into frills, and sewing them on to other pieces to form magnificent
wholes for next day's wear.  But they were both up very early for
all that, and had small appetites for breakfast and less for
dinner, and were in a state of great excitement when Barbara's
mother came in, with astonishing accounts of the fineness of the
weather out of doors (but with a very large umbrella
notwithstanding, for people like Barbara's mother seldom make
holiday without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up
stairs and receive their quarter's money in gold and silver.

Well, wasn't Mr Garland kind when he said 'Christopher, here's your
money, and you have earned it well;' and wasn't Mrs Garland kind
when she said 'Barbara, here's yours, and I'm much pleased with
you;' and didn't Kit sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn't
Barbara sign her name all a trembling to hers; and wasn't it
beautiful to see how Mrs Garland poured out Barbara's mother a
glass of wine; and didn't Barbara's mother speak up when she said
'Here's blessing you, ma'am, as a good lady, and you, sir, as a
good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to you, and here's towards
you, Mr Christopher;' and wasn't she as long drinking it as if it
had been a tumblerful; and didn't she look genteel, standing there
with her gloves on; and wasn't there plenty of laughing and talking
among them as they reviewed all these things upon the top of the
coach, and didn't they pity the people who hadn't got a holiday!

But Kit's mother, again--wouldn't anybody have supposed she had
come of a good stock and been a lady all her life!  There she was,
quite ready to receive them, with a display of tea-things that
might have warmed the heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and
the baby in such a state of perfection that their clothes looked as
good as new, though Heaven knows they were old enough!  Didn't she
say before they had sat down five minutes that Barbara's mother was
exactly the sort of lady she expected, and didn't Barbara's mother
say that Kit's mother was the very picture of what she had
expected, and didn't Kit's mother compliment Barbara's mother on
Barbara, and didn't Barbara's mother compliment Kit's mother on
Kit, and wasn't Barbara herself quite fascinated with little Jacob,
and did ever a child show off when he was wanted, as that child
did, or make such friends as he made!

'And we are both widows too!' said Barbara's mother.  'We must have
been made to know each other.'

'I haven't a doubt about it,' returned Mrs Nubbles.  'And what a
pity it is we didn't know each other sooner.'

'But then, you know, it's such a pleasure,' said Barbara's mother,
'to have it brought about by one's son and daughter, that it's
fully made up for.  Now, an't it?'

To this, Kit's mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things
back from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their
deceased husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials,
they compared notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that
tallied with wonderful exactness; such as Barbara's father having
been exactly four years and ten months older than Kit's father, and
one of them having died on a Wednesday and the other on a Thursday,
and both of them having been of a very fine make and remarkably
good-looking, with other extraordinary coincidences.  These
recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a shadow on the
brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation to general
topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as merry as
before.  Among other things, Kit told them about his old place, and
the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to Barbara
a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance failed
to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had
supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara
at the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very
pretty, but she was but a child after all, and there were many
young women quite as pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed
that she should think so, and that she never could help believing
Mr Christopher must be under a mistake--which Kit wondered at very
much, not being able to conceive what reason she had for doubting
him.  Barbara's mother too, observed that it was very common for
young folks to change at about fourteen or fifteen, and whereas
they had been very pretty before, to grow up quite plain; which
truth she illustrated by many forcible examples, especially one of
a young man, who, being a builder with great prospects, had been
particular in his attentions to Barbara, but whom Barbara would
have nothing to say to; which (though everything happened for the
best) she almost thought was a pity.  Kit said he thought so too,
and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so silent
all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn't
have said it.

However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which
great preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets,
not to mention one handkerchief full of oranges and another of
apples, which took some time tying up, in consequence of
the fruit having a tendency to roll out at the corners.  At length,
everything was ready, and they went off very fast; Kit's mother
carrying the baby, who was dreadfully wide awake, and Kit holding
little Jacob in one hand, and escorting Barbara with the other--a
state of things which occasioned the two mothers, who walked
behind, to declare that they looked quite family folks, and caused
Barbara to blush and say, 'Now don't, mother!' But Kit said she had
no call to mind what they said; and indeed she need not have had,
if she had known how very far from Kit's thoughts any love-making
was.  Poor Barbara!

At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley's: and in some
two minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little
Jacob was squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers
concussions, and Barbara's mother's umbrella had been carried
several yards off and passed back to her over the shoulders of the
people, and Kit had hit a man on the head with the handkerchief of
apples for 'scrowdging' his parent with unnecessary violence, and
there was a great uproar.  But, when they were once past the
pay-place and tearing away for very life with their checks in their
hands, and, above all, when they were fairly in the theatre, and
seated in such places that they couldn't have had better if they
had picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this was looked
upon as quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the
entertainment.

Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley's; with all the
paint, gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses
suggestive of coming wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous
mysteries; the clean white sawdust down in the circus; the company
coming in and taking their places; the fiddlers looking carelessly
up at them while they tuned their instruments, as if they didn't
want the play to begin, and knew it all beforehand!  What a glow
was that, which burst upon them all, when that long, clear,
brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and what the feverish
excitement when the little bell rang and the music began in good
earnest, with strong parts for the drums, and sweet effects for the
triangles!  Well might Barbara's mother say to Kit's mother that
the gallery was the place to see from, and wonder it wasn't much
dearer than the boxes; well might Barbara feel doubtful whether to
laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight.

Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from
the first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose
reality he could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or
heard anything at all like them--the firing, which made Barbara
wink--the forlorn lady, who made her cry--the tyrant, who made
her tremble--the man who sang the song with the lady's-maid and
danced the chorus, who made her laugh--the pony who reared up on
his hind legs when he saw the murderer, and wouldn't hear of
walking on all fours again until he was taken into custody--the
clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military man in
boots--the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and
came down safe upon the horse's back--everything was delightful,
splendid, and surprising!  Little Jacob applauded till his hands
were sore; Kit cried 'an-kor' at the end of everything, the
three-act piece included; and Barbara's mother beat her umbrella on
the floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the
gingham.

In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara's thoughts seemed
to have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for,
when they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an
hysterical simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who
jumped over the ribbons.

'As handsome as her?' said Kit.  'Double as handsome.'

'Oh Christopher! I'm sure she was the beautifullest creature ever
was,' said Barbara.

'Nonsense!' returned Kit.  'She was well enough, I don't deny that;
but think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference
that made.  Why YOU are a good deal better looking than her,
Barbara.'

'Oh Christopher!' said Barbara, looking down.

'You are, any day,' said Kit, '--and so's your mother.'

Poor Barbara!

What was all this though--even all this--to the extraordinary
dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as
bold as if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the
counter or the man behind it, led his party into a box--a private
box, fitted up with red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-
stand complete--and ordered a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who
acted as waiter and called him, him Christopher Nubbles, 'sir,' to
bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp
about it!  Yes, Kit told this gentleman to look sharp, and he not
only said he would look sharp, but he actually did, and presently
came running back with the newest loaves, and the freshest butter,
and the largest oysters, ever seen.  Then said Kit to this
gentleman, 'a pot of beer'--just so--and the gentleman, instead
of replying, 'Sir, did you address that language to me?' only said,
'Pot o' beer, sir?  Yes, sir,' and went off and fetched it, and put
it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which
blind-men's dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch
the half-pence in; and both Kit's mother and Barbara's mother
declared as he turned away that he was one of the slimmest and
gracefullest young men she had ever looked upon.

Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was
Barbara, that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat
more than two, and wanting more pressing than you would believe
before she would eat four: though her mother and Kit's mother made
up for it pretty well, and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves
so thoroughly that it did Kit good to see them, and made him laugh
and eat likewise from strong sympathy.  But the greatest miracle of
the night was little Jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born
and bred to the business--sprinkled the pepper and the vinegar
with a discretion beyond his years--and afterwards built a grotto
on the table with the shells.  There was the baby too, who had
never closed an eye all night, but had sat as good as gold, trying
to force a large orange into his mouth, and gazing intently at the
lights in the chandelier--there he was, sitting up in his mother's
lap, staring at the gas without winking, and making indentations in
his soft visage with an oyster-shell, to that degree that a heart
of iron must have loved him!  In short, there never was a more
successful supper; and when Kit ordered in a glass of something hot
to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs Garland before sending it
round, there were not six happier people in all the world.

But all happiness has an end--hence the chief pleasure of its next
beginning--and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time
to turn their faces homewards.  So, after going a little out of
their way to see Barbara and Barbara's mother safe to a friend's
house where they were to pass the night, Kit and his mother left
them at the door, with an early appointment for returning to
Finchley next morning, and a great many plans for next quarter's
enjoyment.  Then, Kit took little Jacob on his back, and giving his
arm to his mother, and a kiss to the baby, they all trudged merrily
home together.




CHAPTER 40


Full of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next
morning, Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last
night's enjoyments a little shaken by cool daylight and the return
to every-day duties and occupations, went to meet Barbara and her
mother at the appointed place.  And being careful not to awaken any
of the little household, who were yet resting from their unusual
fatigues, Kit left his money on the chimney-piece, with an
inscription in chalk calling his mother's attention to the
circumstance, and informing her that it came from her dutiful son;
and went his way, with a heart something heavier than his pockets,
but free from any very great oppression notwithstanding.

Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret?  why cannot
we push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put
them at once at that convenient distance whence they may be
regarded either with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of
recollection! why will they hang about us, like the flavour of
yesterday's wine, suggestive of headaches and lassitude, and those
good intentions for the future, which, under the earth, form the
everlasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it, usually
endure until dinner-time or thereabouts!

Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's
mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated
Astley's, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him
to be last night?  Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not
he.  He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in
that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before
last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks
and months to come, though he would not be there.  Such is the
difference between yesterday and today.  We are all going to the
play, or coming home from it.

However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers
strength and courage as the day gets on.  By degrees, they began to
recall circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until,
what between talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley
in such good heart, that Barbara's mother declared she never felt
less tired or in better spirits.  And so said Kit.  Barbara had
been silent all the way, but she said so too.  Poor little Barbara!
She was very quiet.

They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the
pony and made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came
down to breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old
lady, and the old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled.  At his
usual hour (or rather at his usual minute and second, for he was
the soul of punctuality) Mr Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the
London coach, and Kit and the old gentleman went to work in the
garden.

This was not the least pleasant of Kit's employments.  On a fine
day they were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by
with her work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging,
or pruning, or clipping about with a large pair of shears, or
helping Kit in some way or other with great assiduity; and Whisker
looking on from his paddock in placid contemplation of them all.
To-day they were to trim the grape-vine, so Kit mounted half-way up
a short ladder, and began to snip and hammer away, while the old
gentleman, with a great interest in his proceedings, handed up the
nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted them.  The old lady and
Whisker looked on as usual.

'Well, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'and so you have made a new
friend, eh?'

'I beg your pardon, Sir?' returned Kit, looking down from the
ladder.

'You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,' said the old
gentleman, 'at the office!'

'Oh!  Yes Sir, yes.  He behaved very handsome, Sir.'

'I'm glad to hear it,' returned the old gentlemen with a smile.
'He is disposed to behave more handsomely still, though,
Christopher.'

'Indeed, Sir!  It's very kind in him, but I don't want him to, I'm
sure,' said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail.

'He is rather anxious,' pursued the old gentleman, 'to have you in
his own service--take care what you're doing, or you will fall
down and hurt yourself.'

'To have me in his service, Sir?' cried Kit, who had stopped short
in his work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous
tumbler.  'Why, Sir, I don't think he can be in earnest when he
says that.'

'Oh!  But he is indeed,' said Mr Garland.  'And he has told Mr Abel
so.'

'I never heard of such a thing!' muttered Kit, looking ruefully at
his master and mistress.  'I wonder at him; that I do.'

'You see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'this is a point of much
importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in
that light.  This gentleman is able to give you more money than I--
not, I hope, to carry through the various relations of master and
servant, more kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher,
to give you more money.'

'Well,' said Kit, 'after that, Sir--'

'Wait a moment,' interposed Mr Garland.  'That is not all.  You
were a very faithful servant to your old employers, as I
understand, and should this gentleman recover them, as it is his
purpose to attempt doing by every means in his power, I have no
doubt that you, being in his service, would meet with your reward.
Besides,' added the old gentleman with stronger emphasis, 'besides
having the pleasure of being again brought into communication with
those to whom you seem to be very strongly and disinterestedly
attached.  You must think of all this, Christopher, and not be rash
or hasty in your choice.'

Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the
resolution he had already formed, when this last argument passed
swiftly into his thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all
his hopes and fancies.  But it was gone in a minute, and he
sturdily rejoined that the gentleman must look out for somebody
else, as he did think he might have done at first.

'He has no right to think that I'd be led away to go to him, sir,'
said Kit, turning round again after half a minute's hammering.
'Does he think I'm a fool?'

'He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,' said Mr
Garland gravely.

'Then let him, sir,' retorted Kit; 'what do I care, sir, what he
thinks?  why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that
I should be a fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the
kindest master and mistress that ever was or can be, who took me
out of the streets a very poor and hungry lad indeed--poorer and
hungrier perhaps than even you think for, sir--to go to him or
anybody?  If Miss Nell was to come back, ma'am,' added Kit, turning
suddenly to his mistress, 'why that would be another thing, and
perhaps if she wanted me, I might ask you now and then to let me
work for her when all was done at home.  But when she comes back,
I see now that she'll be rich as old master always said she would,
and being a rich young lady, what could she want of me?  No, no,'
added Kit, shaking his head sorrowfully, 'she'll never want me any
more, and bless her, I hope she never may, though I should like to
see her too!'

Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard--much harder than
was necessary--and having done so, faced about again.

'There's the pony, sir,' said Kit--'Whisker, ma'am (and he knows
so well I'm talking about him that he begins to neigh directly,
Sir)--would he let anybody come near him but me, ma'am?  Here's
the garden, sir, and Mr Abel, ma'am.  Would Mr Abel part with me,
Sir, or is there anybody that could be fonder of the garden, ma'am?
It would break mother's heart, Sir, and even little Jacob would
have sense enough to cry his eyes out, ma'am, if he thought that Mr
Abel could wish to part with me so soon, after having told me, only
the other day, that he hoped we might be together for years to
come--'

There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder,
addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning
towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come
running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a
note, which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit's
oratorical appearance, she put into her master's hand.

'Oh!' said the old gentleman after reading it, 'ask the messenger
to walk this way.'  Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he
turned to Kit and said that they would not pursue the subject any
further, and that Kit could not be more unwilling to part with
them, than they would be to part with Kit; a sentiment which the
old lady very generously echoed.

'At the same time, Christopher,' added Mr Garland, glancing at the
note in his hand, 'if the gentleman should want to borrow you now
and then for an hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must
consent to lend you, and you must consent to be lent. --Oh! here
is the young gentleman.  How do you do, Sir?'

This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat
extremely on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came
swaggering up the walk.

'Hope I see you well sir,' returned that gentleman.  'Hope I see
YOU well, ma'am.  Charming box' this, sir.  Delicious country to be
sure.'

'You want to take Kit back with you, I find?' observed Mr Garland.

'I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,' replied the clerk.
'A very spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you're a judge of
horse-flesh.'

Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but
poorly acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly
appreciate his beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake
of a slight repast in the way of lunch.  That gentleman readily
consenting, certain cold viands, flanked with ale and wine, were
speedily prepared for his refreshment.

At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to
enchant his entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the
mental superiority of those who dwelt in town; with which view he
led the discourse to the small scandal of the day, in which he was
justly considered by his friends to shine prodigiously.  Thus, he
was in a condition to relate the exact circumstances of the
difference between the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord Bobby, which it
appeared originated in a disputed bottle of champagne, and not in
a pigeon-pie, as erroneously reported in the newspapers; neither
had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis of Mizzler, 'Mizzler, one of us
two tells a lie, and I'm not the man,' as incorrectly stated by the
same authorities; but 'Mizzler, you know where I'm to be found, and
damme, sir, find me if you want me'--which, of course, entirely
changed the aspect of this interesting question, and placed it in
a very different light.  He also acquainted them with the precise
amount of the income guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry to
Violetta Stetta of the Italian Opera, which it appeared was payable
quarterly, and not half-yearly, as the public had been given to
understand, and which was EXclusive, and not INclusive (as had been
monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery, hair-powder for five
footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a page.  Having
entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at rest on
these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being
the correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical
chit-chat and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and
fascinating conversation which he had maintained alone, and without
any assistance whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour.

'And now that the nag has got his wind again,' said Mr Chuckster
rising in a graceful manner, 'I'm afraid I must cut my stick.'

Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing
himself away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be
spared from his proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr
Chuckster and Kit were shortly afterwards upon their way to town;
Kit being perched upon the box of the cabriolet beside the driver,
and Mr Chuckster seated in solitary state inside, with one of his
boots sticking out at each of the front windows.

When they reached the Notary's house, Kit followed into the office,
and was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman
who wanted him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some
time.  This anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his
dinner, and his tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the
Law-List, and the Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a
great many times, before the gentleman whom he had seen before,
came in; which he did at last in a very great hurry.

He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel
had been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit,
wondering very much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend
them.

'Christopher,' said the gentleman, turning to him directly he
entered the room, 'I have found your old master and young
mistress.'

'No, Sir!  Have you, though?' returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with
delight.  'Where are they, Sir?  How are they, Sir?  Are they--are
they near here?'

'A long way from here,' returned the gentleman, shaking his head.
'But I am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to
go with me.'

'Me, Sir?' cried Kit, full of joy and surprise.

'The place,' said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to
the Notary, 'indicated by this man of the dogs, is--how far from
here--sixty miles?'

'From sixty to seventy.'

'Humph!  If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good
time to-morrow morning.  Now, the only question is, as they will
not know me, and the child, God bless her, would think that any
stranger pursuing them had a design upon her grandfather's liberty--
can I do better than take this lad, whom they both know and will
readily remember, as an assurance to them of my friendly
intentions?'

'Certainly not,' replied the Notary.  'Take Christopher by all
means.'

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Kit, who had listened to this
discourse with a lengthening countenance, 'but if that's the
reason, I'm afraid I should do more harm than good--Miss Nell,
Sir, she knows me, and would trust in me, I am sure; but old master--
I don't know why, gentlemen; nobody does--would not bear me in
his sight after he had been ill, and Miss Nell herself told me that
I must not go near him or let him see me any more.  I should spoil
all that you were doing if I went, I'm afraid.  I'd give the world
to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.'

'Another difficulty!' cried the impetuous gentleman.  'Was ever man
so beset as I?  Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in
whom they had any confidence?  Solitary as their lives were, is
there no one person who would serve my purpose?'

'IS there, Christopher?' said the Notary.

'Not one, Sir,' replied Kit.--'Yes, though--there's my mother.'

'Did they know her?' said the single gentleman.

'Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards.
They were as kind to her as they were to me.  Bless you, Sir, she
expected they'd come back to her house.'

'Then where the devil is the woman?' said the impatient gentleman,
catching up his hat.  'Why isn't she here?  Why is that woman
always out of the way when she is most wanted?'

In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office,
bent upon laying violent hands on Kit's mother, forcing her into a
post-chaise, and carrying her off, when this novel kind of
abduction was with some difficulty prevented by the joint efforts
of Mr Abel and the Notary, who restrained him by dint of their
remonstrances, and persuaded him to sound Kit upon the probability
of her being able and willing to undertake such a journey on so
short a notice.

This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent
demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many
soothing speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel.  The upshot of
the business was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind
and considering it carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother,
that she should be ready within two hours from that time to
undertake the expedition, and engaged to produce her in that place,
in all respects equipped and prepared for the journey, before the
specified period had expired.

Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not
particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying
forth, and taking measures for its immediate fulfilment.




CHAPTER 41


Kit made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream
of people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and
alleys, and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in
front of the Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly
from habit and partly from being out of breath.

It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had
never looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight.  The windows
broken, the rusty sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted
house a dull barrier dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the
street into two long lines, and standing in the midst, cold, dark,
and empty--presented a cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly
with the bright prospects the boy had been building up for its late
inmates, and came like a disappointment or misfortune.  Kit would
have had a good fire roaring up the empty chimneys, lights
sparkling and shining through the windows, people moving briskly to
and fro, voices in cheerful conversation, something in unison with
the new hopes that were astir.  He had not expected that the house
would wear any different aspect--had known indeed that it could
not--but coming upon it in the midst of eager thoughts and
expectations, it checked the current in its flow, and darkened it
with a mournful shadow.

Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or
contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off,
and, having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this
respect, saw nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably
upon his previous thoughts.  So, almost wishing that he had not
passed it, though hardly knowing why, he hurried on again, making
up by his increased speed for the few moments he had lost.

'Now, if she should be out,' thought Kit, as he approached the poor
dwelling of his mother, 'and I not able to find her, this impatient
gentleman would be in a pretty taking.  And sure enough there's no
light, and the door's fast.  Now, God forgive me for saying so, but
if this is Little Bethel's doing, I wish Little Bethel was--was
farther off,' said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door.

A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused
a woman over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting
Mrs Nubbles.

'Me,' said Kit.  'She's at--at Little Bethel, I suppose?'--getting
out the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and
laying a spiteful emphasis upon the words.

The neighbour nodded assent.

'Then pray tell me where it is,' said Kit, 'for I have come on a
pressing matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the
pulpit.'

It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in
question, as none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted
thither, and few knew anything more of it than the name.  At last,
a gossip of Mrs Nubbles's, who had accompanied her to chapel on one
or two occasions when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her
devotions, furnished the needful information, which Kit had no
sooner obtained than he started off again.

Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a
straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who
presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite
allusion to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which
enabled him to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to
the parish church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto.
Kit found it, at last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door
to take breath that he might enter with becoming decency, passed
into the chapel.

It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a
particularly little Bethel--a Bethel of the smallest dimensions--
with a small number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a
small gentleman (by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was
delivering in a by no means small voice, a by no means small
sermon, judging of its dimensions by the condition of his audience,
which, if their gross amount were but small, comprised a still
smaller number of hearers, as the majority were slumbering.

Among these was Kit's mother, who, finding it matter of extreme
difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night,
and feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded
by the arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness
that overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but
that she could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost
inaudible groan, as if in recognition of the orator's doctrines.
The baby in her arms was as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob,
whose youth prevented him from recognising in this prolonged
spiritual nourishment anything half as interesting as oysters, was
alternately very fast asleep and very wide awake, as his
inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally alluded
to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him.

'And now I'm here,' thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew
which was opposite his mother's, and on the other side of the
little aisle, 'how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come
out!  I might as well be twenty miles off.  She'll never wake till
it's all over, and there goes the clock again!  If he would but
leave off for a minute, or if they'd only sing!'

But there was little encouragement to believe that either event
would happen for a couple of hours to come.  The preacher went on
telling them what he meant to convince them of before he had done,
and it was clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises
and forgot the other, he was good for that time at least.

In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the
chapel, and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front
of the clerk's desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed
him--Quilp!

He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp
was there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his
knees, and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with
the accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the
ceiling.  He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and
appeared utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not
help feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend
was fastened upon them, and upon nothing else.

But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the
Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the
forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue
his wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his
parent, as the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew
serious.  Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set
himself to attract his wandering attention, and this not being a
very difficult task (one sneeze effected it), he signed to him to
rouse his mother.

Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in
a forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over
upon the pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs
remained inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his
right hand, and held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare,
straight into little Jacob's eyes, threatening him by his strained
look and attitude--so it appeared to the child--that if he so
much as moved a muscle, he, the preacher, would be literally, and
not figuratively, 'down upon him' that instant.  In this fearful
state of things, distracted by the sudden appearance of Kit, and
fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, the miserable Jacob sat
bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion, strongly disposed to cry
but afraid to do so, and returning his pastor's gaze until his
infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets.

'If I must do it openly, I must,' thought Kit.  With that he walked
softly out of his pew and into his mother's, and as Mr Swiveller
would have observed if he had been present, 'collared' the baby
without speaking a word.

'Hush, mother!' whispered Kit.  'Come along with me, I've got
something to tell you.'

'Where am I?' said Mrs Nubbles.

'In this blessed Little Bethel,' returned her son, peevishly.

'Blessed indeed!' cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word.  'Oh,
Christopher, how have I been edified this night!'

'Yes, yes, I know,' said Kit hastily; 'but come along, mother,
everybody's looking at us.  Don't make a noise--bring Jacob--
that's right!'

'Stay, Satan, stay!' cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off.


'This gentleman says you're to stay, Christopher,' whispered his
mother.

'Stay, Satan, stay!' roared the preacher again.  'Tempt not the
woman that doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of
him that calleth.  He hath a lamb from the fold!' cried the
preacher, raising his voice still higher and pointing to the baby.
'He beareth off a lamb, a precious lamb!  He goeth about, like a
wolf in the night season, and inveigleth the tender lambs!'

Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this
strong language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in
which he was placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in
his arms, and replied aloud, 'No, I don't.  He's my brother.'

'He's MY brother!' cried the preacher.

'He isn't,' said Kit indignantly.  'How can you say such a thing?
And don't call me names if you please; what harm have I done?  I
shouldn't have come to take 'em away, unless I was obliged, you may
depend upon that.  I wanted to do it very quiet, but you wouldn't
let me.  Now, you have the goodness to abuse Satan and them, as
much as you like, Sir, and to let me alone if you please.'

So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother
and little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an
indistinct recollection of having seen the people wake up and look
surprised, and of Quilp having remained, throughout the
interruption, in his old attitude, without moving his eyes from the
ceiling, or appearing to take the smallest notice of anything that
passed.

'Oh Kit!' said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, 'what
have you done!  I never can go there again--never!'

'I'm glad of it, mother.  What was there in the little bit of
pleasure you took last night that made it necessary for you to be
low-spirited and sorrowful tonight?  That's the way you do.  If
you're happy or merry ever, you come here to say, along with that
chap, that you're sorry for it.  More shame for you, mother, I was
going to say.'

'Hush, dear!' said Mrs Nubbles; 'you don't mean what you say I
know, but you're talking sinfulness.'

'Don't mean it?  But I do mean it!' retorted Kit.  'I don't
believe, mother, that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are
thought greater sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I
do believe that those chaps are just about as right and sensible in
putting down the one as in leaving off the other--that's my
belief.  But I won't say anything more about it, if you'll promise
not to cry, that's all; and you take the baby that's a lighter
weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we go along (which we must
do pretty quick) I'll give you the news I bring, which will
surprise you a little, I can tell you.  There--that's right.  Now
you look as if you'd never seen Little Bethel in all your life, as
I hope you never will again; and here's the baby; and little Jacob,
you get atop of my back and catch hold of me tight round the neck,
and whenever a Little Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb or
says your brother's one, you tell him it's the truest things he's
said for a twelvemonth, and that if he'd got a little more of the
lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce--not being quite so sharp
and sour over it--I should like him all the better.  That's what
you've got to say to him, Jacob.'

Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and
cheering up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one
simple process of determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them
briskly forward; and on the road home, he related what had passed
at the Notary's house, and the purpose with which he had intruded
on the solemnities of Little Bethel.

His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was
required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of
which the most prominent were that it was a great honour and
dignity to ride in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral
impossibility to leave the children behind.  But this objection,
and a great many others, founded on certain articles of dress being
at the wash, and certain other articles having no existence in the
wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were overcome by Kit, who opposed to each
and every of them, the pleasure of recovering Nell, and the delight
it would be to bring her back in triumph.

'There's only ten minutes now, mother,' said Kit when they reached
home.  'There's a bandbox.  Throw in what you want, and we'll be
off directly.'

To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which
could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out
everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was
persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children
at first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being
promised all kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit's
mother wouldn't leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn't make
up his mind to be vexed with her for doing it; would take more time
and room than you and I can spare.  So, passing over all such
matters, it is sufficient to say that within a few minutes after
the two hours had expired, Kit and his mother arrived at the
Notary's door, where a post-chaise was already waiting.

'With four horses I declare!' said Kit, quite aghast at the
preparations.  'Well you ARE going to do it, mother!  Here she is,
Sir.  Here's my mother.  She's quite ready, sir.'

'That's well,' returned the gentleman.  'Now, don't be in a
flutter, ma'am; you'll be taken great care of.  Where's the box
with the new clothing and necessaries for them?'

'Here it is,' said the Notary.  'In with it, Christopher.'

'All right, Sir,' replied Kit.  'Quite ready now, sir.'

'Then come along,' said the single gentleman.  And thereupon he
gave his arm to Kit's mother, handed her into the carriage as
politely as you please, and took his seat beside her.

Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels,
and off they rattled, with Kit's mother hanging out at one window
waving a damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many
messages to little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a
word.

Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with
tears in his eyes--not brought there by the departure he
witnessed, but by the return to which he looked forward.  'They
went away,' he thought, 'on foot with nobody to speak to them or
say a kind word at parting, and they'll come back, drawn by four
horses, with this rich gentleman for their friend, and all their
troubles over!  She'll forget that she taught me to write--'

Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of,
for he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the
chaise had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the
Notary and Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the
sound of the wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several
times wondered what could possibly detain him.




CHAPTER 42


It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant,
and to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of
the narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.

In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the
two sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with
them and her recognition in their trials of something akin to her
own loneliness of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such
moments a time of deep delight, though the softened pleasure they
yielded was of that kind which lives and dies in tears--in one of
those wanderings at the quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and
earth, and air, and rippling water, and sound of distant bells,
claimed kindred with the emotions of the solitary child, and
inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of a child's world or
its easy joys--in one of those rambles which had now become her
only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into darkness
and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature
lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene
and still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would
have been solitude indeed.

The sisters had gone home, and she was alone.  She raised her eyes
to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of
air, and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and
more beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse
sparkled with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in
immeasurable space, eternal in their numbers as in their changeless
and incorruptible existence.  She bent over the calm river, and saw
them shining in the same majestic order as when the dove beheld
them gleaming through the swollen waters, upon the mountain tops
down far below, and dead mankind, a million fathoms deep.

The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by
the stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders.  The
time and place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope--
less hope, perhaps, than resignation--on the past, and present,
and what was yet before her.  Between the old man and herself there
had come a gradual separation, harder to bear than any former
sorrow.  Every evening, and often in the day-time too, he was
absent, alone; and although she well knew where he went, and why--
too well from the constant drain upon her scanty purse and from his
haggard looks--he evaded all inquiry, maintained a strict reserve,
and even shunned her presence.

She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it,
as it were, with everything about her, when the distant
church-clock bell struck nine.  Rising at the sound, she retraced
her steps, and turned thoughtfully towards the town.

She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the
stream, led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon
a ruddy light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that
it proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who
had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path,
and were sitting or lying round it.  As she was too poor to have
any fear of them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she
could not have done without going a long way round), but quickened
her pace a little, and kept straight on.

A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the
spot, to glance towards the fire.  There was a form between it and
her, the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused
her to stop abruptly.  Then, as if she had reasoned with herself
and were assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself
that it was not that of the person she had supposed, she went on
again.

But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had
been carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the
voice that spoke--she could not distinguish words--sounded as
familiar to her as her own.

She turned, and looked back.  The person had been seated before,
but was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick
on which he rested both hands.  The attitude was no less familiar
to her than the tone of voice had been.  It was her grandfather.

Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his
associates could be, and for what purpose they were together.  Some
vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong
inclination it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not
advancing across the open field, however, but creeping towards it
by the hedge.

In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and
standing among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without
much danger of being observed.

There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy
camps they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy--a
tall athletic man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against
a tree at a little distance off, looking now at the fire, and now,
under his black eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with
a watchful but half-concealed interest in their conversation.  Of
these, her grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the
first card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the
storm--the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff
companion.  One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that
people, was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be,
empty.

'Well, are you going?' said the stout man, looking up from the
ground where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather's face.
'You were in a mighty hurry a minute ago.  Go, if you like.  You're
your own master, I hope?'

'Don't vex him,' returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog
on the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that
he seemed to be squinting all over; 'he didn't mean any offence.'

'You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me
besides,' said the old man, turning from one to the other.  'Ye'll
drive me mad among ye.'

The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child,
contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands
he was, smote upon the little listener's heart.  But she
constrained herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each
look and word.

'Confound you, what do you mean?' said the stout man rising a
little, and supporting himself on his elbow.  'Keep you poor!
You'd keep us poor if you could, wouldn't you?  That's the way with
you whining, puny, pitiful players.  When you lose, you're martyrs;
but I don't find that when you win, you look upon the other losers
in that light.  As to plunder!' cried the fellow, raising his voice--
'Damme, what do you mean by such ungentlemanly language as
plunder, eh?'

The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or
two short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his
unbounded indignation.  It was quite plain that he acted the bully,
and his friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or
rather, it would have been to any one but the weak old man; for
they exchanged glances quite openly, both with each other and with
the gipsy, who grinned his approval of the jest until his white
teeth shone again.

The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then
said, turning to his assailant:

'You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know.  Don't
be so violent with me.  You were, were you not?'

'Not of plundering among present company!  Honour among--among
gentlemen, Sir,' returned the other, who seemed to have been very
near giving an awkward termination to the sentence.

'Don't be hard upon him, Jowl,' said Isaac List.  'He's very sorry
for giving offence.  There--go on with what you were saying--go
on.'

'I'm a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,' cried Mr Jowl, 'to be
sitting here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won't
be taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains.  But
that's the way I've gone through life.  Experience has never put a
chill upon my warm-heartedness.'

'I tell you he's very sorry, don't I?' remonstrated Isaac List,
'and that he wishes you'd go on.'

'Does he wish it?' said the other.

'Ay,' groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and
fro.  'Go on, go on.  It's in vain to fight with it; I can't do it;
go on.'

'I go on then,' said Jowl, 'where I left off, when you got up so
quick.  If you're persuaded that it's time for luck to turn, as it
certainly is, and find that you haven't means enough to try it (and
that's where it is, for you know, yourself, that you never have the
funds to keep on long enough at a sitting), help yourself to what
seems put in your way on purpose.  Borrow it, I say, and, when
you're able, pay it back again.'

'Certainly,' Isaac List struck in, 'if this good lady as keeps the
wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to
bed, and doesn't lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy
thing; quite a Providence, I should call it--but then I've been
religiously brought up.'

'You see, Isaac,' said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing
himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to
come between them; 'you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out
every hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of
these strangers to get under the good lady's bed, or lock himself
in the cupboard; suspicion would be very wide, and would fall a
long way from the mark, no doubt.  I'd give him his revenge to the
last farthing he brought, whatever the amount was.'

'But could you?' urged Isaac List.  'Is your bank strong enough?'

'Strong enough!' answered the other, with assumed disdain.  'Here,
you Sir, give me that box out of the straw!'

This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on
all fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a
cash-box, which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore
about his person.

'Do you see this?' he said, gathering up the money in his hand and
letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water.
'Do you hear it?  Do you know the sound of gold?  There, put it
back--and don't talk about banks again, Isaac, till you've got one
of your own.'

Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had
never doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his
honourable dealing as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the
production of the box, not for the satisfaction of his doubts, for
he could have none, but with a view to being regaled with a sight
of so much wealth, which, though it might be deemed by some but an
unsubstantial and visionary pleasure, was to one in his
circumstances a source of extreme delight, only to be surpassed by
its safe depository in his own personal pockets.  Although Mr List
and Mr Jowl addressed themselves to each other, it was remarkable
that they both looked narrowly at the old man, who, with his eyes
fixed upon the fire, sat brooding over it, yet listening eagerly--
as it seemed from a certain involuntary motion of the head, or
twitching of the face from time to time--to all they said.

'My advice,' said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, 'is
plain--I have given it, in fact.  I act as a friend.  Why should
I help a man to the means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I
considered him my friend?  It's foolish, I dare say, to be so
thoughtful of the welfare of other people, but that's my
constitution, and I can't help it; so don't blame me, Isaac List.'

'I blame you!' returned the person addressed; 'not for the world,
Mr Jowl.  I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as
you say, he might pay it back if he won--and if he lost--'

'You're not to take that into consideration at all,' said Jowl.

'But suppose he did (and nothing's less likely, from all I know of
chances), why, it's better to lose other people's money than one's
own, I hope?'

'Ah!' cried Isaac List rapturously, 'the pleasures of winning!  The
delight of picking up the money--the bright, shining yellow-boys--
and sweeping 'em into one's pocket!  The deliciousness of having a
triumph at last, and thinking that one didn't stop short and turn
back, but went half-way to meet it!  The--but you're not going,
old gentleman?'

'I'll do it,' said the old man, who had risen and taken two or
three hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly.  'I'll
have it, every penny.'

'Why, that's brave,' cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on
the shoulder; 'and I respect you for having so much young blood
left.  Ha, ha, ha!  Joe Jowl's half sorry he advised you now.
We've got the laugh against him.  Ha, ha, ha!'

'He gives me my revenge, mind,' said the old man, pointing to him
eagerly with his shrivelled hand: 'mind--he stakes coin against
coin, down to the last one in the box, be there many or few.
Remember that!'

'I'm witness,' returned Isaac.  'I'll see fair between you.'

'I have passed my word,' said Jowl with feigned reluctance, 'and
I'll keep it.  When does this match come off?  I wish it was over.--
To-night?'

'I must have the money first,' said the old man; 'and that I'll
have to-morrow--'

'Why not to-night?' urged Jowl.

'It's late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,' said the old
man.  'It must be softly done.  No, to-morrow night.'

'Then to-morrow be it,' said Jowl.  'A drop of comfort here.  Luck
to the best man!  Fill!' The gipsy produced three tin cups, and
filled them to the brim with brandy.  The old man turned aside and
muttered to himself before he drank.  Her own name struck upon the
listener's ear, coupled with some wish so fervent, that he seemed
to breathe it in an agony of supplication.

'God be merciful to us!' cried the child within herself, 'and help
us in this trying hour!  What shall I do to save him!'

The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone
of voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the
execution of the project, and the best precautions for diverting
suspicion.  The old man then shook hands with his tempters, and
withdrew.

They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly,
and when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved
their hands, or shouted some brief encouragement.  It was not until
they had seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the
distant road, that they turned to each other, and ventured to laugh
aloud.

'So,' said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, 'it's done at last.
He wanted more persuading than I expected.  It's three weeks ago,
since we first put this in his head.  What'll he bring, do you
think?'

'Whatever he brings, it's halved between us,' returned Isaac List.

The other man nodded.  'We must make quick work of it,' he said,
'and then cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected.  Sharp's
the word.'

List and the gipsy acquiesced.  When they had all three amused
themselves a little with their victim's infatuation, they dismissed
the subject as one which had been sufficiently discussed, and began
to talk in a jargon which the child did not understand.  As their
discourse appeared to relate to matters in which they were warmly
interested, however, she deemed it the best time for escaping
unobserved; and crept away with slow and cautious steps, keeping in
the shadow of the hedges, or forcing a path through them or the dry
ditches, until she could emerge upon the road at a point beyond
their range of vision.  Then she fled homeward as quickly as she
could, torn and bleeding from the wounds of thorns and briars, but
more lacerated in mind, and threw herself upon her bed, distracted.

The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant
flight; dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon
the roadside, than ever exposing him again to such terrible
temptations.  Then, she remembered that the crime was not to be
committed until next night, and there was the intermediate time for
thinking, and resolving what to do.  Then, she was distracted with
a horrible fear that he might be committing it at that moment; with
a dread of hearing shrieks and cries piercing the silence of the
night; with fearful thoughts of what he might be tempted and led on
to do, if he were detected in the act, and had but a woman to
struggle with.  It was impossible to bear such torture.  She stole
to the room where the money was, opened the door, and looked in.
God be praised!  He was not there, and she was sleeping soundly.

She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for
bed.  But who could sleep--sleep! who could lie passively down,
distracted by such terrors?  They came upon her more and more
strongly yet.  Half undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder,
she flew to the old man's bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and
roused him from his sleep.

'What's this!' he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes
upon her spectral face.

'I have had a dreadful dream,' said the child, with an energy that
nothing but such terrors could have inspired.  'A dreadful,
horrible dream.  I have had it once before.  It is a dream of
grey-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing
sleepers of their gold.  Up, up!'

The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who
prays.

'Not to me,' said the child, 'not to me--to Heaven, to save us
from such deeds!  This dream is too real.  I cannot sleep, I cannot
stay here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such
dreams come.  Up!  We must fly.'

He looked at her as if she were a spirit--she might have been for
all the look of earth she had--and trembled more and more.

'There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,' said the
child.  'Up! and away with me!'

'To-night?' murmured the old man.

'Yes, to-night,' replied the child.  'To-morrow night will be too
late.  The dream will have come again.  Nothing but flight can save
us.  Up!'

The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold
sweat of fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an
angel messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to
follow her.  She took him by the hand and led him on. As they
passed the door of the room he had proposed to rob, she  shuddered
and looked up into his face.  What a white face was that, and with
what a look did he meet hers!

She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand
as if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the
little stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm.  The old man
took his wallet from her hands and strapped it on his shoulders--
his staff, too, she had brought away--and then she led him forth.

Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their
trembling feet passed quickly.  Up the steep hill too, crowned by
the old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once
looked behind.

But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her
gentle glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy,
moss, and waving grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping
town, deep in the valley's shade: and on the far-off river with its
winding track of light: and on the distant hills; and as she did
so, she clasped the hand she held, less firmly, and bursting into
tears, fell upon the old man's neck.




CHAPTER 43


Her momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the
resolution which had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to
keep steadily in her view the one idea that they were flying from
disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather's preservation must
depend solely on her firmness, unaided by one word of advice or any
helping hand, urged him onward and looked back no more.

While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to
shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior
creature, the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within
her, which elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and
confidence she had never known.  There was no divided
responsibility now; the whole burden of their two lives had fallen
upon her, and henceforth she must think and act for both.  'I have
saved him,' she thought.  'In all dangers and distresses, I will
remember that.'

At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend
who had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of
justification--the thought that they were guilty, in appearance,
of treachery and ingratitude--even the having parted from the two
sisters--would have filled her with sorrow and regret.  But now,
all other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and
anxieties of their wild and wandering life; and the very
desperation of their condition roused and stimulated her.

In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the
delicate face where thoughtful care already mingled with the
winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the
spiritual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high
resolve and courage of the heart, the slight figure firm in its
bearing and yet so very weak, told their silent tale; but told it
only to the wind that rustled by, which, taking up its burden,
carried, perhaps to some mother's pillow, faint dreams of childhood
fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no waking.

The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale
and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached.  Then, from
behind a distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in
phantom shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly
forms till darkness came again.  When it had climbed higher into
the sky, and there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them
down to sleep, upon a bank, hard by some water.

But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man's arm, and long after
he was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes.  Fatigue
stole over her at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed
again, and they slept side by side.

A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her.
A man of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them,
and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat
which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping.  The
boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses,
who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping
in the water, were resting on the path.

'Holloa!' said the man roughly.  'What's the matter here?'

'We were only asleep, Sir,' said Nell.  'We have been walking all
night.'

'A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,' observed the
man who had first accosted them.  'One of you is a trifle too old
for that sort of work, and the other a trifle too young.  Where are
you going?'

Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which
the man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named.  Nell,
to avoid more questioning, said 'Yes, that was the place.'

'Where have you come from?' was the next question; and this being
an easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in
which their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to
be known to the men or to provoke further inquiry.

'I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,'
said the man.  'That's all.  Good day.'

Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure,
Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat
went on.  It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she
saw the men beckoning to her.

'Did you call to me?' said Nell, running up to them.

'You may go with us if you like,' replied one of those in the boat.
'We're going to the same place.'

The child hesitated for a moment.  Thinking, as she had thought
with great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she
had seen with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness
for the booty, follow them, and regaining their influence over him,
set hers at nought; and that if they went with these men, all
traces of them must surely be lost at that spot; determined to
accept the offer.  The boat came close to the bank again, and
before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her
grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.

The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes
shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country,
intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills,
cultivated land, and sheltered farms.  Now and then, a village with
its modest spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out
from among the trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with
great church towers looming through its smoke, and high factories
or workshops rising above the mass of houses, would come in view,
and, by the length of time it lingered in the distance, show them
how slowly they travelled.  Their way lay, for the most part,
through the low grounds, and open plains; and except these distant
places, and occasionally some men working in the fields, or
lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see them creep
along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded track.

Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf
late in the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would
not reach their place of destination until next day, and that, if
she had no provision with her, she had better buy it there.  She
had but a few pence, having already bargained with them for some
bread, but even of these it was necessary to be very careful, as
they were on their way to an utterly strange place, with no
resource whatever.  A small loaf and a morsel of cheese, therefore,
were all she could afford, and with these she took her place in the
boat again, and, after half an hour's delay during which the men
were drinking at the public-house, proceeded on the journey.

They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and
what with drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a
fair way of being quarrelsome and intoxicated.  Avoiding the small
cabin, therefore, which was very dark and filthy, and to which they
often invited both her and her grandfather, Nell sat in the open
air with the old man by her side: listening to their boisterous
hosts with a palpitating heart, and almost wishing herself safe on
shore again though she should have to walk all night.

They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal
among themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers.
Thus, when a quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his
friend in the cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the
propriety of offering Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to
a scuffle in which they beat each other fearfully, to her
inexpressible terror, neither visited his displeasure upon her, but
each contented himself with venting it on his adversary, on whom,
in addition to blows, he bestowed a variety of compliments, which,
happily for the child, were conveyed in terms, to her quite
unintelligible.  The difference was finally adjusted, by the man
who had come out of the cabin knocking the other into it head
first, and taking the helm into his own hands, without evincing the
least discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend, who,
being of a tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to
such trifles, went to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and
in a couple of minutes or so was snoring comfortably.

By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold,
being but poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from
her own suffering or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring
to devise some scheme for their joint subsistence.  The same spirit
which had supported her on the previous night, upheld and sustained
her now.  Her grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the
crime to which his madness urged him, was not committed.  That was
her comfort.

How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging
into her mind, as they travelled on!  Slight incidents, never
thought of or remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since
forgotten; words scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago
and those of yesterday, mixing up and linking themselves together;
familiar places shaping themselves out in the darkness from things
which, when approached, were, of all others, the most remote and
most unlike them; sometimes, a strange confusion in her mind
relative to the occasion of her being there, and the place to which
she was going, and the people she was with; and imagination
suggesting remarks and questions which sounded so plainly in her
ears, that she would start, and turn, and be almost tempted to
reply;--all the fancies and contradictions common in watching and
excitement and restless change of place, beset the child.

She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of
the man on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had
now succeeded to the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a
short pipe, quilted over with string for its longer preservation,
requested that she would oblige him with a song.

'You've got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong
memory,' said this gentleman; 'the voice and eye I've got evidence
for, and the memory's an opinion of my own.  And I'm never wrong.
Let me hear a song this minute.'

'I don't think I know one, sir,' returned Nell.

'You know forty-seven songs,' said the man, with a gravity which
admitted of no altercation on the subject.  'Forty-seven's your
number.  Let me hear one of 'em--the best.  Give me a song this
minute.'

Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her
friend, and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him
some little ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which
was so agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same
peremptory manner requested to be favoured with another, to which
he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and
with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy
for its deficiency in other respects.  The noise of this vocal
performance awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and
shaking his late opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his
pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired no better
entertainment.  With a third call, more imperative than either of
the two former, Nell felt obliged to comply, and this time a chorus
was maintained not only by the two men together, but also by the
third man on horseback, who being by his position debarred from a
nearer participation in the revels of the night, roared when his
companions roared, and rent the very air.  In this way, with little
cessation, and singing the same songs again and again, the tired
and exhausted child kept them in good humour all that night; and
many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep by the
discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head
beneath the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds.

At length the morning dawned.  It was no sooner light than it began
to rain heavily.  As the child could not endure the intolerable
vapours of the cabin, they covered her, in return for her
exertions, with some pieces of sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin,
which sufficed to keep her tolerably dry and to shelter her
grandfather besides.  As the day advanced the rain increased.  At
noon it poured down more hopelessly and heavily than ever without
the faintest promise of abatement.

They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for
which they were bound.  The water had become thicker and dirtier;
other barges, coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of
coal-ash and huts of staring brick, marked the vicinity of some
great manufacturing town; while scattered streets and houses, and
smoke from distant furnaces, indicated that they were already in
the outskirts.  Now, the clustered roofs, and piles of buildings,
trembling with the working of engines, and dimly resounding with
their shrieks and throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting forth a
black vapour, which hung in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the
housetops and filled the air with gloom; the clank of hammers
beating upon iron, the roar of busy streets and noisy crowds,
gradually augmenting until all the various sounds blended into one
and none was distinguishable for itself, announced the termination
of their journey.

The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged.  The men were
occupied directly.  The child and her grandfather, after waiting in
vain to thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed
through a dirty lane into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din
and tumult, and in the pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and
confused, as if they had lived a thousand years before, and were
raised from the dead and placed there by a miracle.




CHAPTER 44


The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no
symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs;
and undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of
carts and waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of
horses' feet upon the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the
rain on windows and umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more
impatient passengers, and all the noise and tumult of a crowded
street in the high tide of its occupation: while the two poor
strangers, stunned and bewildered by the hurry they beheld but had
no part in, looked mournfully on; feeling, amidst the crowd, a
solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of the shipwrecked
mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a mighty ocean,
his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems him in on
every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue.

They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and
watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a
ray of encouragement or hope.  Some frowned, some smiled, some
muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if
anticipating the conversation in which they would shortly be
engaged, some wore the cunning look of bargaining and plotting,
some were anxious and eager, some slow and dull; in some
countenances, were written gain; in others, loss.  It was like
being in the confidence of all these people to stand quietly there,
looking into their faces as they flitted past.  In busy places,
where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that
every other man has his, his character and purpose are written
broadly in his face.  In the public walks and lounges of a town,
people go to see and to be seen, and there the same expression,
with little variety, is repeated a hundred times.  The working-day
faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more plainly.

Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude
awakens, the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a
wondering interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness
of her own condition.  But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and
lack of any place in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her
thoughts back to the point whence they had strayed.  No one passed
who seemed to notice them, or to whom she durst appeal.  After some
time, they left their place of refuge from the weather, and mingled
with the concourse.

Evening came on.  They were still wandering up and down, with fewer
people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own
breasts, and the same indifference from all around.  The lights in
the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with
their help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster.  Shivering
with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart,
the child needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep
along.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful
country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and
thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife!  They
were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very
sight of which increased their hopelessness and suffering.

The child had not only to endure the accumulated hardships of their
destitute condition, but to bear the reproaches of her grandfather,
who began to murmur at having been led away from their late abode,
and demand that they should return to it.  Being now penniless, and
no relief or prospect of relief appearing, they retraced their
steps through the deserted streets, and went back to the wharf,
hoping to find the boat in which they had come, and to be allowed
to sleep on board that night.  But here again they were
disappointed, for the gate was closed, and some fierce dogs,
barking at their approach, obliged them to retreat.

'We must sleep in the open air to-night, dear,' said the child in
a weak voice, as they turned away from this last repulse; 'and
to-morrow we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country,
and try to earn our bread in very humble work.'

'Why did you bring me here?' returned the old man fiercely.  'I
cannot bear these close eternal streets.  We came from a quiet
part.  Why did you force me to leave it?'

'Because I must have that dream I told you of, no more,' said the
child, with a momentary firmness that lost itself in tears; 'and we
must live among poor people, or it will come again.  Dear
grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me.  I never
will complain if you will not, but I have some suffering indeed.'

'Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!' cried the old
man, clasping his hands and gazing as if for the first time upon
her anxious face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen
feet; 'has all my agony of care brought her to this at last!  Was
I a happy man once, and have I lost happiness and all I had, for
this!'

'If we were in the country now,' said the child, with assumed
cheerfulness, as they walked on looking about them for a shelter,
we should find some good old tree, stretching out his green arms as
if he loved us, and nodding and rustling as if he would have us
fall asleep, thinking of him while he watched.  Please God, we
shall be there soon--to-morrow or next day at the farthest--and
in the meantime let us think, dear, that it was a good thing we
came here; for we are lost in the crowd and hurry of this place,
and if any cruel people should pursue us, they could surely never
trace us further.  There's comfort in that.  And here's a deep old
doorway--very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind
don't blow in here--What's that!'

Uttering a half shriek, she recoiled from a black figure which came
suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take
refuge, and stood still, looking at them.

'Speak again,' it said; 'do I know the voice?'

'No,' replied the child timidly; 'we are strangers, and having no
money for a night's lodging, were going to rest here.'

There was a feeble lamp at no great distance; the only one in the
place, which was a kind of square yard, but sufficient to show how
poor and mean it was.  To this, the figure beckoned them; at the
same time drawing within its rays, as if to show that it had no
desire to conceal itself or take them at an advantage.
The form was that of a man, miserably clad and begrimed with smoke,
which, perhaps by its contrast with the natural colour of his skin,
made him look paler than he really was.  That he was naturally of
a very wan and pallid aspect, however, his hollow cheeks, sharp
features, and sunken eyes, no less than a certain look of patient
endurance, sufficiently testified.  His voice was harsh by nature,
but not brutal; and though his face, besides possessing the
characteristics already mentioned, was overshadowed by a quantity
of long dark hair, its expression was neither ferocious nor bad.

'How came you to think of resting there?' he said.  'Or how,' he
added, looking more attentively at the child, 'do you come to want
a place of rest at this time of night?'

'Our misfortunes,' the grandfather answered, 'are the cause.'

'Do you know,' said the man, looking still more earnestly at Nell,
'how wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for
her?'

'I know it well, God help me,' he replied.  'What can I do!'

The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments, from
which the rain was running off in little streams.  'I can give you
warmth,' he said, after a pause; 'nothing else.  Such lodging as I
have, is in that house,' pointing to the doorway from which he had
emerged, 'but she is safer and better there than here.  The fire is
in a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if
you'll trust yourselves to me.  You see that red light yonder?'

They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark
sky; the dull reflection of some distant fire.

'It's not far,' said the man.  'Shall I take you there?  You were
going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes
--nothing better.'

Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks,
he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.

Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been an
infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led the
way through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched
quarter of the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing
kennels or running waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless
of such obstructions, and making his way straight through them.
They had proceeded thus, in silence, for some quarter of an hour,
and had lost sight of the glare to which he had pointed, in the
dark and narrow ways by which they had come, when it suddenly burst
upon them again, streaming up from the high chimney of a building
close before them.

'This is the place,' he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down
and take her hand.  'Don't be afraid.  There's nobody here will
harm you.'

It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them to
enter, and what they saw inside did not diminish their apprehension
and alarm.  In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of
iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the
external air; echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and
roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged
in water, and a hundred strange unearthly noises never heard
elsewhere; in this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame
and smoke, dimly and fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the
burning fires, and wielding great weapons, a faulty blow from any
one of which must have crushed some workman's skull, a number of
men laboured like giants.  Others, reposing upon heaps of coals or
ashes, with their faces turned to the black vault above, slept or
rested from their toil.  Others again, opening the white-hot
furnace-doors, cast fuel on the flames, which came rushing and
roaring forth to meet it, and licked it up like oil.  Others drew
forth, with clashing noise, upon the ground, great sheets of
glowing steel, emitting an insupportable heat, and a dull deep
light like that which reddens in the eyes of savage beasts.

Through these bewildering sights and deafening sounds, their
conductor led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one
furnace burnt by night and day--so, at least, they gathered from
the motion of his lips, for as yet they could only see him speak:
not hear him.  The man who had been watching this fire, and whose
task was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with
their friend, who, spreading Nell's little cloak upon a heap of
ashes, and showing her where she could hang her outer-clothes to
dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep.  For
himself, he took his station on a rugged mat before the
furnace-door, and resting his chin upon his hands, watched the
flame as it shone through the iron chinks, and the white ashes as
they fell into their bright hot grave below.

The warmth of her bed, hard and humble as it was, combined with the
great fatigue she had undergone, soon caused the tumult of the
place to fall with a gentler sound upon the child's tired ears, and
was not long in lulling her to sleep.  The old man was stretched
beside her, and with her hand upon his neck she lay and dreamed.

It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know how long, or for
how short a time, she had slept.  But she found herself protected,
both from any cold air that might find its way into the building,
and from the scorching heat, by some of the workmen's clothes; and
glancing at their friend saw that he sat in exactly the same
attitude, looking with a fixed earnestness of attention towards the
fire, and keeping so very still that he did not even seem to
breathe.  She lay in the state between sleeping and waking, looking
so long at his motionless figure that at length she almost feared
he had died as he sat there; and softly rising and drawing close to
him, ventured to whisper in his ear.

He moved, and glancing from her to the place she had lately
occupied, as if to assure himself that it was really the child so
near him, looked inquiringly into her face.

'I feared you were ill,' she said.  'The other men are all in
motion, and you are so very quiet.'

'They leave me to myself,' he replied.  'They know my humour.  They
laugh at me, but don't harm me in it.  See yonder there--that's my
friend.'

'The fire?' said the child.

'It has been alive as long as I have,' the man made answer.  'We
talk and think together all night long.'

The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had turned
his eyes in their former direction, and was musing as before.

'It's like a book to me,' he said--'the only book I ever learned to
read; and many an old story it tells me.  It's music, for I should
know its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its
roar.  It has its pictures too.  You don't know how many strange
faces and different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals.  It's my
memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.'

The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help
remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse.

'Yes,' he said, with a faint smile, 'it was the same when I was
quite a baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep.  My father
watched it then.'

'Had you no mother?' asked the child.

'No, she was dead.  Women work hard in these parts.  She worked
herself to death they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire
has gone on saying the same thing ever since.  I suppose it was
true.  I have always believed it.'

'Were you brought up here, then?' said the child.

'Summer and winter,' he replied.  'Secretly at first, but when they
found it out, they let him keep me here.  So the fire nursed me--
the same fire.  It has never gone out.'

'You are fond of it?' said the child.

'Of course I am.  He died before it.  I saw him fall down--just
there, where those ashes are burning now--and wondered, I
remember, why it didn't help him.'

'Have you been here ever since?' asked the child.

'Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between, and
a very cold dreary while it was.  It burned all the time though,
and roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our
play days.  You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child
I was, but for all the difference between us I was a child, and
when I saw you in the street to-night, you put me in mind of
myself, as I was after he died, and made me wish to bring you to
the fire.  I thought of those old times again, when I saw you
sleeping by it.  You should be sleeping now.  Lie down again, poor
child, lie down again!'

With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with the
clothes with which she had found herself enveloped when she woke,
returned to his seat, whence he moved no more unless to feed the
furnace, but remained motionless as a statue.  The child continued
to watch him for a little time, but soon yielded to the drowsiness
that came upon her, and, in the dark strange place and on the heap
of ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace
chamber, and the bed, a bed of down.

When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty
openings in the walls, and, stealing in slanting rays but midway
down, seemed to make the building darker than it had been at night.
The clang and tumult were still going on, and the remorseless fires
were burning fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day
brought rest or quiet there.

Her friend parted his breakfast--a scanty mess of coffee and some
coarse bread--with the child and her grandfather, and inquired
whither they were going.  She told him that they sought some
distant country place remote from towns or even other villages, and
with a faltering tongue inquired what road they would do best to
take.

'I know little of the country,' he said, shaking his head, 'for
such as I, pass all our lives before our furnace doors, and seldom
go forth to breathe.  But there are such places yonder.'

'And far from here?' said Nell.

'Aye surely.  How could they be near us, and be green and fresh?
The road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by
fires like ours--a strange black road, and one that would frighten
you by night.'

'We are here and must go on,' said the child boldly; for she saw
that the old man listened with anxious ears to this account.

'Rough people--paths never made for little feet like yours--a
dismal blighted way--is there no turning back, my child!'

'There is none,' cried Nell, pressing forward.  'If you can direct
us, do.  If not, pray do not seek to turn us from our purpose.
Indeed you do not know the danger that we shun, and how right and
true we are in flying from it, or you would not try to stop us, I
am sure you would not.'

'God forbid, if it is so!' said their uncouth protector, glancing
from the eager child to her grandfather, who hung his head and bent
his eyes upon the ground.  'I'll direct you from the door, the best
I can.  I wish I could do more.'

He showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and
what course they should hold when they had gained it.  He lingered
so long on these instructions, that the child, with a fervent
blessing, tore herself away, and stayed to hear no more.

But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man came
running after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in it--
two old, battered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces.  Who knows but
they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that
have been chronicled on tombs?

And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge
farther from guilt and shame; the labourer to attach a fresh
interest to the spot where his guests had slept, and read new
histories in his furnace fire.




CHAPTER 45


In all their journeying, they had never longed so ardently, they
had never so pined and wearied, for the freedom of pure air and
open country, as now.  No, not even on that memorable morning,
when, deserting their old home, they abandoned themselves to the
mercies of a strange world, and left all the dumb and senseless
things they had known and loved, behind--not even then, had they
so yearned for the fresh solitudes of wood, hillside, and field, as
now, when the noise and dirt and vapour, of the great manufacturing
town reeking with lean misery and hungry wretchedness, hemmed them
in on every side, and seemed to shut out hope, and render escape
impossible.

'Two days and nights!' thought the child.  'He said two days and
nights we should have to spend among such scenes as these.  Oh! if
we live to reach the country once again, if we get clear of these
dreadful places, though it is only to lie down and die, with what
a grateful heart I shall thank God for so much mercy!'

With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling
to a great distance among streams and mountains, where only very
poor and simple people lived, and where they might maintain
themselves by very humble helping work in farms, free from such
terrors as that from which they fled--the child, with no resource
but the poor man's gift, and no encouragement but that which flowed
from her own heart, and its sense of the truth and right of what
she did, nerved herself to this last journey and boldly pursued her
task.

'We shall be very slow to-day, dear,' she said, as they toiled
painfully through the streets; 'my feet are sore, and I have pains
in all my limbs from the wet of yesterday.  I saw that he looked at
us and thought of that, when he said how long we should be upon the
road.'

'It was a dreary way he told us of,' returned her grandfather,
piteously.  'Is there no other road?  Will you not let me go some
other way than this?'

'Places lie beyond these,' said the child, firmly, 'where we may
live in peace, and be tempted to do no harm.  We will take the road
that promises to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if
it were a hundred times worse than our fears lead us to expect.  We
would not, dear, would we?'

'No,' replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in
his manner.  'No.  Let us go on.  I am ready.  I am quite ready,
Nell.'

The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her
companion to expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of
no common severity, and every exertion increased them.  But they
wrung from her no complaint, or look of suffering; and, though the
two travellers proceeded very slowly, they did proceed.  Clearing
the town in course of time, they began to feel that they were
fairly on their way.

A long suburb of red brick houses--some with patches of
garden-ground, where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the
shrinking leaves, and coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling
vegetation sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and
furnace, making them by its presence seem yet more blighting and
unwholesome than in the town itself--a long, flat, straggling
suburb passed, they came, by slow degrees, upon a cheerless region,
where not a blade of grass was seen to grow, where not a bud put
forth its promise in the spring, where nothing green could live but
on the surface of the stagnant pools, which here and there lay idly
sweltering by the black road-side.

Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its
dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them
with a dismal gloom.  On every side, and far as the eye could see
into the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and
presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form,
which is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague
of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air.  On
mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough
boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and
writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains,
shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in
torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their
agonies.  Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to
the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down,
unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited.  Men,
women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in attire, tended
the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the road, or
scowled half-naked from the doorless houses.  Then came more of the
wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their
wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and
round again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left,
was the same interminable perspective of brick towers, never
ceasing in their black vomit, blasting all things living or
inanimate, shutting out the face of day, and closing in on all
these horrors with a dense dark cloud.

But night-time in this dreadful spot!--night, when the smoke was
changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and
places, that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with
figures moving to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to
one another with hoarse cries--night, when the noise of every
strange machine was aggravated by the darkness; when the people
near them looked wilder and more savage; when bands of unemployed
labourers paraded the roads, or clustered by torch-light round
their leaders, who told them, in stern language, of their wrongs,
and urged them on to frightful cries and threats; when maddened
men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning the tears and prayers
of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on errands of terror
and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as their own--
night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude coffins (for
contagious disease and death had been busy with the living crops);
when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed in
their wake--night, when some called for bread, and some for drink
to drown their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering
feet, and some with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home--night,
which, unlike the night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it
no peace, nor quiet, nor signs of blessed sleep--who shall tell
the terrors of the night to the young wandering child!

And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and,
with no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer
for the poor old man.  So very weak and spent, she felt, so very
calm and unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her
own, but prayed that God would raise up some friend for him.  She
tried to recall the way they had come, and to look in the direction
where the fire by which they had slept last night was burning.  She
had forgotten to ask the name of the poor man, their friend, and
when she had remembered him in her prayers, it seemed ungrateful
not to turn one look towards the spot where he was watching.

A penny loaf was all they had had that day.  It was very little,
but even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that
crept over her senses.  She lay down, very gently, and, with a
quiet smile upon her face, fell into a slumber.  It was not like
sleep--and yet it must have been, or why those pleasant dreams of
the little scholar all night long!  Morning came.  Much weaker,
diminished powers even of sight and hearing, and yet the child made
no complaint--perhaps would have made none, even if she had not
had that inducement to be silent, travelling by her side.  She felt
a hopelessness of their ever being extricated together from that
forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps
dying; but no fear or anxiety.

A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they
expended their last penny in the purchase of another loaf,
prevented her partaking even of this poor repast.  Her grandfather
ate greedily, which she was glad to see.

Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety
or improvement.  There was the same thick air, difficult to
breathe; the same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the
same misery and distress.  Objects appeared more dim, the noise
less, the path more rugged and uneven, for sometimes she stumbled,
and became roused, as it were, in the effort to prevent herself
from falling.  Poor child! the cause was in her tottering feet.

Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of
hunger.  She approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side,
and knocked with her hand upon the door.

'What would you have here?' said a gaunt man, opening it.

'Charity.  A morsel of bread.'

'Do you see that?' returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of
bundle on the ground.  'That's a dead child.  I and five hundred
other men were thrown out of work, three months ago.  That is my
third dead child, and last.  Do you think I have charity to bestow,
or a morsel of bread to spare?'

The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her.  Impelled
by strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one,
which, yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open.

It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for
two women, each among children of her own, occupied different
portions of the room.  In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in
black who appeared to have just entered, and who held by the arm a
boy.

'Here, woman,' he said, 'here's your deaf and dumb son.  You may
thank me for restoring him to you.  He was brought before me, this
morning, charged with theft; and with any other boy it would have
gone hard, I assure you.  But, as I had compassion on his
infirmities, and thought he might have learnt no better, I have
managed to bring him back to you.  Take more care of him for the
future.'

'And won't you give me back MY son!' said the other woman, hastily
rising and confronting him.  'Won't you give me back MY son, Sir,
who was transported for the same offence!'

'Was he deaf and dumb, woman?' asked the gentleman sternly.

'Was he not, Sir?'

'You know he was not.'

'He was,' cried the woman.  'He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all
that was good and right, from his cradle.  Her boy may have learnt
no better! where did mine learn better?  where could he?  who was
there to teach him better, or where was it to be learnt?'

'Peace, woman,' said the gentleman, 'your boy was in possession of
all his senses.'

'He was,' cried the mother; 'and he was the more easy to be led
astray because he had them.  If you save this boy because he may
not know right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never
taught the difference?  You gentlemen have as good a right to
punish her boy, that God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech,
as you have to punish mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves.
How many of the girls and boys--ah, men and women too--that are
brought before you and you don't pity, are deaf and dumb in their
minds, and go wrong in that state, and are punished in that state,
body and soul, while you gentlemen are quarrelling among yourselves
whether they ought to learn this or that? --Be a just man, Sir,
and give me back my son.'

'You are desperate,' said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box,
'and I am sorry for you.'

'I AM desperate,' returned the woman, 'and you have made me so.
Give me back my son, to work for these helpless children.  Be a
just man, Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me
back my son!'

The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a
place at which to ask for alms.  She led the old man softly from
the door, and they pursued their journey.

With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with
an undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her
sinking state, so long as she had energy to move, the child,
throughout the remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to
proceed: not even stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to
compensate in some measure for the tardy pace at which she was
obliged to walk.  Evening was drawing on, but had not closed in,
when--still travelling among the same dismal objects--they came to
a busy town.

Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable.
After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being
repulsed, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as
they could, and try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would
have more pity on their exhausted state.

They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and
the child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled
powers would bear no more.  There appeared before them, at this
juncture, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on
foot, who, with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a
stout stick as he walked, and read from a book which he held in his
other hand.

It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid,
for he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance.  At
length, he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his
book.  Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her
grandfather, and, going close to the stranger without rousing him
by the sound of her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to
implore his help.

He turned his head.  The child clapped her hands together, uttered
a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.




CHAPTER 46


It was the poor schoolmaster.  No other than the poor schoolmaster.
Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than
she had been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and
confounded by this unexpected apparition, without even the presence
of mind to raise her from the ground.

But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his
stick and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured,
by such simple means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself;
while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and
implored her with many endearing expressions to speak to him, were
it only a word.

'She is quite exhausted,' said the schoolmaster, glancing upward
into his face.  'You have taxed her powers too far, friend.'

'She is perishing of want,' rejoined the old man.  'I never thought
how weak and ill she was, till now.'

Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate,
the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old
man gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her
away at his utmost speed.

There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had
been directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken.  Towards
this place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into
the kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make
way for God's sake, deposited it on a chair before the fire.

The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance,
did as people usually do under such circumstances.  Everybody
called for his or her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each
cried for more air, at the same time carefully excluding what air
there was, by closing round the object of sympathy; and all
wondered why somebody else didn't do what it never appeared to
occur to them might be done by themselves.

The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity
than any of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the
merits of the case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy
and water, followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar,
hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which,
being duly administered, recovered the child so far as to enable
her to thank them in a faint voice, and to extend her hand to the
poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, hard by.
Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir
a finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed;
and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped
them in flannel, they despatched a messenger for the doctor.

The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of
seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived
with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell,
drew out his watch, and felt her pulse.  Then he looked at her
tongue, then he felt her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed
the half-emptied wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.

'I should give her,' said the doctor at length, 'a tea-spoonful,
every now and then, of hot brandy and water.'

'Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!' said the delighted
landlady.

'I should also,' observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath
on the stairs, 'I should also,' said the doctor, in the voice of an
oracle, 'put her feet in hot water, and wrap them up in flannel.
I should likewise,' said the doctor with increased solemnity, 'give
her something light for supper--the wing of a roasted fowl now--'

'Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire
this instant!' cried the landlady.  And so indeed it was, for the
schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on
so well that the doctor might have smelt it if he had tried;
perhaps he did.

'You may then,' said the doctor, rising gravely, 'give her a glass
of hot mulled port wine, if she likes wine--'

'And a toast, Sir?' suggested the landlady.
'Ay,' said the doctor, in the tone of a man who makes a dignified
concession.  'And a toast--of bread.  But be very particular to
make it of bread, if you please, ma'am.'

With which parting injunction, slowly and portentously delivered,
the doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that
wisdom which tallied so closely with their own.  Everybody said he
was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's
constitutions were; which there appears some reason to suppose he
did.

While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing
sleep, from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready.
As she evinced extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her
grandfather was below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at
the thought of their being apart, he took his supper with her.
Finding her still very restless on this head, they made him up a
bed in an inner room, to which he presently retired.  The key of
this chamber happened by good fortune to be on that side of the
door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him when the
landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful
heart.

The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the
kitchen fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy
face, on the fortunate chance which had brought him so opportunely
to the child's assistance, and parrying, as well as in his simple
way he could, the inquisitive cross-examination of the landlady,
who had a great curiosity to be made acquainted with every
particular of Nell's life and history.  The poor schoolmaster was
so open-hearted, and so little versed in the most ordinary cunning
or deceit, that she could not have failed to succeed in the first
five minutes, but that he happened to be unacquainted with what she
wished to know; and so he told her.  The landlady, by no means
satisfied with this assurance, which she considered an ingenious
evasion of the question, rejoined that he had his reasons of
course.  Heaven forbid that she should wish to pry into the affairs
of her customers, which indeed were no business of hers, who had so
many of her own.  She had merely asked a civil question, and to be
sure she knew it would meet with a civil answer.  She was quite
satisfied--quite.  She had rather perhaps that he would have said
at once that he didn't choose to be communicative, because that
would have been plain and intelligible.  However, she had no right
to be offended of course.  He was the best judge, and had a perfect
right to say what he pleased; nobody could dispute that for a
moment.  Oh dear, no!

'I assure you, my good lady,' said the mild schoolmaster, 'that I
have told you the plain truth.  As I hope to be saved, I have told
you the truth.'

'Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,' rejoined the landlady,
with ready good-humour, 'and I'm very sorry I have teazed you.  But
curiosity you know is the curse of our sex, and that's the fact.'
The landlord scratched his head, as if he thought the curse
sometimes involved the other sex likewise; but he was prevented
from making any remark to that effect, if he had it in
contemplation to do so, by the schoolmaster's rejoinder.

'You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and
welcome, and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of heart
you have shown to-night, if I could,' he said.  'As it is, please
to take care of her in the morning, and let me know early how she
is; and to understand that I am paymaster for the three.'

So, parting with them on most friendly terms (not the less cordial
perhaps for this last direction), the schoolmaster went to his bed,
and the host and hostess to theirs.

The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was
extremely weak, and would at least require a day's rest, and
careful nursing, before she could proceed upon her journey.  The
schoolmaster received this communication with perfect cheerfulness,
observing that he had a day to spare--two days for that matter--
and could very well afford to wait.  As the patient was to sit up
in the evening, he appointed to visit her in her room at a certain
hour, and rambling out with his book, did not return until the hour
arrived.

Nell could not help weeping when they were left alone; whereat, and
at sight of her pale face and wasted figure, the simple
schoolmaster shed a few tears himself, at the same time showing in
very energetic language how foolish it was to do so, and how very
easily it could be avoided, if one tried.

'It makes me unhappy even in the midst of all this kindness' said
the child, 'to think that we should be a burden upon you.  How can
I ever thank you?  If I had not met you so far from home, I must
have died, and he would have been left alone.'

'We'll not talk about dying,' said the schoolmaster; 'and as to
burdens, I have made my fortune since you slept at my cottage.'

'Indeed!' cried the child joyfully.

'Oh yes,' returned her friend.  'I have been appointed clerk and
schoolmaster to a village a long way from here--and a long way
from the old one as you may suppose--at five-and-thirty pounds a
year.  Five-and-thirty pounds!'

'I am very glad,' said the child, 'so very, very glad.'

'I am on my way there now,' resumed the schoolmaster.  'They
allowed me the stage-coach-hire--outside stage-coach-hire all the
way.  Bless you, they grudge me nothing.  But as the time at which
I am expected there, left me ample leisure, I determined to walk
instead.  How glad I am, to think I did so!'

'How glad should we be!'

'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster, moving restlessly in his chair,
'certainly, that's very true.  But you--where are you going, where
are you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me,
what had you been doing before?  Now, tell me--do tell me.  I know
very little of the world, and perhaps you are better fitted to
advise me in its affairs than I am qualified to give advice to you;
but I am very sincere, and I have a reason (you have not forgotten
it) for loving you.  I have felt since that time as if my love for
him who died, had been transferred to you who stood beside his bed.
If this,' he added, looking upwards, 'is the beautiful creation
that springs from ashes, let its peace prosper with me, as I deal
tenderly and compassionately by this young child!'

The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the
affectionate earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which
was stamped upon his every word and look, gave the child a
confidence in him, which the utmost arts of treachery and
dissimulation could never have awakened in her breast.  She told
him all--that they had no friend or relative--that she had fled
with the old man, to save him from a madhouse and all the miseries
he dreaded--that she was flying now, to save him from himself--
and that she sought an asylum in some remote and primitive place,
where the temptation before which he fell would never enter, and
her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.

The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment.  'This child!'--he
thought--'Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts
and dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and
sustained by strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude
alone!  And yet the world is full of such heroism.  Have I yet to
learn that the hardest and best-borne trials are those which are
never chronicled in any earthly record, and are suffered every day!
And should I be surprised to hear the story of this child!'

What more he thought or said, matters not.  It was concluded that
Nell and her grandfather should accompany him to the village
whither he was bound, and that he should endeavour to find them
some humble occupation by which they could subsist.  'We shall be
sure to succeed,' said the schoolmaster, heartily.  'The cause is
too good a one to fail.'

They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a
stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as
they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the
driver for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside.  A
bargain was soon struck when the waggon came; and in due time it
rolled away; with the child comfortably bestowed among the softer
packages, her grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside
the driver, and the landlady and all the good folks of the inn
screaming out their good wishes and farewells.

What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside
that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the
horses' bells, the occasional smacking of the carter's whip, the
smooth rolling of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the
harness, the cheery good-nights of passing travellers jogging past
on little short-stepped horses--all made pleasantly indistinct by
the thick awning, which seemed made for lazy listening under, till
one fell asleep!  The very going to sleep, still with an indistinct
idea, as the head jogged to and fro upon the pillow, of moving
onward with no trouble or fatigue, and hearing all these sounds
like dreamy music, lulling to the senses--and the slow waking up,
and finding one's self staring out through the breezy curtain
half-opened in the front, far up into the cold bright sky with its
countless stars, and downward at the driver's lantern dancing on
like its namesake Jack of the swamps and marshes, and sideways at
the dark grim trees, and forward at the long bare road rising up,
up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as if there
were no more road, and all beyond was sky--and the stopping at the
inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire
and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded
that the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort's sake to
think it colder than it was!--What a delicious journey was that
journey in the waggon.

Then the going on again--so fresh at first, and shortly afterwards
so sleepy.  The waking from a sound nap as the mail came dashing
past like a highway comet, with gleaming lamps and rattling hoofs,
and visions of a guard behind, standing up to keep his feet warm,
and of a gentleman in a fur cap opening his eyes and looking wild
and stupefied--the stopping at the turnpike where the man was gone
to bed, and knocking at the door until he answered with a smothered
shout from under the bed-clothes in the little room above, where
the faint light was burning, and presently came down, night-capped
and shivering, to throw the gate wide open, and wish all waggons
off the road except by day.  The cold sharp interval between night
and morning--the distant streak of light widening and spreading,
and turning from grey to white, and from white to yellow, and from
yellow to burning red--the presence of day, with all its
cheerfulness and life--men and horses at the plough--birds in the
trees and hedges, and boys in solitary fields, frightening them
away with rattles.  The coming to a town--people busy in the
markets; light carts and chaises round the tavern yard; tradesmen
standing at their doors; men running horses up and down the street
for sale; pigs plunging and grunting in the dirty distance, getting
off with long strings at their legs, running into clean chemists'
shops and being dislodged with brooms by 'prentices; the night
coach changing horses--the passengers cheerless, cold, ugly, and
discontented, with three months' growth of hair in one night--the
coachman fresh as from a band-box, and exquisitely beautiful by
contrast:--so much bustle, so many things in motion, such a
variety of incidents--when was there a journey with so many
delights as that journey in the waggon!

Sometimes walking for a mile or two while her grandfather rode
inside, and sometimes even prevailing upon the schoolmaster to take
her place and lie down to rest, Nell travelled on very happily
until they came to a large town, where the waggon stopped, and
where they spent a night.  They passed a large church; and in the
streets were a number of old houses, built of a kind of earth or
plaster, crossed and re-crossed in a great many directions with
black beams, which gave them a remarkable and very ancient look.
The doors, too, were arched and low, some with oaken portals and
quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat on summer
evenings.  The windows were latticed in little diamond panes, that
seemed to wink and blink upon the passengers as if they were dim of
sight.  They had long since got clear of the smoke and furnaces,
except in one or two solitary instances, where a factory planted
among fields withered the space about it, like a burning mountain.
When they had passed through this town, they entered again upon the
country, and began to draw near their place of destination.

It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon
the road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity,
but that the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles
of his village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new
clerk, and was unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and
travel-disordered dress.  It was a fine, clear, autumn morning,
when they came upon the scene of his promotion, and stopped to
contemplate its beauties.

'See--here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a
low voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the school-
house, I'll be sworn.  Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this
beautiful place!'

They admired everything--the old grey porch, the mullioned
windows, the venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard,
the ancient tower, the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs
of cottage, barn, and homestead, peeping from among the trees; the
stream that rippled by the distant water-mill; the blue Welsh
mountains far away.  It was for such a spot the child had wearied
in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of labour.  Upon her bed of
ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through which they had forced
their way, visions of such scenes--beautiful indeed, but not more
beautiful than this sweet reality--had been always present to her
mind.  They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy distance, as the
prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter; but, as they
receded, she had loved and panted for them more.

'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the
schoolmaster, at length breaking the silence into which they had
fallen in their gladness.  'I have a letter to present, and
inquiries to make, you know.  Where shall I take you?  To the
little inn yonder?'

'Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell.  'The gate is open.  We will sit
in the church porch till you come back.'

'A good place too,' said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards
it, disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on
the stone seat.  'Be sure that I come back with good news, and am
not long gone!'

So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which
he had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and
hurried off, full of ardour and excitement.

The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage
hid him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old
churchyard--so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress
upon the fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her
footsteps noiseless, seemed an invasion of its silence.  It was a
very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many hundreds
of years ago, and had once had a convent or monastery attached; for
arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of
blackened walls, were yet standing-, while other portions of the
old building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled
with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too
claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust
of men.  Hard by these gravestones of dead years, and forming a
part of the ruin which some pains had been taken to render
habitable in modern times, were two small dwellings with sunken
windows and oaken doors, fast hastening to decay, empty and
desolate.

Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively
riveted.  She knew not why.  The church, the ruin, the antiquated
graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger's thoughts, but
from the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings,
she could turn to nothing else.  Even when she had made the circuit
of the enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively
waiting for their friend, she took her station where she could
still look upon them, and felt as if fascinated towards that spot.




CHAPTER 47


Kit's mother and the single gentleman--upon whose track it is
expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be
chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its
characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt--Kit's mother
and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-
and-four whose departure from the Notary's door we have already
witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck fire from the
flints of the broad highway.

The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of
her situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by
this time little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the
fire, or tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or
had scalded their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst
at the spouts of tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and
meeting from the window the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers,
and others, felt in the new dignity of her position like a mourner
at a funeral, who, not being greatly afflicted by the loss of the
departed, recognizes his every-day acquaintance from the window of
the mourning coach, but is constrained to preserve a decent
solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent to all external
objects.

To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single
gentleman would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of
steel.  Never did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless
gentleman as he.  He never sat in the same position for two minutes
together, but was perpetually tossing his arms and legs about,
pulling up the sashes and letting them violently down, or thrusting
his head out of one window to draw it in again and thrust it out of
another.  He carried in his pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious
and unknown construction; and as sure as ever Kit's mother closed
her eyes, so surely--whisk, rattle, fizz--there was the single
gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and letting the
sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such thing as
a possibility of himself and Kit's mother being roasted alive
before the boys could stop their horses.  Whenever they halted to
change, there he was--out of the carriage without letting down the
steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling
out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he
put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that
Kit's mother was quite afraid of him.  Then, when the horses were
to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile,
out came the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit's mother as
wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage.

'Are you comfortable?' the single gentleman would say after one of
these exploits, turning sharply round.

'Quite, Sir, thank you.'

'Are you sure?  An't you cold?'

'It is a little chilly, Sir,' Kit's mother would reply.

'I knew it!' cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the
front glasses.  'She wants some brandy and water!  Of course she
does.  How could I forget it?  Hallo!  Stop at the next inn, and
call out for a glass of hot brandy and water.'

It was in vain for Kit's mother to protest that she stood in need
of nothing of the kind.  The single gentleman was inexorable; and
whenever he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of
restlessness, it invariably occurred to him that Kit's mother
wanted brandy and water.

In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they
stopped to supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered
everything eatable that the house contained; and because Kit's
mother didn't eat everything at once, and eat it all, he took it
into his head that she must be ill.

'You're faint,' said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself
but walk about the room.  'I see what's the matter with you, ma'am.
You're faint.'

'Thank you, sir, I'm not indeed.'

'I know you are.  I'm sure of it.  I drag this poor woman from the
bosom of her family at a minute's notice, and she goes on getting
fainter and fainter before my eyes.  I'm a pretty fellow!  How many
children have you got, ma'am?'

'Two, sir, besides Kit.'

'Boys, ma'am?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Are they christened?'

'Only half baptised as yet, sir.'

'I'm godfather to both of 'em.  Remember that, if you please,
ma'am.  You had better have some mulled wine.'

'I couldn't touch a drop indeed, sir.'

'You must,' said the single gentleman.  'I see you want it.  I
ought to have thought of it before.'

Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as
impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the
recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman
made Kit's mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature
that the tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the
chaise again, where--not impossibly from the effects of this
agreeable sedative--she soon became insensible to his
restlessness, and fell fast asleep.  Nor were the happy effects of
this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding that
the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single
gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad
day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.

'This is the place!' cried her companion, letting down all the
glasses.  'Drive to the wax-work!'

The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his
horse, to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke
into a smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise
that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows,
and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out
half-past eight.  They drove up to a door round which a crowd of
persons were collected, and there stopped.

'What's this?' said the single gentleman thrusting out his head.
'Is anything the matter here?'

'A wedding Sir, a wedding!' cried several voices.  'Hurrah!'

The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the
centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of
the postilions, and handed out Kit's mother, at sight of whom the
populace cried out, 'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped
for joy.

'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman,
pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride.  'Stand
back here, will you, and let me knock.'

Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd.  A score of
dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has
a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening
sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question.
Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly
retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear
their consequences alone.

'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at
his button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very
stoical aspect.

'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.

'I have.'

'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'

'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him
from top to toe.

'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's
mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently
had it in contemplation to run away.  'A right you little dream of.
Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut,
tut, that can't be.  Where is the child you have here, my good
fellow.  You call her Nell.  Where is she?'

As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody
in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in
a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon
the bridegroom's arm.

'Where is she!' cried this lady.  'What news have you brought me?
What has become of her?'

The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the
late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to
the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of
conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity.  At
length he stammered out,

'I ask YOU where she is?  What do you mean?'

'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any
good, why weren't you here a week ago?'

'She is not--not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed
herself, turning very pale.

'No, not so bad as that.'

'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly.  'Let me come
in.'

They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the
door.

'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-
married couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two
persons whom I seek.  They would not know me.  My features are
strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this
good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both
know.  If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them,
judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their
old humble friend.'

'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common
child!  Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we
could do, has been tried in vain.'

With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment,
all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first
meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance;
adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible
effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in
great alarm for their safety, as well as on account of the
suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed in
consequence of their abrupt departure.  They dwelt upon the old
man's imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always
testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed
to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually
crept over her and changed her both in health and spirits.  Whether
she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing or
conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or
whether they had left the house together, they had no means of
determining.  Certain they considered it, that there was but
slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether
their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there
was now no hope of their return.
To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air of a man
quite borne down by grief and disappointment.  He shed tears when
they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.

Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short
work of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the
interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had
sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he
endeavoured to force upon the bride and bridegroom an
acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child, which,
however, they steadily declined accepting.  In the end, the happy
couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a
country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit's mother stood
ruefully before their carriage-door.

'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.

'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to the--' He was
not going to add 'inn,' but he added it for the sake of Kit's
mother; and to the inn they went.

Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to
show the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been
stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced.
Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a
duke, an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main
fact, and that the single gentleman was her father; and all bent
forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his
noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.

What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been
saved if he had only known, that at that moment both child and
grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting
the schoolmaster's return!




CHAPTER 48


Popular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand,
travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the
marvellous as it was bandied about--for your popular rumour,
unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a
deal of moss in its wanderings up and down--occasioned his
dismounting at the inn-door to be looked upon as an exciting and
attractive spectacle, which could scarcely be enough admired; and
drew together a large concourse of idlers, who having recently
been, as it were, thrown out of employment by the closing of the
wax-work and the completion of the nuptial ceremonies, considered
his arrival as little else than a special providence, and hailed it
with demonstrations of the liveliest joy.

Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the
depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his
disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman
alighted, and handed out Kit's mother with a gloomy politeness
which impressed the lookers-on extremely.  That done, he gave her
his arm and escorted her into the house, while several active
waiters ran on before as a skirmishing party, to clear the way and
to show the room which was ready for their reception.

'Any room will do,' said the single gentleman.  'Let it be near at
hand, that's all.'

'Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.'

'Would the gentleman like this room?' said a voice, as a little
out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly
open and a head popped out.  'He's quite welcome to it.  He's as
welcome as flowers in May, or coals at Christmas.  Would you like
this room, sir?  Honour me by walking in.  Do me the favour, pray.'

'Goodness gracious me!' cried Kit's mother, falling back in extreme
surprise, 'only think of this!'

She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered
the gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp.  The little
door out of which he had thrust his head was close to the inn
larder; and there he stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as
much at his ease as if the door were that of his own house;
blighting all the legs of mutton and cold roast fowls by his close
companionship, and looking like the evil genius of the cellars come
from underground upon some work of mischief.

'Would you do me the honour?' said Quilp.

'I prefer being alone,' replied the single gentleman.

'Oh!' said Quilp.  And with that, he darted in again with one jerk
and clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when
the hour strikes.

'Why it was only last night, sir,' whispered Kit's mother, 'that I
left him in Little Bethel.'

'Indeed!' said her fellow-passenger.  'When did that person come
here, waiter?'

'Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.'

'Humph!  And when is he going?'

'Can't say, sir, really.  When the chambermaid asked him just now
if he should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then
wanted to kiss her.'

'Beg him to walk this way,' said the single gentleman.  'I should
be glad to exchange a word with him, tell him.  Beg him to come at
once, do you hear?'

The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single
gentleman had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit's
mother at sight of the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had
been at less pains to conceal his dislike and repugnance.  He
departed on his errand, however, and immediately returned, ushering
in its object.

'Your servant, sir,' said the dwarf, 'I encountered your messenger
half-way.  I thought you'd allow me to pay my compliments to you.
I hope you're well.  I hope you're very well.'

There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and
puckered face, stood waiting for an answer.  Receiving none, he
turned towards his more familiar acquaintance.

'Christopher's mother!' he cried.  'Such a dear lady, such a worthy
woman, so blest in her honest son!  How is Christopher's mother?
Have change of air and scene improved her?  Her little family too,
and Christopher?  Do they thrive?  Do they flourish?  Are they
growing into worthy citizens, eh?'

Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding
question, Mr Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into
the panting look which was customary with him, and which, whether
it were assumed or natural, had equally the effect of banishing all
expression from his face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded
any index to his mood or meaning, a perfect blank.

'Mr Quilp,' said the single gentleman.

The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited
the closest attention.

'We two have met before--'

'Surely,' cried Quilp, nodding his head.  'Oh surely, sir.  Such an
honour and pleasure--it's both, Christopher's mother, it's both--
is not to be forgotten so soon.  By no means!'

'You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the
house to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some
of the neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for
rest or refreshment?'

'How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous
measure!' said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his
friend Mr Sampson Brass.

'I found,' said the single gentleman, 'you most unaccountably, in
possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another
man, and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon
his property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden
beggary, and driven from house and home.'

'We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,' rejoined Quilp, 'we
had our warrant.  Don't say driven either.  He went of his own
accord--vanished in the night, sir.'

'No matter,' said the single gentleman angrily.  'He was gone.'

'Yes, he was gone,' said Quilp, with the same exasperating
composure.  'No doubt he was gone.  The only question was, where.
And it's a question still.'

'Now, what am I to think,' said the single gentleman, sternly
regarding him, 'of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any
information then--nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering
yourself with all kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion--are
dogging my footsteps now?'

'I dogging!' cried Quilp.

'Why, are you not?' returned his questioner, fretted into a state
of the utmost irritation.  'Were you not a few hours since, sixty
miles off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say
her prayers?'

'She was there too, I think?' said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved.
'I might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you
are dogging MY footsteps.  Yes, I was at chapel.  What then?  I've
read in books that pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they
went on journeys, to put up petitions for their safe return.  Wise
men! journeys are very perilous--especially outside the coach.
Wheels come off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too fast,
coaches overturn.  I always go to chapel before I start on
journeys.  It's the last thing I do on such occasions, indeed.'

That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very
great penetration to discover, although for anything that he
suffered to appear in his face, voice, or manner, he might have
been clinging to the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr.

'In the name of all that's calculated to drive one crazy, man,'
said the unfortunate single gentleman, 'have you not, for some
reason of your own, taken upon yourself my errand?  don't you know
with what object I have come here, and if you do know, can you
throw no light upon it?'

'You think I'm a conjuror, sir,' replied Quilp, shrugging up his
shoulders.  'If I was, I should tell my own fortune--and make it.'

'Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,' returned the other,
throwing himself impatiently upon a sofa.  'Pray leave us, if you
please.'

'Willingly,' returned Quilp.  'Most willingly.  Christopher's
mother, my good soul, farewell.  A pleasant journey--back, sir.
Ahem!'

With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features
altogether indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of
every monstrous grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the
dwarf slowly retreated and closed the door behind him.

'Oho!' he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself
down in a chair with his arms akimbo.  'Oho!  Are you there, my
friend?  In-deed!'

Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself
for the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by
twisting it into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp,
rocking himself to and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at
the same time, fell into certain meditations, of which it may be
necessary to relate the substance.

First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing
to that spot, which were briefly these.  Dropping in at Mr Sampson
Brass's office on the previous evening, in the absence of that
gentleman and his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller,
who chanced at the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and
water on the dust of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the
phrase goes, rather copiously.  But as clay in the abstract, when
too much moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency,
breaking down in unexpected places, retaining impressions but
faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so
Mr Swiveller's clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of
moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the
various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive
character, and running into each other.  It is not uncommon for
human clay in this condition to value itself above all things upon
its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr Swiveller, especially
prizing himself upon these qualities, took occasion to remark that
he had made strange discoveries in connection with the single
gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to keep within
his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery should ever
induce him to reveal.  Of this determination Mr Quilp expressed his
high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to goad Mr
Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single
gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this
was the secret which was never to be disclosed.

Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed
that the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual
who had waited on him, and having assured himself by further
inquiries that this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in
arriving at the conclusion that the intent and object of his
correspondence with Kit was the recovery of his old client and the
child.  Burning with curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot,
he resolved to pounce upon Kit's mother as the person least able to
resist his arts, and consequently the most likely to be entrapped
into such revelations as he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr
Swiveller, he hurried to her house.  The good woman being from
home, he made inquiries of a neighbour, as Kit himself did soon
afterwards, and being directed to the chapel be took himself there,
in order to waylay her, at the conclusion of the service.

He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and
with his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly
over the joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared.
Watchful as a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on
business.  Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a
profound abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour,
and when he withdrew with his family, shot out after him.  In fine,
he traced them to the notary's house; learnt the destination of the
carriage from one of the postilions; and knowing that a fast
night-coach started for the same place, at the very hour which was
on the point of striking, from a street hard by, darted round to
the coach-office without more ado, and took his seat upon the roof.
After passing and repassing the carriage on the road, and being
passed and repassed by it sundry times in the course of the night,
according as their stoppages were longer or shorter; or their rate
of travelling varied, they reached the town almost together.  Quilp
kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the crowd, learnt the single
gentleman's errand, and its failure, and having possessed himself
of all that it was material to know, hurried off, reached the inn
before him, had the interview just now detailed, and shut himself
up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all these
occurrences.

'You are there, are you, my friend?' he repeated, greedily biting
his nails.  'I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit's the
confidential agent, is he?  I shall have to dispose of him, I fear.
If we had come up with them this morning,' he continued, after a
thoughtful pause, 'I was ready to prove a pretty good claim.  I
could have made my profit.  But for these canting hypocrites, the
lad and his mother, I could get this fiery gentleman as comfortably
into my net as our old friend--our mutual friend, ha! ha!--and
chubby, rosy Nell.  At the worst, it's a golden opportunity, not to
be lost.  Let us find them first, and I'll find means of draining
you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while there are prison
bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or kinsman safely.
I hate your virtuous people!' said the dwarf, throwing off a bumper
of brandy, and smacking his lips, 'ah! I hate 'em every one!'

This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his
real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and
little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his
ruined client: --the old man himself, because he had been able to
deceive him and elude his vigilance --the child, because she was
the object of Mrs Quilp's commiseration and constant self-reproach
--the single gentleman, because of his unconcealed aversion to
himself --Kit and his mother, most mortally, for the reasons shown.
Above and beyond that general feeling of opposition to them, which
would have been inseparable from his ravenous desire to enrich
himself by these altered circumstances, Daniel Quilp hated them
every one.

In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds
with more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an
obscure alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all
possible inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man
and his grandchild.  But all was in vain.  Not the slightest trace
or clue could be obtained.  They had left the town by night; no one
had seen them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no
coach, cart, or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their
description; nobody had fallen in with them, or heard of them.
Convinced at last that for the present all such attempts were
hopeless, he appointed two or three scouts, with promises of large
rewards in case of their forwarding him any intelligence, and
returned to London by next day's coach.

It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place
upon the roof, that Kit's mother was alone inside; from which
circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much
cheerfulness of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled
him to terrify her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as
hanging over the side of the coach at the risk of his life, and
staring in with his great goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the
more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging her in this
way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever they
changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a
dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs
Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time to resist the
belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and embody
that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little Bethel,
and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley's and
oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.

Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother's intended
return, was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his
surprise when he saw, leering over the coachman's shoulder like
some familiar demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known
face of Quilp.

'How are you, Christopher?' croaked the dwarf from the coach-top.
'All right, Christopher.  Mother's inside.'

'Why, how did he come here, mother?' whispered Kit.

'I don't know how he came or why, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nubbles,
dismounting with her son's assistance, 'but he has been a
terrifying of me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.'

'He has?' cried Kit.

'You wouldn't believe it, that you wouldn't,' replied his mother,
'but don't say a word to him, for I really don't believe he's
human.  Hush!  Don't turn round as if I was talking of him, but
he's a squinting at me now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp,
quite awful!'

In spite of his mother's injunction, Kit turned sharply round to
look.  Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in
celestial contemplation.

'Oh, he's the artfullest creetur!' cried Mrs Nubbles.  'But come
away.  Don't speak to him for the world.'

'Yes I will, mother.  What nonsense.  I say, sir--'

Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.

'You let my mother alone, will you?' said Kit.  'How dare you tease
a poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as
if she hadn't got enough to make her so, without you.  An't you
ashamed of yourself, you little monster?'

'Monster!' said Quilp inwardly, with a smile.  'Ugliest dwarf that
could be seen anywhere for a penny--monster--ah!'

'You show her any of your impudence again,' resumed Kit,
shouldering the bandbox, 'and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won't
bear with you any more.  You have no right to do it; I'm sure we
never interfered with you.  This isn't the first time; and if ever
you worry or frighten her again, you'll oblige me (though I should
be very sorry to do it, on account of your size) to beat you.'

Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to
bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked
fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his
gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen
times, like a head in a phantasmagoria.  Kit stood his ground as if
in expectation of an immediate assault, but finding that nothing
came of these gestures, snapped his fingers and walked away; his
mother dragging him off as fast as she could, and, even in the
midst of his news of little Jacob and the baby, looking anxiously
over her shoulder to see if Quilp were following.




CHAPTER 49


Kit's mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back
so often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp's thoughts than any
intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with
which they had parted.  He went his way, whistling from time to
time some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and
composed, jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as
he went with visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who,
having received no intelligence of him for three whole days and two
nights, and having had no previous notice of his absence, was
doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, and constantly
fainting away with anxiety and grief.

This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf's humour,
and so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along
until the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he
found himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill
scream, which greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened
to be walking on before him expecting nothing so little, increased
his mirth, and made him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.

In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,
gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he
descried more light than is usual in a house of mourning.  Drawing
nearer, and listening attentively, he could hear several voices in
earnest conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only
those of his wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.

'Ha!' cried the jealous dwarf, 'What's this!  Do they entertain
visitors while I'm away!'

A smothered cough from above, was the reply.  He felt in his
pockets for his latch-key, but had forgotten it.  There was no
resource but to knock at the door.

'A light in the passage,' said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole.
'A very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal
upon you unawares.  Soho!'

A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within.  But
after a second application to the knocker, no louder than the
first, the door was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom
Quilp instantly gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street
with the other.

'You'll throttle me, master,' whispered the boy.  'Let go, will
you.'

'Who's up stairs, you dog?' retorted Quilp in the same tone.  'Tell
me.  And don't speak above your breath, or I'll choke you in good
earnest.'

The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled
giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched
him by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution,
or at least have made very good progress towards that end, but for
the boy's nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying
himself behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless
attempts to catch him by the hair of the head, his master was
obliged to come to a parley.

'Will you answer me?' said Quilp.  'What's going on, above?'

'You won't let one speak,' replied the boy.  'They--ha, ha, ha!--
they think you're--you're dead.  Ha ha ha!'

'Dead!' cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself.  'No.  Do
they?  Do they really, you dog?'

'They think you're--you're drowned,' replied the boy, who in his
malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master.  'You was
last seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled
over.  Ha ha!'

The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances,
and of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more
delight to Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could
possibly have inspired him with.  He was no less tickled than his
hopeful assistant, and they both stood for some seconds, grinning
and gasping and wagging their heads at each other, on either side
of the post, like an unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.

'Not a word,' said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe.  'Not
a sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a
cobweb.  Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp!  Drowned!'

So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped
his way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy
of summersets on the pavement.

The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped
in, and planted himself behind the door of communication between
that chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render
both more airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had
often availed himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed
enlarged with his pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but
to see distinctly, what was passing.

Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass
seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle
of rum--his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--
convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump
sugar, and all things fitting; from which choice materials,
Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention,
had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at
that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating
with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret,
struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy.  At the same
table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer
sipping other people's punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking
deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not
exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but
preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow
nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her
grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid.  There were
also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them
certain machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated
with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish,
and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look,
their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided
appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the
party.

'If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured
Quilp, 'I'd die happy.'

'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to
the ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon
us now!  Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from
somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye!
Oh Lor!'

Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;
looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.

'I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see
his eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor.  When
shall we look upon his like again?  Never, never!' One minute we
are here' --holding his tumbler before his eyes--'the next we are
there'-- gulping down its contents, and striking himself
emphatically a little below the chest--'in the silent tomb.  To
think that I should be drinking his very rum!  It seems like a
dream.'

With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr
Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the
purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant
mariners.

'The search has been quite unsuccessful then?'

'Quite, master.  But I should say that if he turns up anywhere,
he'll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide,
eh, mate?'

The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the
Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to
receive him whenever he arrived.

'Then we have nothing for it but resignation,' said Mr Brass;
'nothing but resignation and expectation.  It would be a comfort to
have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.'

'Oh, beyond a doubt,' assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; 'if we once had
that, we should be quite sure.'

'With regard to the descriptive advertisement,' said Sampson Brass,
taking up his pen.  'It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his
traits.  Respecting his legs now--?'

'Crooked, certainly,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
'Do you think they WERE crooked?' said Brass, in an insinuating
tone.  'I think I see them now coming up the street very wide
apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps.
Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?'

'I think they were a little so,' observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.

'Legs crooked,' said Brass, writing as he spoke.  'Large head,
short body, legs crooked--'

Very crooked,' suggested Mrs Jiniwin.

'We'll not say very crooked, ma'am,' said Brass piously.  'Let us
not bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased.  He is gone,
ma'am, to where his legs will never come in question. --We will
content ourselves with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.'

'I thought you wanted the truth,' said the old lady.  'That's all.'

'Bless your eyes, how I love you,' muttered Quilp.  'There she goes
again.  Nothing but punch!'

'This is an occupation,' said the lawyer, laying down his pen and
emptying his glass, 'which seems to bring him before my eyes like
the Ghost of Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on
work-a-days.  His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his
trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella,
all come before me like visions of my youth.  His linen!' said Mr
Brass smiling fondly at the wall, 'his linen which was always of a
particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy--how plain I
see his linen now!'

'You had better go on, sir,' said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.

'True, ma'am, true,' cried Mr Brass.  'Our faculties must not
freeze with grief.  I'll trouble you for a little more of that,
ma'am.  A question now arises, with relation to his nose.'

'Flat,' said Mrs Jiniwin.

'Aquiline!' cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the
feature with his fist.  'Aquiline, you hag.  Do you see it?  Do you
call this flat?  Do you?  Eh?'

'Oh capital, capital!' shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.
'Excellent!  How very good he is!  He's a most remarkable man--so
extremely whimsical!  Such an amazing power of taking people by
surprise!'

Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the
dubious and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually
subsided, nor to the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to
the latter's running from the room, nor to the former's fainting
away.  Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the
table, and beginning with his glass, drank off the contents, and
went regularly round until he had emptied the other two, when he
seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm, surveyed him
with a most extraordinary leer.

'Not yet, Sampson,' said Quilp.  'Not just yet!'

'Oh very good indeed!' cried Brass, recovering his spirits a
little.  'Ha ha ha!  Oh exceedingly good!  There's not another man
alive who could carry it off like that.  A most difficult position
to carry off.  But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an
amazing flow!'

'Good night,' said the dwarf, nodding expressively.

'Good night, sir, good night,' cried the lawyer, retreating
backwards towards the door.  'This is a joyful occasion indeed,
extremely joyful.  Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed,
remarkably so!'

Waiting until Mr Brass's ejaculations died away in the distance
(for he continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp
advanced towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid
amazement.

'Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?' said the
dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.

'And yesterday too, master.'

'Dear me, you've had a deal of trouble.  Pray consider everything
yours that you find upon the--upon the body.  Good night!'

The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to
argue the point just then, and shuffled out of the room.  The
speedy clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still
embracing the case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded
arms, stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted
nightmare.




CHAPTER 50


Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties
concerned in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least
her full half share.  Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an
exception to the general rule; the remarks which they occasioned
being limited to a long soliloquy on the part of the gentleman,
with perhaps a few deprecatory observations from the lady, not
extending beyond a trembling monosyllable uttered at long
intervals, and in a very submissive and humble tone.  On the
present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long time venture even on
this gentle defence, but when she had recovered from her
fainting-fit, sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the
reproaches of her lord and master.

Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and
rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that
even his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his
proficiency in these respects, was well-nigh beside herself with
alarm.  But the Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a
heavy disappointment, by degrees cooled Mr Quilp's wrath; which
from being at savage heat, dropped slowly to the bantering or
chuckling point, at which it steadily remained.

'So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?' said Quilp.  'You
thought you were a widow, eh?  Ha, ha, ha, you jade."

'Indeed, Quilp,' returned his wife.  'I'm very sorry--'

'Who doubts it!' cried the dwarf.  'You very sorry! to be sure you
are.  Who doubts that you're VERY sorry!'

'I don't mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,'
said his wife, 'but sorry that I should have been led into such a
belief.  I am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.'

In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her
lord than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of
interest in his safety which, all things considered, was rather
unaccountable.  Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no
impression, farther than as it moved him to snap his fingers close
to his wife's eyes, with divers grins of triumph and derision.

'How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or
letting me hear of you or know anything about you?' asked the poor
little woman, sobbing.  'How could you be so cruel, Quilp?'

'How could I be so cruel! cruel!' cried the dwarf.  'Because I was
in the humour.  I'm in the humour now.  I shall be cruel
when I like.  I'm going away again.'

'Not again!'

'Yes, again.  I'm going away now.  I'm off directly.  I mean to go
and live wherever the fancy seizes me--at the wharf--at the
counting-house--and be a jolly bachelor.  You were a widow in
anticipation.  Damme,' screamed the dwarf, 'I'll be a bachelor in
earnest.'

'You can't be serious, Quilp,' sobbed his wife.

'I tell you,' said the dwarf, exulting in his project, 'that I'll
be a bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I'll have my
bachelor's hall at the counting-house, and at such times come near
it if you dare.  And mind too that I don't pounce in upon you at
unseasonable hours again, for I'll be a spy upon you, and come and
go like a mole or a weazel.  Tom Scott--where's Tom Scott?'

'Here I am, master,' cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up
the window.

'Wait there, you dog,' returned the dwarf, 'to carry a bachelor's
portmanteau.  Pack it up, Mrs Quilp.  Knock up the dear old lady to
help; knock her up.  Halloa there!  Halloa!'

With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying
to the door of the good lady's sleeping-closet, beat upon it
therewith until she awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that
her amiable son-in-law surely intended to murder her in
justification of the legs she had slandered.  Impressed with this
idea, she was no sooner fairly awake than she screamed violently,
and would have quickly precipitated herself out of the window and
through a neighbouring skylight, if her daughter had not hastened
in to undeceive her, and implore her assistance.  Somewhat
reassured by her account of the service she was required to render,
Mrs Jiniwin made her appearance in a flannel dressing-gown; and
both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and cold--for the
night was now far advanced--obeyed Mr Quilp's directions in
submissive silence.  Prolonging his preparations as much as
possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman
superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it
with his own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and
saucer, and other small household matters of that nature, strapped
up the portmanteau, took it on his shoulders, and actually marched
off without another word, and with the case-bottle (which he had
never once put down) still tightly clasped under his arm.
Consigning his heavier burden to the care of Tom Scott when he
reached the street, taking a dram from the bottle for his own
encouragement, and giving the boy a rap on the head with it as a
small taste for himself, Quilp very deliberately led the way to the
wharf, and reached it at between three and four o'clock in the
morning.

'Snug!' said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden
counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about
with him.  'Beautifully snug!  Call me at eight, you dog.'

With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the
portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the
desk, and rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old
boat-cloak, fell fast asleep.

Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with
difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to
make a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to
prepare some coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of
which repast he entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be
expended in the purchase of hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth
bloaters, and other articles of housekeeping; so that in a few
minutes a savoury meal was smoking on the board.  With this
substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to his heart's
content; and being highly satisfied with this free and gipsy mode
of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever he
chose to avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the
restraints of matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp
and her mother in a state of incessant agitation and suspense),
bestirred himself to improve his retreat, and render it more
commodious and comfortable.

With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-
stores were sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung
in seamanlike fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house.  He
also caused to be erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship's
stove with a rusty funnel to carry the smoke through the roof; and
these arrangements completed, surveyed them with ineffable delight.

'I've got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe," said the dwarf,
ogling the accommodations; 'a solitary, sequestered,
desolate-island sort of spot, where I can be quite alone when I
have business on hand, and be secure from all spies and listeners.
Nobody near me here, but rats, and they are fine stealthy secret
fellows.  I shall be as merry as a grig among these gentry.  I'll
look out for one like Christopher, and poison him--ha, ha, ha!
Business though--business--we must be mindful of business in the
midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this morning, I declare.'

Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his
head, or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands
meanwhile, on pain of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself
into a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then
speeding away on foot, reached Mr Swiveller's usual house of
entertainment in Bevis Marks, just as that gentleman sat down alone
to dinner in its dusky parlour.

'Dick'- said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, 'my pet,
my pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!'

'Oh you're there, are you?' returned Mr Swiveller; 'how are you?'

'How's Dick?' retorted Quilp.  'How's the cream of clerkship, eh?'

'Why, rather sour, sir,' replied Mr Swiveller.  'Beginning to
border upon cheesiness, in fact.'

'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, advancing.  'Has Sally proved
unkind.  "Of all the girls that are so smart, there's none like--"
eh, Dick!'

'Certainly not,' replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great
gravity, 'none like her.  She's the sphynx of private life, is
Sally B.'

'You're out of spirits,' said Quilp, drawing up a chair.  'What's
the matter?'

'The law don't agree with me,' returned Dick.  'It isn't moist
enough, and there's too much confinement.  I have been thinking of
running away.'

'Bah!' said the dwarf.  'Where would you run to, Dick?'

'I don't know' returned Mr Swiveller.  'Towards Highgate, I
suppose.  Perhaps the bells might strike up "Turn again Swiveller,
Lord Mayor of London." Whittington's name was Dick.  I wish cats
were scarcer."

Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a
comical expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further
explanation; upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry
to enter, as he ate a very long dinner in profound silence, finally
pushed away his plate, threw himself back into his chair, folded
his arms, and stared ruefully at the fire, in which some ends of
cigars were smoking on their own account, and sending up a fragrant
odour.

'Perhaps you'd like a bit of cake'--said Dick, at last turning to
the dwarf.  'You're quite welcome to it.  You ought to be, for it's
of your making.'

'What do you mean?' said Quilp.

Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very
greasy parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of
plum-cake extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with
a paste of white sugar an inch and a half deep.

'What should you say this was?' demanded Mr Swiveller.

'It looks like bride-cake,' replied the dwarf, grinning.

'And whose should you say it was?' inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing
the pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness.  'Whose?'

'Not--'

'Yes,' said Dick, 'the same.  You needn't mention her name.
There's no such name now.  Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs.
Yet loved I as man never loved that hadn't wooden legs, and my
heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Sophy Cheggs.'

With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the
distressing circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up
the parcel again, beat it very flat between the palms of his hands,
thrust it into his breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded
his arms upon the whole.

'Now, I hope you're satisfied, sir,' said Dick; 'and I hope Fred's
satisfied.  You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like
it.  This is the triumph I was to have, is it?  It's like the old
country-dance of that name, where there are two gentlemen to one
lady, and one has her, and the other hasn't, but comes limping up
behind to make out the figure.  But it's Destiny, and mine's a
crusher.'

Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller's defeat, Daniel Quilp
adopted the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and
ordering in a supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual
representative), which he put about with great alacrity, calling
upon Mr Swiveller to pledge him in various toasts derisive of
Cheggs, and eulogistic of the happiness of single men.  Such was
their impression on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the reflection that
no man could oppose his destiny, that in a very short space of time
his spirits rose surprisingly, and he was enabled to give the dwarf
an account of the receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had been
brought to Bevis Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in
person, and delivered at the office door with much giggling and
joyfulness.

'Ha!' said Quilp.  'It will be our turn to giggle soon.  And that
reminds me--you spoke of young Trent--where is he?'

Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently
accepted a responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and
was at that time absent on a professional tour among the
adventurous spirits of Great Britain.

'That's unfortunate,' said the dwarf, 'for I came, in fact, to ask
you about him.  A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend
over the way--'

'Which friend?'

'In the first floor.'

'Yes?'

'Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.'

'No, he don't,' said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head.

'Don't!  No, because he has never seen him,' rejoined Quilp; 'but
if we were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred,
properly introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little
Nell or her grandfather--who knows but it might make the young
fellow's fortune, and, through him, yours, eh?'

'Why, the fact is, you see,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that they HAVE
been brought together.'

'Have been!' cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his
companion.  'Through whose means?'
'Through mine,' said Dick, slightly confused.  'Didn't I mention it
to you the last time you called over yonder?'

'You know you didn't,' returned the dwarf.

'I believe you're right,' said Dick.  'No.  I didn't, I recollect.
Oh yes, I brought 'em together that very day.  It was Fred's
suggestion.'

'And what came of it?'

'Why, instead of my friend's bursting into tears when he knew who
Fred was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his
grandfather, or his grandmother in disguise (which we fully
expected), he flew into a tremendous passion; called him all manner
of names; said it was in a great measure his fault that little Nell
and the old gentleman had ever been brought to poverty; didn't hint
at our taking anything to drink; and--and in short rather turned
us out of the room than otherwise.'

'That's strange,' said the dwarf, musing.

'So we remarked to each other at the time,' returned Dick coolly,
'but quite true.'

Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he
brooded for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to
Mr Swiveller's face, and sharply scanning its expression.  As he
could read in it, however, no additional information or anything to
lead him to believe he had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller,
left to his own meditations, sighed deeply, and was evidently
growing maudlin on the subject of Mrs Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke
up the conference and took his departure, leaving the bereaved one
to his melancholy ruminations.

'Have been brought together, eh?' said the dwarf as he walked the
streets alone.  'My friend has stolen a march upon me.  It led him
to nothing, and therefore is no great matter, save in the
intention.  I'm glad he has lost his mistress.  Ha ha!  The
blockhead mustn't leave the law at present.  I'm sure of him where
he is, whenever I want him for my own purposes, and, besides, he's
a good unconscious spy on Brass, and tells, in his cups, all that
he sees and hears.  You're useful to me, Dick, and cost nothing but
a little treating now and then.  I am not sure that it may not be
worth while, before long, to take credit with the stranger, Dick,
by discovering your designs upon the child; but for the present
we'll remain the best friends in the world, with your good leave.'

Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his
own peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and
shut himself up in his Bachelor's Hall, which, by reason of its
newly-erected chimney depositing the smoke inside the room and
carrying none of it off, was not quite so agreeable as more
fastidious people might have desired.  Such inconveniences,
however, instead of disgusting the dwarf with his new abode, rather
suited his humour; so, after dining luxuriously from the
public-house, he lighted his pipe, and smoked against the chimney
until nothing of him was visible through the mist but a pair of red
and highly inflamed eyes, with sometimes a dim vision of his head
and face, as, in a violent fit of coughing, he slightly stirred the
smoke and scattered the heavy wreaths by which they were obscured.
In the midst of this atmosphere, which must infallibly have
smothered any other man, Mr Quilp passed the evening with great
cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe and the
case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a melodious
howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest resemblance
to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever
invented by man.  Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight,
when he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction.

The first sound that met his ears in the morning--as he half
opened his eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the
ceiling, entertained a drowsy idea that he must have been
transformed into a fly or blue-bottle in the course of the night,
--was that of a stifled sobbing and weeping in the room.  Peeping
cautiously over the side of his hammock, he descried Mrs Quilp, to
whom, after contemplating her for some time in silence, he
communicated a violent start by suddenly yelling out--'Halloa!'

'Oh, Quilp!' cried his poor little wife, looking up.  'How you
frightened me!'

'I meant to, you jade,' returned the dwarf.  'What do you want
here?  I'm dead, an't I?'

'Oh, please come home, do come home,' said Mrs Quilp, sobbing;
'we'll never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a
mistake that grew out of our anxiety.'

'Out of your anxiety,' grinned the dwarf.  'Yes, I know that--out
of your anxiety for my death.  I shall come home when I please, I
tell you.  I shall come home when I please, and go when I please.
I'll be a Will o' the Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you
always, starting up when you least expect me, and keeping you in a
constant state of restlessness and irritation.  Will you begone?'

Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.

'I tell you no,' cried the dwarf.  'No.  If you dare to come here
again unless you're sent for, I'll keep watch-dogs in the yard
that'll growl and bite--I'll have man-traps, cunningly altered and
improved for catching women--I'll have spring guns, that shall
explode when you tread upon the wires, and blow you into little
pieces.  Will you begone?'

'Do forgive me.  Do come back,' said his wife, earnestly.

'No-o-o-o-o!' roared Quilp.  'Not till my own good time, and then
I'll return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to
nobody for my goings or comings.  You see the door there.  Will you
go?'

Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic
voice, and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture,
indicative of an intention to spring out of his hammock, and,
night-capped as he was, bear his wife home again through the public
streets, that she sped away like an arrow.  Her worthy lord
stretched his neck and eyes until she had crossed the yard, and
then, not at all sorry to have had this opportunity of carrying his
point, and asserting the sanctity of his castle, fell into an
immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down to sleep again.




CHAPTER 51


The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor's Hall slept on
amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog,
and rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom
Scott to assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted
his couch, and made his toilet.  This duty performed, and his
repast ended, he again betook himself to Bevis Marks.

This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend
and employer Mr Sampson Brass.  Both gentlemen however were from
home, nor was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post
either.  The fact of their joint desertion of the office was made
known to all comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr
Swiveller, which was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving
the reader no clue to the time of day when it was first posted,
furnished him with the rather vague and unsatisfactory information
that that gentleman would 'return in an hour.'

'There's a servant, I suppose,' said the dwarf, knocking at the
house-door.  'She'll do.'

After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a
small voice immediately accosted him with, 'Oh please will you
leave a card or message?'

'Eh?' said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to
him) upon the small servant.

To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the
occasion of her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied,
'Oh please will you leave a card or message?'

'I'll write a note,' said the dwarf, pushing past her into the
office; 'and mind your master has it directly he comes home.'  So
Mr Quilp climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note,
and the small servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies,
looked on with her eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as
abstracted a wafer, to rush into the street and give the alarm to
the police.

As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very
short one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant.  He looked
at her, long and earnestly.

'How are you?' said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible
grimaces.

The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no
audible reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she
was inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the
note or message.

'Do they use you ill here?  is your mistress a Tartar?' said Quilp
with a chuckle.

In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look
of infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very
tight and round, and nodded violently.  Whether there was anything
in the peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or
anything in the expression of her features at the moment which
attracted his attention for some other reason; or whether it merely
occurred to him as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out
of countenance; certain it is, that he planted his elbows square
and firmly on the desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands,
looked at her fixedly.

'Where do you come from?' he said after a long pause, stroking his
chin.

'I don't know.'

'What's your name?'

'Nothing.'

'Nonsense!' retorted Quilp.  'What does your mistress call you when
she wants you?'

'A little devil,' said the child.

She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further
questioning, 'But please will you leave a card or message?'

These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more
inquiries.  Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew
his eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully
than before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it
with scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly
but very narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows.  The result of
this secret survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and
laughed slyly and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen
almost to bursting.  Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his
mirth and its effects, he tossed the letter to the child, and
hastily withdrew.

Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and
held his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the
dusty area railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child,
until he was quite tired out.  At last, he travelled back to the
Wilderness, which was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat,
and ordered tea in the wooden summer-house that afternoon for three
persons; an invitation to Miss Sally Brass and her brother to
partake of that entertainment at that place, having been the object
both of his journey and his note.

It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually
take tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced
state of decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at
low water.  Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr
Quilp ordered a cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath
its cracked and leaky roof that he, in due course of time, received
Mr Sampson and his sister Sally.

'You're fond of the beauties of nature,' said Quilp with a grin.
'Is this charming, Brass?  Is it unusual, unsophisticated,
primitive?'

'It's delightful indeed, sir,' replied the lawyer.

'Cool?' said Quilp.

'N-not particularly so, I think, sir,' rejoined Brass, with his
teeth chattering in his head.

'Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?' said Quilp.

'Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,' rejoined Brass.  'Nothing
more, sir, nothing more.'

'And Sally?' said the delighted dwarf.  'Does she like it?'

'She'll like it better,' returned that strong-minded lady, 'when
she has tea; so let us have it, and don't bother.'

'Sweet Sally!' cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to
embrace her.  'Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.'

'He's a very remarkable man indeed!' soliloquised Mr Brass.  'He's
quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!'

These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent
and distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having
a bad cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have
willingly borne some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted
his present raw quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a
fire.  Quilp, however--who, beyond the gratification of his demon
whims, owed Sampson some acknowledgment of the part he had played
in the mourning scene of which he had been a hidden witness, marked
these symptoms of uneasiness with a delight past all expression,
and derived from them a secret joy which the costliest banquet
could never have afforded him.

It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in
the character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own
account she would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with
a very ill grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off
before the tea appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness
and misery of her brother than she developed a grim satisfaction,
and began to enjoy herself after her own manner.  Though the wet
came stealing through the roof and trickling down upon their heads,
Miss Brass uttered no complaint, but presided over the tea equipage
with imperturbable composure.  While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious
hospitality, seated himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the
place as the most beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms,
and elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that
jovial spot; and Mr Brass, with the rain plashing down into his
tea-cup, made a dismal attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear
at his ease; and Tom Scott, who was in waiting at the door under an
old umbrella, exulted in his agonies, and bade fair to split his
sides with laughing; while all this was passing, Miss Sally Brass,
unmindful of the wet which dripped down upon her own feminine
person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the tea-board, erect
and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her brother with a
mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of self, to sit
there all night, witnessing the torments which his avaricious and
grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade him to
resent.  And this, it must be observed, or the illustration would
be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the
strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond
measure indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one
respect.

In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some
pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his
usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his
hand upon the lawyer's sleeve.

'A word,' said the dwarf, 'before we go farther.  Sally, hark'ee
for a minute.'

Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences
with their host which were the better for not having air.

'Business,' said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister.  'Very
private business.  Lay your heads together when you're by
yourselves.'

'Certainly, sir,' returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and
pencil.  'I'll take down the heads if you please, sir.  Remarkable
documents,' added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling,
'most remarkable documents.  He states his points so clearly that
it's a treat to have 'em!  I don't know any act of parliament
that's equal to him in clearness.'

'I shall deprive you of a treat,' said Quilp.  'Put up your book.
We don't want any documents.  So.  There's a lad named Kit--'

Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.

'Kit!' said Mr Sampson. --'Kit!  Ha! I've heard the name before,
but I don't exactly call to mind--I don't exactly--'

'You're as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a
rhinoceros,' returned his obliging client with an impatient
gesture.

'He's extremely pleasant!' cried the obsequious Sampson.  'His
acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising.  Quite a
Buffoon, quite!'

There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other;
and it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said
Buffon, but made use of a superfluous vowel.  Be this as it may,
Quilp gave him no time for correction, as he performed that office
himself by more than tapping him on the head with the handle of his
umbrella.

'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his
hand.  'I've showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'

'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back
and looking contemptuously at Sampson.  'I don't like Kit, Sally.'

'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.

'Nor I,' said Sampson.

'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp.  'Half our work is done already.
This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters;
a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double- faced, white-
livered, sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax
him, and a barking yelping dog to all besides.'

'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze.  'Quite
appalling!'

'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'

'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at
Sampson, 'always foremost!  I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent
dog to all besides, and most of all, to me.  In short, I owe him a
grudge.'
'That's enough, sir,' said Sampson.

'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out?
Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at
this minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise
prove a golden one to us all.  Apart from that, I repeat that he
crosses my humour, and I hate him.  Now, you know the lad, and can
guess the rest.  Devise your own means of putting him out of my
way, and execute them.  Shall it be done?'

'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.

'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp.  'Sally, girl, yours.  I
rely as much, or more, on you than him.  Tom Scott comes back.
Lantern, pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!'

No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the
slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting.
The trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to
each other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing
more was needed.  Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease
with which he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same
uproarious, reckless little savage he had been a few seconds
before.  It was ten o'clock at night before the amiable Sally
supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by
which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could
render; his walk being from some unknown reason anything but
steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in unexpected places.

Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the
fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping
to his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock.  Leaving
him to visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in
the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task
to rejoin them as they sat and watched.




CHAPTER 57


After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of
the churchyard, and hurried towards them, Tingling in his hand, as
he came along, a bundle of rusty keys.  He was quite breathless
with pleasure and haste when he reached the porch, and at first
could only point towards the old building which the child had been
contemplating so earnestly.

'You see those two old houses,' he said at last.

'Yes, surely,' replied Nell.  'I have been looking at them nearly
all the time you have been away.'

'And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could
have guessed what I have to tell you,' said her friend.  'One of
those houses is mine.'

Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the
schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with
exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.

They stopped before its low arched door.  After trying several of
the keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock,
which turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.

The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly
ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its
beautiful groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of
its ancient splendour.  Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating
the mastery of Nature's hand, yet remained to tell how many times
the leaves outside had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged.
The broken figures supporting the burden of the chimney-piece,
though mutilated, were still distinguishable for what they had
been--far different from the dust without--and showed sadly by the
empty hearth, like creatures who had outlived their kind, and
mourned their own too slow decay.

In some old time--for even change was old in that old place--a
wooden partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to
form a sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the
same period by a rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid
wall.  This screen, together with two seats in the broad chimney,
had at some forgotten date been part of the church or convent; for
the oak, hastily appropriated to its present purpose, had been
little altered from its former shape, and presented to the eye a
pile of fragments of rich carving from old monkish stalls.

An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light
that came through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this
portion of the ruin.  It was not quite destitute of furniture.  A
few strange chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had
dwindled away with age; a table, the very spectre of its race: a
great old chest that had once held records in the church, with
other quaintly-fashioned domestic necessaries, and store of
fire-wood for the winter, were scattered around, and gave evident
tokens of its occupation as a dwelling-place at no very distant
time.

The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we
contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in
the great ocean of eternity.  The old man had followed them, but
they were all three hushed for a space, and drew their breath
softly, as if they feared to break the silence even by so slight a
sound.

'It is a very beautiful place!' said the child, in a low voice.

'I almost feared you thought otherwise,' returned the schoolmaster.
'You shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or
gloomy.'

'It was not that,' said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder.
'Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside,
from the church porch, the same feeling came over me.  It is its
being so old and grey perhaps.'

'A peaceful place to live in, don't you think so)' said her friend.

'Oh yes,' rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly.  'A
quiet, happy place--a place to live and learn to die in!' She
would have said more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused
her voice to falter, and come in trembling whispers from her lips.


'A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and
body in,' said the schoolmaster; 'for this old house is yours.'

'Ours!' cried the child.

'Ay,' returned the schoolmaster gaily, 'for many a merry year to
come, I hope.  I shall be a close neighbour--only next door--but
this house is yours.'

Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the
schoolmaster sat down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how
he had learnt that ancient tenement had been occupied for a very
long time by an old person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept
the keys of the church, opened and closed it for the services, and
showed it to strangers; how she had died not many weeks ago, and
nobody had yet been found to fill the office; how, learning all
this in an interview with the sexton, who was confined to his bed
by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention of his
fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that
high authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to
propound the matter to the clergyman.  In a word, the result of his
exertions was, that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried
before the last-named gentleman next day; and, his approval of
their conduct and appearance reserved as a matter of form, that
they were already appointed to the vacant post.

'There's a small allowance of money,' said the schoolmaster.  'It
is not much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot.
By clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of
that.'

'Heaven bless and prosper you!' sobbed the child.

'Amen, my dear,' returned her friend cheerfully; 'and all of us, as
it will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this
tranquil life.  But we must look at MY house now.  Come!'

They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as
before; at length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten
door.  It led into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which
they had come, but not so spacious, and having only one other
little room attached.  It was not difficult to divine that the
other house was of right the schoolmaster's, and that he had chosen
for himself the least commodious, in his care and regard for them.
Like the adjoining habitation, it held such old articles of
furniture as were absolutely necessary, and had its stack of
fire-wood.

To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they
could, was now their pleasant care.  In a short time, each had its
cheerful fire glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening
the pale old wall with a hale and healthy blush.  Nell, busily
plying her needle, repaired the tattered window-hangings, drew
together the rents that time had worn in the threadbare scraps of
carpet, and made them whole and decent.  The schoolmaster swept and
smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass,
trained the ivy and creeping plants which hung their drooping heads
in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of
home.  The old man, sometimes by his side and sometimes with the
child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient
services, and was happy.  Neighbours, too, as they came from work,
proffered their help; or sent their children with such small
presents or loans as the strangers needed most.  It was a busy day;
and night came on, and found them wondering that there was yet so
much to do, and that it should be dark so soon.

They took their supper together, in the house which may be
henceforth called the child's; and, when they had finished their
meal, drew round the fire, and almost in whispers--their hearts
were too quiet and glad for loud expression--discussed their
future plans.  Before they separated, the schoolmaster read some
prayers aloud; and then, full of gratitude and happiness, they
parted for the night.

At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully
in his bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before
the dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had
been a dream And she only now awoke.  The glare of the sinking
flame, reflected in the oaken panels whose carved tops were dimly
seen in the dusky roof--the aged walls, where strange shadows came
and went with every flickering of the fire--the solemn presence,
within, of that decay which falls on senseless things the most
enduring in their nature: and, without, and round about on every
side, of Death--filled her with deep and thoughtful feelings, but
with none of terror or alarm.  A change had been gradually stealing
over her, in the time of her loneliness and sorrow.  With failing
strength and heightening resolution, there had sprung up a purified
and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and
hopes, which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping.
There were none to see the frail, perishable figure, as it glided
from the fire and leaned pensively at the open casement; none but
the stars, to look into the upturned face and read its history.
The old church bell rang out the hour with a mournful sound, as if
it had grown sad from so much communing with the dead and unheeded
warning to the living; the fallen leaves rustled; the grass stirred
upon the graves; all else was still and sleeping.

Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the
church--touching the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and
protection.  Others had chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of
trees; others by the path, that footsteps might come near them;
others, among the graves of little children.  Some had desired to
rest beneath the very ground they had trodden in their daily walks;
some, where the setting sun might shine upon their beds; some,
where its light would fall upon them when it rose.  Perhaps not one
of the imprisoned souls had been able quite to separate itself in
living thought from its old companion.  If any had, it had still
felt for it a love like that which captives have been known to bear
towards the cell in which they have been long confined, and, even
at parting, hung upon its narrow bounds affectionately.

It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her
bed.  Again something of the same sensation as before--an
involuntary chill--a momentary feeling akin to fear--but
vanishing directly, and leaving no alarm behind.  Again, too,
dreams of the little scholar; of the roof opening, and a column of
bright faces, rising far away into the sky, as she had seen in some
old scriptural picture once, and looking down on her, asleep.  It
was a sweet and happy dream.  The quiet spot, outside, seemed to
remain the same, saving that there was music in the air, and a
sound of angels' wings.  After a time the sisters came there, hand
in hand, and stood among the graves.  And then the dream grew dim,
and faded.

With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of
yesterday's labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the
restoration of its energies, cheerfulness, and hope.  They worked
gaily in ordering and arranging their houses until noon, and then
went to visit the clergyman.

He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued
spirit, accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with
the world, which he had left many years before to come and settle
in that place.  His wife had died in the house in which he still
lived, and he had long since lost sight of any earthly cares or
hopes beyond it.

He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in
Nell; asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances
which had led her there, and so forth.  The schoolmaster had
already told her story.  They had no other friends or home to
leave, he said, and had come to share his fortunes.  He loved the
child as though she were his own.

'Well, well,' said the clergyman.  'Let it be as you desire.  She
is very young.'
'Old in adversity and trial, sir,' replied the schoolmaster.

'God help her.  Let her rest, and forget them,' said the old
gentleman.  'But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one
so young as you, my child.'

'Oh no, sir,' returned Nell.  'I have no such thoughts, indeed.'

'I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,' said the
old gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly,
'than have her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches.  You
must look to this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among
these solemn ruins.  Your request is granted, friend.'

After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child's
house; where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune,
when another friend appeared.

This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house,
and had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since
the death of the clergyman's wife, which had happened fifteen years
before.  He had been his college friend and always his close
companion; in the first shock of his grief he had come to console
and comfort him; and from that time they had never parted company.
The little old gentleman was the active spirit of the place, the
adjuster of all differences, the promoter of all merry-makings, the
dispenser of his friend's bounty, and of no small charity of his
own besides; the universal mediator, comforter, and friend.  None
of the simple villagers had cared to ask his name, or, when they
knew it, to store it in their memory.  Perhaps from some vague
rumour of his college honours which had been whispered abroad on
his first arrival, perhaps because he was an unmarried,
unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the bachelor.  The name
pleased him, or suited him as well as any other, and the Bachelor
he had ever since remained.  And the bachelor it was, it may be
added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel which
the wanderers had found in their new habitation.

The bachelor, then--to call him by his usual appellation--lifted
the latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the
door, and stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.

'You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?' he said, greeting Nell's
kind friend.

'I am, sir.'

'You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you.  I should
have been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across
the country to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter
in service some miles off, and have but just now returned.  This is
our young church-keeper?  You are not the less welcome, friend, for
her sake, or for this old man's; nor the worse teacher for having
learnt humanity.'
'She has been ill, sir, very lately,' said the schoolmaster, in
answer to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he
had kissed her cheek.

'Yes, yes.  I know she has,' he rejoined.  'There have been
suffering and heartache here.'

'Indeed there have, sir.'

The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again
at the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.

'You will be happier here,' he said; 'we will try, at least, to
make you so.  You have made great improvements here already.  Are
they the work of your hands?'

'Yes, sir.'

'We may make some others--not better in themselves, but with
better means perhaps,' said the bachelor.  'Let us see now, let us
see.'

Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the
houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he
engaged to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had
at home, and which must have been a very miscellaneous and
extensive one, as it comprehended the most opposite articles
imaginable.  They all came, however, and came without loss of time;
for the little old gentleman, disappearing for some five or ten
minutes, presently returned, laden with old shelves, rugs,
blankets, and other household gear, and followed by a boy bearing
a similar load.  These being cast on the floor in a promiscuous
heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in arranging, erecting, and
putting away; the superintendence of which task evidently afforded
the old gentleman extreme delight, and engaged him for some time
with great briskness and activity.  When nothing more was left to
be done, he charged the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to
be marshalled before their new master, and solemnly reviewed.

'As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you'd wish to see,' he said,
turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; 'but I don't let
'em know I think so.  That wouldn't do, at all.'

The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins,
great and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house
door, fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their
hats and caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible
dimensions, and making all manner of bows and scrapes, which the
little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and
expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles.  Indeed,
his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously
disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it
broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which
were perfectly audible to them every one.
'This first boy, schoolmaster,' said the bachelor, 'is John Owen;
a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too
thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far.  That boy, my
good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his
parents of their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you
come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by
the finger-post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry,
you'll never forget it.  It's beautiful!'

John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession
of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.

'Now, look at that lad, sir,' said the bachelor.  'You see that
fellow?  Richard Evans his name is, sir.  An amazing boy to learn,
blessed with a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover
with a good voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the
best among us.  Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll
never die in his bed; he's always falling asleep in sermon-time--
and to tell you the truth, Mr Marton, I always did the same at his
age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution
and I couldn't help it.'

This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the
bachelor turned to another.

'But if we talk of examples to be shunned,' said he, 'if we come to
boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows,
here's the one, and I hope you won't spare him.  This is the lad,
sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair.  This is a
swimmer, sir, this fellow--a diver, Lord save us!  This is a boy,
sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with
his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man's dog, who was being
drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master
stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his
guide and friend.  I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir,'
added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, 'directly I heard of
it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn't the least
idea that it came from me.  '

Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another,
and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying,
for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting
emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart
and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example.
Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable
by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an
admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings,
or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the
schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he
could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.

Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so
many assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the
schoolmaster parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits,
and deemed himself one of the happiest men on earth.  The windows
of the two old houses were ruddy again, that night, with the
reflection of the cheerful fires that burnt within; and the
bachelor and his friend, pausing to look upon them as they returned
from their evening walk, spoke softly together of the beautiful
child, and looked round upon the churchyard with a sigh.




CHAPTER 53


Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her
household tasks, and put everything in order for the good
schoolmaster (though sorely against his will, for he would have
spared her the pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a
little bundle of keys with which the bachelor had formally invested
her on the previous day, and went out alone to visit the old
church.

The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the
fresh scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense.
The neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful
sound; the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by
Good Spirits over the dead.  Some young children sported among the
tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces.  They had an
infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child's grave,
in a little bed of leaves.  It was a new grave--the resting-place,
perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek and patient in its
illness, had often sat and watched them, and now seemed, to their
minds, scarcely changed.

She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was.  The child
answered that that was not its name; it was a garden--his
brother's.  It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens,
and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed
them.  When he had done speaking, he looked at her with a smile,
and kneeling down and nestling for a moment with his cheek against
the turf, bounded merrily away.

She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through
the wicket gate, and so into the village.  The old sexton, leaning
on a crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her
good morrow.

'You are better?' said the child, stopping to speak with him.

'Ay surely,' returned the old man.  'I'm thankful to say, much
better.'

'YOU will be quite well soon.'

'With Heaven's leave, and a little patience.  But come in, come
in!'
The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step,
which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way
into his little cottage.

'It is but one room you see.  There is another up above, but the
stair has got harder to climb o' late years, and I never use it.
I'm thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.'

The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him--one of his
trade too--could talk of time so easily.  He saw her eyes
wandering to the tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.

'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in
making graves.'

'Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.'

'And well you might.  I am a gardener.  I dig the ground, and plant
things that are to live and grow.  My works don't all moulder away,
and rot in the earth.  You see that spade in the centre?'

'The very old one--so notched and worn?  Yes.'

'That's the sexton's spade, and it's a well-used one, as you see.
We're healthy people here, but it has done a power of work.  If it
could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an
unexpected job that it and I have done together; but I forget 'em,
for my memory's a poor one. --That's nothing new,' he added
hastily.  'It always was.'

'There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,' said
the child.

'Oh yes.  And tall trees.  But they are not so separate from the
sexton's labours as you think.'

'No!'

'Not in my mind, and recollection--such as it is,' said the old
man.  'Indeed they often help it.  For say that I planted such a
tree for such a man.  There it stands, to remind me that he died.
When I look at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his
time, it helps me to the age of my other work, and I can tell you
pretty nearly when I made his grave.'

'But it may remind you of one who is still alive,' said the child.

'Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives,
then,' rejoined the old man; 'wife, husband, parents, brothers,
sisters, children, friends--a score at least.  So it happens that
the sexton's spade gets worn and battered.  I shall need a new one
--next summer.'

The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with
his age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in
earnest.

'Ah!' he said, after a brief silence.  'People never learn.  They
never learn.  It's only we who turn up the ground, where nothing
grows and everything decays, who think of such things as these--
who think of them properly, I mean.  You have been into the
church?'

'I am going there now,' the child replied.

'There's an old well there,' said the sexton, 'right underneath the
belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well.  Forty year ago, you had only
to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of
the windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water.
By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after
that, a second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or
the bucket swung tight and empty at the end.  In ten years' time,
the water fell again, and a third knot was made.  In ten years
more, the well dried up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your
arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord, you'll hear it, of
a sudden, clanking and rattling on the ground below; with a sound
of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into your
mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.'

'A dreadful place to come on in the dark!' exclaimed the child, who
had followed the old man's looks and words until she seemed to
stand upon its brink.

'What is it but a grave!' said the sexton.  'What else!  And which
of our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring
subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life?  Not
one!'

'Are you very old yourself?' asked the child, involuntarily.

'I shall be seventy-nine--next summer.'

'You still work when you are well?'

'Work!  To be sure.  You shall see my gardens hereabout.  Look at
the window there.  I made, and have kept, that plot of ground
entirely with my own hands.  By this time next year I shall hardly
see the sky, the boughs will have grown so thick.  I have my winter
work at night besides.'

He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and
produced some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made
of old wood.

'Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to
them,' he said, 'like to buy these keepsakes from our church and
ruins.  Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here
and there; sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long
preserved.  See here--this is a little chest of the last kind,
clasped at the edges with fragments of brass plates that had
writing on 'em once, though it would be hard to read it now.  I
haven't many by me at this time of year, but these shelves will be
full--next summer.'

The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards
departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old
man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one
stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and,
while he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in
word and deed to deem himself immortal.  But her musings did not
stop here, for she was wise enough to think that by a good and
merciful adjustment this must be human nature, and that the old
sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of all
mankind.

Full of these meditations, she reached the church.  It was easy to
find the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on
a scrap of yellow parchment.  Its very turning in the lock awoke a
hollow sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the
echoes that it raised in closing, made her start.

If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more
strongly, because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond,
and through which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what
was the deep impression of finding herself alone in that solemn
building, where the very light, coming through sunken windows,
seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent of earth and mould,
seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser
particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered
pillars, like the breath of ages gone!  Here was the broken
pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing on
the pilgrims' steps, had trodden out their track, and left but
crumbling stones.  Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the
sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately
tomb on which no epitaph remained--all--marble, stone, iron,
wood, and dust--one common monument of ruin.  The best work and the
worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least
imposing--both of Heaven's work and Man's--all found one common
level here, and told one common tale.

Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were
effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded
hands--cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars--
girded with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived.
Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of
mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty
hooks.  Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained
their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect.  Thus
violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and
bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who
worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.

The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark
figures on the tombs--they made it more quiet there, than
elsewhere, to her fancy--and gazing round with a feeling of awe,
tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at
rest.  She took a Bible from the shelf, and read; then, laying it
down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that
would come--of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant, upon the
sleeping forms--of the leaves that would flutter at the window,
and play in glistening shadows on the pavement--of the songs of
birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors--of the sweet
air, that would steal in, and gently wave the tattered banners
overhead.  What if the spot awakened thoughts of death!  Die who
would, it would still remain the same; these sights and sounds
would still go on, as happily as ever.  It would be no pain to
sleep amidst them.

She left the chapel--very slowly and often turning back to gaze
again--and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower,
opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where
she looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had
left, or caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells.  At length
she gained the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top.

Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the
fields and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the
bright blue sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke,
that, coming from among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the
green earth; the children yet at their gambols down below--all,
everything, so beautiful and happy!  It was like passing from death
to life; it was drawing nearer Heaven.

The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked
the door.  As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy
hum of voices.  Her friend had begun his labours only on that day.
The noise grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come
trooping out and disperse themselves with merry shouts and play.
'It's a good thing,' thought the child, 'I am very glad they pass
the church.'  And then she stopped, to fancy how the noise would
sound inside, and how gently it would seem to die away upon the
ear.

Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel,
and in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the
same quiet train of thought.  Even when it had grown dusk, and the
shadows of coming night made it more solemn still, the child
remained, like one rooted to the spot, and had no fear or thought
of stirring.

They found her there, at last, and took her home.  She looked pale
but very happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as
the poor schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he
felt a tear upon his face.




CHAPTER 54


The bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old
church a constant source of interest and amusement.  Taking that
pride in it which men conceive for the wonders of their own little
world, he had made its history his study; and many a summer day
within its walls, and many a winter's night beside the parsonage
fire, had found the bachelor still poring over, and adding to, his
goodly store of tale and legend.

As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth
of every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies
love to array her--and some of which become her pleasantly enough,
serving, like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the
charms they half conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest
and pursuit rather than languor and indifference--as, unlike this
stern and obdurate class, he loved to see the goddess crowned with
those garlands of wild flowers which tradition wreathes for her
gentle wearing, and which are often freshest in their homeliest
shapes--he trod with a light step and bore with a light hand upon
the dust of centuries, unwilling to demolish any of the airy
shrines that had been raised above it, if any good feeling or
affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts.  Thus, in the
case of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for many
generations, to contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after
ravaging, with cut, and thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came
back with a penitent and sorrowing heart to die at home, but which
had been lately shown by learned antiquaries to be no such thing,
as the baron in question (so they contended) had died hard in
battle, gnashing his teeth and cursing with his latest breath--
the bachelor stoutly maintained that the old tale was the true one;
that the baron, repenting him of the evil, had done great charities
and meekly given up the ghost; and that, if ever baron went to
heaven, that baron was then at peace.  In like manner, when the
aforesaid antiquaries did argue and contend that a certain secret
vault was not the tomb of a grey-haired lady who had been hanged
and drawn and quartered by glorious Queen Bess for succouring a
wretched priest who fainted of thirst and hunger at her door, the
bachelor did solemnly maintain, against all comers, that the church
was hallowed by the said poor lady's ashes; that her remains had
been collected in the night from four of the city's gates, and
thither in secret brought, and there deposited; and the bachelor
did further (being highly excited at such times) deny the glory of
Queen Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater glory of the
meanest woman in her realm, who had a merciful and tender heart.
As to the assertion that the flat stone near the door was not the
grave of the miser who had disowned his only child and left a sum
of money to the church to buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did
readily admit the same, and that the place had given birth to no
such man.  In a word, he would have had every stone, and plate of
brass, the monument only of deeds whose memory should survive.  All
others he was willing to forget.  They might be buried in
consecrated ground, but he would have had them buried deep, and
never brought to light again.

It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her
easy task.  Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent
building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood--
majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth--it seemed to her, when
she heard these things, sacred to all goodness and virtue.  It was
another world, where sin and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of
rest, where nothing evil entered.

When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every
tomb and flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down
into the old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it
had been lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps
depending from the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented
odours, and habits glittering with gold and silver, and pictures,
and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and glistening through
the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time
heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt
and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads.  Thence, he
took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old
walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along
--dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off--or to pause like
gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers.  He showed her too, how
the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those
rotting scraps of armour up above--how this had been a helmet, and
that a shield, and that a gauntlet--and how they had wielded the
great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron
mace.  All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and
sometimes, when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times,
and rising from her bed looked out at the dark church, she almost
hoped to see the windows lighted up, and hear the organ's swell,
and sound of voices, on the rushing wind.

The old sexton soon got better, and was about again.  From him the
child learnt many other things, though of a different kind.  He was
not able to work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he
came to overlook the man who dug it.  He was in a talkative mood;
and the child, at first standing by his side, and afterwards
sitting on the grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised
towards his, began to converse with him.

Now, the man who did the sexton's duty was a little older than he,
though much more active.  But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who
peradventure, on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great
difficulty in half-a-dozen hours) exchanged a remark with him about
his work, the child could not help noticing that he did so with an
impatient kind of pity for his infirmity, as if he were himself the
strongest and heartiest man alive.

'I'm sorry to see there is this to do,' said the child when she
approached.  'I heard of no one having died.'

'She lived in another hamlet, my dear,' returned the sexton.
'Three mile away.'

'Was she young?'

'Ye-yes' said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think.
David, was she more than sixty-four?'

David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question.  The
sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was
too infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by
throwing a little mould upon his red nightcap.

'What's the matter now?' said David, looking up.

'How old was Becky Morgan?' asked the sexton.

'Becky Morgan?' repeated David.

'Yes,' replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half
irritable tone, which the old man couldn't hear, 'you're getting
very deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!'

The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a
piece of slate he had by him for the purpose--and scraping off, in
the process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans--
set himself to consider the subject.

'Let me think' quoth he.  'I saw last night what they had put upon
the coffin--was it seventy-nine?'

'No, no,' said the sexton.

'Ah yes, it was though,' returned the old man with a sigh.  'For I
remember thinking she was very near our age.  Yes, it was
seventy-nine.'

'Are you sure you didn't mistake a figure, Davy?' asked the sexton,
with signs of some emotion.

'What?' said the old man.  'Say that again.'

'He's very deaf.  He's very deaf indeed,' cried the sexton
petulantly; 'are you sure you're right about the figures?'

'Oh quite,' replied the old man.  'Why not?'

'He's exceedingly deaf,' muttered the sexton to himself.  'I think
he's getting foolish.'

The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to
say the truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was
infinitely more robust.  As the sexton said nothing more just then,
however, she forgot it for the time, and spoke again.

'You were telling me,' she said, 'about your gardening.  Do you
ever plant things here?'

'In the churchyard?' returned the sexton, 'Not I.'

'I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,' the child
rejoined; 'there are some over there, you see.  I thought they were
of your rearing, though indeed they grow but poorly.'

'They grow as Heaven wills,' said the old man; 'and it kindly
ordains that they shall never flourish here.'

'I do not understand you.'

'Why, this it is,' said the sexton.  'They mark the graves of those
who had very tender, loving friends.'

'I was sure they did!' the child exclaimed.  'I am very glad to
know they do!'

'Aye,' returned the old man, 'but stay.  Look at them.  See how
they hang their heads, and droop, and wither.  Do you guess the
reason?'

'No,' the child replied.

'Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon.
At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin
to come less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once
a week to once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals;
then, not at all.  Such tokens seldom flourish long.  I have known
the briefest summer flowers outlive them.'

'I grieve to hear it,' said the child.

'Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,'
returned the old man, shaking his head, 'but I say otherwise.
"It's a pretty custom you have in this part of the country," they
say to me sometimes, "to plant the graves, but it's melancholy to
see these things all withering or dead." I crave their pardon and
tell them that, as I take it, 'tis a good sign for the happiness of
the living.  And so it is.  It's nature.'

'Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to
the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not
in graves,' said the child in an earnest voice.

'Perhaps so,' replied the old man doubtfully.  'It may be.'

'Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,' thought the child within
herself, 'I'll make this place my garden.  It will be no harm at
least to work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of
it, I am sure.'

Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton,
who turned towards old David, and called him by his name.  It was
plain that Becky Morgan's age still troubled him; though why, the
child could scarcely understand.

The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man's
attention.  Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put
his hand to his dull ear.

'Did you call?' he said.

'I have been thinking, Davy,' replied the sexton, 'that she,' he
pointed to the grave, 'must have been a deal older than you or me.'

'Seventy-nine,' answered the old man with a shake of the head, 'I
tell you that I saw it.'

'Saw it?' replied the sexton; 'aye, but, Davy, women don't always
tell the truth about their age.'

'That's true indeed,' said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle
in his eye.  'She might have been older.'

'I'm sure she must have been.  Why, only think how old she looked.
You and I seemed but boys to her.'

'She did look old,' rejoined David.  'You're right.  She did look
old.'

'Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and
say if she could be but seventy-nine at last--only our age,' said
the sexton.

'Five year older at the very least!' cried the other.

'Five!' retorted the sexton.  'Ten.  Good eighty-nine.  I call to
mind the time her daughter died.  She was eighty-nine if she was a
day, and tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger.  Oh!
human vanity!'

The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on
this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such
weight as to render it doubtful--not whether the deceased was of
the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the
patriarchal term of a hundred.  When they had settled this question
to their mutual satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend's
assistance, rose to go.

'It's chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful--till the
summer,' he said, as he prepared to limp away.

'What?' asked old David.

'He's very deaf, poor fellow!' cried the sexton.  'Good-bye!'
'Ah!' said old David, looking after him.  'He's failing very fast.
He ages every day.'

And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in
him than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the
little fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose
decease was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and
would be no business of theirs for half a score of years to come.

The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as
he threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to
cough and fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind
of sober chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast.  At length she
turned away, and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came
unexpectedly upon the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green
grave in the sun, reading.

'Nell here?' he said cheerfully, as he closed his book.  'It does
me good to see you in the air and light.  I feared you were again
in the church, where you so often are.'

'Feared!' replied the child, sitting down beside him.  'Is it not
a good place?'

'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster.  'But you must be gay
sometimes--nay, don't shake your head and smile so sadly.'

'Not sadly, if you knew my heart.  Do not look at me as if you
thought me sorrowful.  There is not a happier creature on earth,
than I am now.'

Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it
between her own.  'It's God's will!' she said, when they had been
silent for some time.

'What?'

'All this,' she rejoined; 'all this about us.  But which of us is
sad now?  You see that I am smiling.'

'And so am I,' said the schoolmaster; 'smiling to think how often
we shall laugh in this same place.  Were you not talking yonder?'

'Yes,'the child rejoined.

'Of something that has made you sorrowful?'

There was a long pause.

'What was it?' said the schoolmaster, tenderly.  'Come.  Tell me
what it was.'

'I rather grieve--I do rather grieve to think,' said the child,
bursting into tears, 'that those who die about us, are so soon
forgotten.'

'And do you think,' said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she
had thrown around, 'that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a
faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect?
Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these
dead may be best remembered?  Nell, Nell, there may be people busy
in the world, at this instant, in whose good actions and good
thoughts these very graves--neglected as they look to us--are the
chief instruments.'

'Tell me no more,' said the child quickly.  'Tell me no more.  I
feel, I know it.  How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of
you?'

'There is nothing,' cried her friend, 'no, nothing innocent or
good, that dies, and is forgotten.  Let us hold to that faith, or
none.  An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live
again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play
its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world,
though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea.
There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its
blessed work on earth in those that loved it here.  Forgotten! oh,
if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their
source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much
charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their
growth in dusty graves!'

'Yes,' said the child, 'it is the truth; I know it is.  Who should
feel its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives
again!  Dear, dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have
given me!'

The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in
silence; for his heart was full.

They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather
approached.  Before they had spoken many words together, the church
clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew.

'A good man,' said the grandfather, looking after him; 'a kind man.
Surely he will never harm us, Nell.  We are safe here, at last, eh?
We will never go away from here?'

The child shook her head and smiled.

'She needs rest,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'too pale--
too pale.  She is not like what she was.'

When?' asked the child.

'Ha!' said the old man, 'to be sure--when?  How many weeks ago?
Could I count them on my fingers?  Let them rest though; they're
better gone.'
'Much better, dear,' replied the child.  'We will forget them; or,
if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream
that has passed away.'

'Hush!' said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand
and looking over his shoulder; 'no more talk of the dream, and all
the miseries it brought.  There are no dreams here.  'Tis a quiet
place, and they keep away.  Let us never think about them, lest
they should pursue us again.  Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks--wet,
cold, and famine--and horrors before them all, that were even
worse--we must forget such things if we would be tranquil here.'

'Thank Heaven!' inwardly exclaimed the child, 'for this most happy
change!'

'I will be patient,' said the old man, 'humble, very thankful, and
obedient, if you will let me stay.  But do not hide from me; do not
steal away alone; let me keep beside you.  Indeed, I will be very
true and faithful, Nell.'

'I steal away alone! why that,' replied the child, with assumed
gaiety, 'would be a pleasant jest indeed.  See here, dear
grandfather, we'll make this place our garden--why not!  It is a
very good one--and to-morrow we'll begin, and work together, side
by side.'

'It is a brave thought!' cried her grandfather.  'Mind, darling--
we begin to-morrow!'

Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their
labour!  Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the
spot, as he!  They plucked the long grass and nettles from the
tombs, thinned the poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and
cleared it of the leaves and weeds.  They were yet in the ardour of
their work, when the child, raising her head from the ground over
which she bent, observed that the bachelor was sitting on the stile
close by, watching them in silence.

'A kind office,' said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she
curtseyed to him.  'Have you done all that, this morning?'

'It is very little, sir,' returned the child, with downcast eyes,
'to what we mean to do.'

'Good work, good work,' said the bachelor.  'But do you only labour
at the graves of children, and young people?'

'We shall come to the others in good time, sir,' replied Nell,
turning her head aside, and speaking softly.

It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident,
or the child's unconscious sympathy with youth.  But it seemed to
strike upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before.
He looked in @ hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the
child, then pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest.
Something he had long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in
his mind.  It did not pass away, as weightier things had done; but
came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that day, and
often afterwards.  Once, while they were yet at work, the child,
seeing that he often turned and looked uneasily at her, as though
he were trying to resolve some painful doubts or collect some
scattered thoughts, urged him to tell the reason.  But he said it
was nothing--nothing--and, laying her head upon his arm, patted
her fair cheek with his hand, and muttered that she grew stronger
every day, and would be a woman, soon.




CHAPTER 55


From that time, there sprung up in the old man's mind, a solicitude
about the child which never slept or left him.  There are chords in
the human heart--strange, varying strings--which are only struck
by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the
most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest
casual touch.  In the most insensible or childish minds, there is
some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill
assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by
chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest end in view.  From
that time, the old man never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and
devotion of the child; from the time of that slight incident, he
who had seen her toiling by his side through so much difficulty and
suffering, and had scarcely thought of her otherwise than as the
partner of miseries which he felt severely in his own person, and
deplored for his own sake at least as much as hers, awoke to a
sense of what he owed her, and what those miseries had made her.
Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment from that time to
the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort,
any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts from the
gentle object of his love.

He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and
lean upon his arm--he would sit opposite to her in the
chimney-corner, content to watch, and look, until she raised her
head and smiled upon him as of old--he would discharge by stealth,
those household duties which tasked her powers too heavily--he
would rise, in the cold dark nights, to listen to her breathing in
her sleep, and sometimes crouch for hours by her bedside only to
touch her hand.  He who knows all, can only know what hopes, and
fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were in that one disordered
brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor old man.
Sometimes--weeks had crept on, then--the child, exhausted, though
with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the
fire.  At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and
read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor
came in, and took his turn of reading.  The old man sat and
listened--with little understanding for the words, but with his
eyes fixed upon the child--and if she smiled or brightened with
the story, he would say it was a good one, and conceive a fondness
for the very book.  When, in their evening talk, the bachelor told
some tale that pleased her (as his tales were sure to do), the old
man would painfully try to store it in his mind; nay, when the
bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip out after him, and
humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again, that he might
learn to win a smile from Nell.

But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be
out of doors, and walking in her solemn garden.  Parties, too,
would come to see the church; and those who came, speaking to
others of the child, sent more; so even at that season of the year
they had visitors almost daily.  The old man would follow them at
a little distance through the building, listening to the voice he
loved so well; and when the strangers left, and parted from Nell,
he would mingle with them to catch up fragments of their
conversation; or he would stand for the same purpose, with his grey
head uncovered, at the gate as they passed through.

They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was
proud to hear them!  But what was that, so often added, which wrung
his heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner!
Alas! even careless strangers--they who had no feeling for her,
but the interest of the moment--they who would go away and forget
next week that such a being lived--even they saw it--even they
pitied her--even they bade him good day compassionately, and
whispered as they passed.

The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew
to have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the
same feeling; a tenderness towards her--a compassionate regard for
her, increasing every day.  The very schoolboys, light-hearted and
thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her.  The roughest
among them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his
way to school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the
latticed window.  If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps
might peep in softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her,
unless she rose and went to speak to them.  Some feeling was abroad
which raised the child above them all.

So, when Sunday came.  They were all poor country people in the
church, for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an
empty ruin, and there were none but humble folks for seven miles
around.  There, as elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell.  They
would gather round her in the porch, before and after service;
young children would cluster at her skirts; and aged men and women
forsake their gossips, to give her kindly greeting.  None of them,
young or old, thought of passing the child without a friendly
word.  Many who came from three or four miles distant, brought her
little presents; the humblest and rudest had good wishes to bestow.

She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in
the churchyard.  One of these--he who had spoken of his brother--
was her little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in
the church, or climbed with her to the tower-top.  It was his
delight to help her, or to fancy that he did so, and they soon
became close companions.

It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself
one day, this child came running in with his eyes full of tears,
and after holding her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a
moment, clasped his little arms passionately about her neck.

'What now?' said Nell, soothing him.  'What is the matter?'

'She is not one yet!' cried the boy, embracing her still more
closely.  'No, no.  Not yet.'

She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his
face, and kissing him, asked what he meant.

'You must not be one, dear Nell,' cried the boy.  'We can't see
them.  They never come to play with us, or talk to us.  Be what you
are.  You are better so.'

'I do not understand you,' said the child.  'Tell me what you
mean.'

'Why, they say , replied the boy, looking up into her face, that
you will be an Angel, before the birds sing again.  But you won't
be, will you?  Don't leave us Nell, though the sky is bright.  Do
not leave us!'

The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face.

'She cannot bear the thought!' cried the boy, exulting through his
tears.  'You will not go.  You know how sorry we should be.  Dear
Nell, tell me that you'll stay amongst us.  Oh!  Pray, pray, tell
me that you will.'

The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet.

'Only look at me, Nell,' said the boy, 'and tell me that you'll
stop, and then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no
more.  Won't you say yes, Nell?'

Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite
silent--save for her sobs.

'After a time,' pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, the
kind angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and
that you stayed here to be with us.  Willy went away, to join them;
but if he had known how I should miss him in our little bed at
night, he never would have left me, I am sure.'

Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her
heart were bursting.
'Why would you go, dear Nell?  I know you would not be happy when
you heard that we were crying for your loss.  They say that Willy
is in Heaven now, and that it's always summer there, and yet I'm
sure he grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot
turn to kiss me.  But if you do go, Nell,' said the boy, caressing
her, and pressing his face to hers, 'be fond of him for my sake.
Tell him how I love him still, and how much I loved you; and when
I think that you two are together, and are happy, I'll try to bear
it, and never give you pain by doing wrong--indeed I never will!'

The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his
neck.  There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she
looked upon him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle,
quiet voice, that she would stay, and be his friend, as long as
Heaven would let her.  He clapped his hands for joy, and thanked
her many times; and being charged to tell no person what had passed
between them, gave her an earnest promise that he never would.

Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet
companion in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to
the theme, which he felt had given her pain, although he was
unconscious of its cause.  Something of distrust lingered about him
still; for he would often come, even in the dark evenings, and call
in a timid voice outside the door to know if she were safe within;
and being answered yes, and bade to enter, would take his station
on a low stool at her feet, and sit there patiently until they came
to seek, and take him home.  Sure as the morning came, it found him
lingering near the house to ask if she were well; and, morning,
noon, or night, go where she would, he would forsake his playmates
and his sports to bear her company.

'And a good little friend he is, too,' said the old sexton to her
once.  'When his elder brother died--elder seems a strange word,
for he was only seven years old--I remember this one took it
sorely to heart.'

The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt
how its truth was shadowed out even in this infant.

'It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,' said the old
man, 'though for that he is merry enough at times.  I'd wager now
that you and he have been listening by the old well.'

'Indeed we have not,' the child replied.  'I have been afraid to go
near it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do
not know the ground.'

'Come down with me,' said the old man.  'I have known it from a
boy.  Come!'

They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and
paused among the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot.

'This is the place,' said the old man.  'Give me your hand while
you throw back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in.  I
am too old--I mean rheumatic--to stoop, myself.'

'A black and dreadful place!' exclaimed the child.

'Look in,' said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.

The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.

'It looks like a grave itself,' said the old man.

'It does,' replied the child.

'I have often had the fancy,' said the sexton, 'that it might have
been dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old
monks more religious.  It's to be closed up, and built over.'

The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.

'We shall see,' said the sexton, 'on what gay heads other earth
will have closed, when the light is shut out from here.  God knows!
They'll close it up, next spring.'

'The birds sing again in spring,' thought the child, as she leaned
at her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun.  'Spring!
a beautiful and happy time!'




CHAPTER 56


A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr
Swiveller walked into Sampson Brass's office at the usual hour, and
being alone in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the
desk, and taking from his pocket a small parcel of black crape,
applied himself to folding and pinning the same upon it, after the
manner of a hatband.  Having completed the construction of this
appendage, he surveyed his work with great complacency, and put his
hat on again--very much over one eye, to increase the mournfulness
of the effect.  These arrangements perfected to his entire
satisfaction, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up
and down the office with measured steps.

'It has always been the same with me,' said Mr Swiveller, 'always.
'Twas ever thus--from childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes
decay, I never loved a tree or flower but 'twas the first to fade
away; I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black
eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to
marry a market-gardener.'

Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the
clients' chair, and flung himself into its open arms.

'And this,' said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure,
'is life, I believe.  Oh, certainly.  Why not!  I'm quite
satisfied.  I shall wear,' added Richard, taking off his hat again
and looking hard at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary
considerations from spurning it with his foot, 'I shall wear this
emblem of woman's perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall
never again thread the windings of the mazy; whom I shall never
more pledge in the rosy; who, during the short remainder of my
existence, will murder the balmy.  Ha, ha, ha!'

It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any
incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did
not wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been
undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that,
being in a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance
which is designated in melodramas 'laughing like a fiend,'--for it
seems that your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in
three syllables, never more nor less, which is a remarkable
property in such gentry, and one worthy of remembrance.

The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still
sitting in a very grim state in the clients' chair, when there came
a ring--or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell
--at the office bell.  Opening the door with all speed, he beheld
the expressive countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and
himself a fraternal greeting ensued.

'You're devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,'
said that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the
other in an easy manner.

'Rather,' returned Dick.

'Rather!' retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling
which so well became him.  'I should think so.  Why, my good
feller, do you know what o'clock it is--half-past nine a.m.  in
the morning?'

'Won't you come in?' said Dick.  'All alone.  Swiveller solus.
"'Tis now the witching--'

'"Hour of night!"'

'"When churchyards yawn,"'

'"And graves give up their dead."'

At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an
attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the
office.  Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious
Apollos, and were indeed the links that bound them together, and
raised them above the cold dull earth.

'Well, and how are you my buck?' said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool.
'I was forced to come into the City upon some little private
matters of my own, and couldn't pass the corner of the street
without looking in, but upon my soul I didn't expect to find you.
It is so everlastingly early.'

Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on
further conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr
Chuckster was in the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in
compliance with a solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which
they belonged, joined in a fragment of the popular duet of 'All's
Well,' with a long shake' at the end.

'And what's the news?' said Richard.

'The town's as flat, my dear feller,' replied Mr Chuckster, 'as the
surface of a Dutch oven.  There's no news.  By-the-bye, that lodger
of yours is a most extraordinary person.  He quite eludes the most
vigorous comprehension, you know.  Never was such a feller!'

'What has he been doing now?' said Dick.

'By Jove, Sir,' returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong
snuff-box, the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox's head
curiously carved in brass, 'that man is an unfathomable.  Sir, that
man has made friends with our articled clerk.  There's no harm in
him, but he is so amazingly slow and soft.  Now, if he wanted a
friend, why couldn't he have one that knew a thing or two, and
could do him some good by his manners and conversation.  I have my
faults, sir,' said Mr Chuckster--

'No, no,' interposed Mr Swiveller.

'Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better
than I know mine.  But,' said Mr Chuckster, 'I'm not meek.  My
worst enemies--every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine--
never accused me of being meek.  And I tell you what, Sir, if I
hadn't more of these qualities that commonly endear man to man,
than our articled clerk has, I'd steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it
round my neck, and drown myself.  I'd die degraded, as I had lived.
I would upon my honour.'

Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox's head exactly on the nose with
the knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked
steadily at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he
was going to sneeze, he would find himself mistaken.

'Not contented, Sir,' said Mr Chuckster, 'with making friends with
Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother.
Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there--
actually been there.  He patronises young Snobby besides; you'll
find, Sir, that he'll be constantly coming backwards and forwards
to this place: yet I don't suppose that beyond the common forms of
civility, he has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me.  Now,
upon my soul, you know,' said Mr Chuckster, shaking his head
gravely, as men are wont to do when they consider things are going
a little too far, 'this is altogether such a low-minded affair,
that if I didn't feel for the governor, and know that he could
never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the connection.
I should have no alternative.'

Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend,
stirred the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing.

'As to young Snob, sir,' pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic
look, 'you'll find he'll turn out bad.  In our profession we know
something of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller
that came back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of
these days in his true colours.  He's a low thief, sir.  He must
be.'

Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject
further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door,
which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business,
caused him to assume a greater appearance of meekness than was
perhaps quite consistent with his late declaration.  Mr Swiveller,
hearing the same sound, caused his stool to revolve rapidly on one
leg until it brought him to his desk, into which, having forgotten
in the sudden flurry of his spirits to part with the poker, he
thrust it as he cried 'Come in!'

Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme
of Mr Chuckster's wrath!  Never did man pluck up his courage so
quickly, or look so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was
he.  Mr Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from
his stool, and drawing out the poker from its place of concealment,
performed the broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards
complete, in a species of frenzy.

'Is the gentleman at home?' said Kit, rather astonished by this
uncommon reception.

Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took
occasion to enter his indignant protest against this form of
inquiry; which he held to be of a disrespectful and snobbish
tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and
there present, should have spoken of the other gentleman; or rather
(for it was not impossible that the object of his search might be
of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name, leaving it to
his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper.  Mr
Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe
this form of address was personal to himself, and that he was not
a man to be trifled with--as certain snobs (whom he did not more
particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost.

'I mean the gentleman up-stairs,' said Kit, turning to Richard
Swiveller.  'Is he at home?'

'Why?' rejoined Dick.

'Because if he is, I have a letter for him.'

'From whom?' said Dick.

'From Mr Garland.'

'Oh!' said Dick, with extreme politeness.  'Then you may hand it
over, Sir.  And if you're to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait
in the passage, Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated
apartment, sir.'

'Thank you,' returned Kit.  'But I am to give it to himself, if you
please.'

The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster,
and so moved his tender regard for his friend's honour, that he
declared, if he were not restrained by official considerations, he
must certainly have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of
the affront which he did consider, under the extraordinary
circumstances of aggravation attending it, could but have met with
the proper sanction and approval of a jury of Englishmen, who, he
had no doubt, would have returned a verdict of justifiable
Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the morals and character
of the Avenger.  Mr Swiveller, without being quite so hot upon the
matter, was rather shamed by his friend's excitement, and not a
little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and good-humoured),
when the single gentleman was heard to call violently down the
stairs.

'Didn't I see somebody for me, come in?' cried the lodger.

'Yes, Sir,' replied Dick.  'Certainly, Sir.'

'Then where is he?' roared the single gentleman.

'He's here, sir,' rejoined Mr Swiveller.  'Now young man, don't you
hear you're to go up-stairs?  Are you deaf?'

Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any
altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing
at each other in silence.

'Didn't I tell you so?' said Mr Chuckster.  'What do you think of
that?'

Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not
perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude,
scarcely knew what answer to return.  He was relieved from his
perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister,
Sally, at sight of whom Mr Chuckster precipitately retired.

Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a
consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of
great interest and importance.  On the occasion of such
conferences, they generally appeared in the office some half an
hour after their usual time, and in a very smiling state, as though
their late plots and designs had tranquillised their minds and shed
a light upon their toilsome way.  In the present instance, they
seemed particularly gay; Miss Sally's aspect being of a most oily
kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his hands in an exceedingly jocose and
light-hearted manner.  'Well, Mr Richard,' said Brass.  'How are we
this morning?  Are we pretty fresh and cheerful sir--eh, Mr
Richard?'

'Pretty well, sir,' replied Dick.

'That's well,' said Brass.  'Ha ha!  We should be as gay as larks,
Mr Richard--why not?  It's a pleasant world we live in sir, a very
pleasant world.  There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if
there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.  Ha ha!
Any letters by the post this morning, Mr Richard?'

Mr Swiveller answered in the negative.

'Ha!' said Brass, 'no matter.  If there's little business to-day,
there'll be more to-morrow.  A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the
sweetness of existence.  Anybody been here, sir?'

'Only my friend'--replied Dick.  '"May we ne'er want a--'

'Friend,' Brass chimed in quickly, 'or a bottle to give him.'  Ha
ha!  That's the way the song runs, isn't it?  A very good song, Mr
Richard, very good.  I like the sentiment of it.  Ha ha!  Your
friend's the young man from Witherden's office I think--yes--May
we ne'er want a-- Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?'

'Only somebody to the lodger,' replied Mr Swiveller.

'Oh indeed!' cried Brass.  'Somebody to the lodger eh?  Ha ha!  May
we ne'er want a friend, or a-- Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr
Richard?'

'Yes,' said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy
of spirits which his employer displayed.  'With him now.'

'With him now!' cried Brass; 'Ha ha!  There let 'em be, merry and
free, toor rul rol le.  Eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!'

'Oh certainly,' replied Dick.

'And who,' said Brass, shuffling among his papers, 'who is the
lodger's visitor--not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard?  The
morals of the Marks you know, sir--"when lovely women stoops to
folly"--and all that--eh, Mr Richard?'

'Another young man, who belongs to Witherden's too, or half belongs
there,' returned Richard.  'Kit, they call him.'

'Kit, eh!' said Brass.  'Strange name--name of a dancing- master's
fiddle, eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!  Kit's there, is he?  Oh!'

Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn't check this
uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no
attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit
acquiescence in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating
somebody, and receiving the bill.

'Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,' said Brass, taking a
letter from his desk, 'just to step over to Peckham Rye with that?
There's no answer, but it's rather particular and should go by
hand.  Charge the office with your coach-hire back, you know; don't
spare the office; get as much out of it as you can--clerk's motto--
Eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!'

Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat,
took down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed.
As soon as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling
sweetly at her brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return)
withdrew also.

Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-
door wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly
opposite, so that he could not fail to see anybody who came
down-stairs and passed out at the street door, began to write with
extreme cheerfulness and assiduity; humming as he did so, in a
voice that was anything but musical, certain vocal snatches which
appeared to have reference to the union between Church and State,
inasmuch as they were compounded of the Evening Hymn and God save
the King.

Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for
a long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning
face, and hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing
slower than ever.  At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his
lodger's door opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the
stairs.  Then, Mr Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his
pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest; shaking his head
meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the
music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.

It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the
sweet sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass
stopped his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at
the same time beckoning to him with his pen.

'Kit,' said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, 'how do
you do?'

Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had
his hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him
softly back.

'You are not to go, if you please, Kit,' said the attorney in a
mysterious and yet business-like way.  'You are to step in here, if
you please.  Dear me, dear me!  When I look at you,' said the
lawyer, quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his
back towards it, 'I am reminded of the sweetest little face that
ever my eyes beheld.  I remember your coming there, twice or
thrice, when we were in possession.  Ah Kit, my dear fellow,
gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to perform
sometimes, that you needn't envy us--you needn't indeed!'

'I don't, sir,' said Kit, 'though it isn't for the like of me to
judge.'

'Our only consolation, Kit,' pursued the lawyer, looking at him in
a sort of pensive abstraction, 'is, that although we cannot turn
away the wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so,
to the shorn lambs.'

'Shorn indeed!' thought Kit.  'Pretty close!' But he didn't say SO.

'On that occasion, Kit,' said Mr Brass, 'on that occasion that I
have just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr
Quilp is a very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had.
It might have cost me a client.  But suffering virtue inspired me,
and I prevailed.'

'He's not so bad after all,' thought honest Kit, as the attorney
pursed up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with
his better feelings.

'I respect you, Kit,' said Brass with emotion.  'I saw enough of
your conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is
humble, and your fortune lowly.  It isn't the waistcoat that I look
at.  It is the heart.  The checks in the waistcoat are but the
wires of the cage.  But the heart is the bird.  Ah!  How many sich
birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the
wires to peck at all mankind!'

This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to
his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass's voice and
manner added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all
the mild austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the
waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be
completely set up in that line of business.

'Well, well,' said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they
compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-
creatures, 'this is wide of the bull's-eye.  You're to take that,
if you please.'  As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns
on the desk.

Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.

'For yourself,' said Brass.
'From--'

'No matter about the person they came from,' replied the lawyer.
'Say me, if you like.  We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and
we mustn't ask questions or talk too much--you understand?  You're
to take them, that's all; and between you and me, I don't think
they'll be the last you'll have to take from the same place.  I
hope not.  Good bye, Kit.  Good bye!'

With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such
slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation
turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took
the money and made the best of his way home.  Mr Brass remained
airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his
seraphic smile, simultaneously.

'May I come in?' said Miss Sally, peeping.

'Oh yes, you may come in,' returned her brother.

'Ahem!' coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.

'Why, yes,' returned Sampson, 'I should say as good as done.'




CHAPTER 57


Mr Chuckster's indignant apprehensions were not without foundation.
Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr
Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and
flourished exceedingly.  They were soon in habits of constant
intercourse and communication; and the single gentleman labouring
at this time under a slight attack of illness--the consequence
most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent
disappointment--furnished a reason for their holding yet more
frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel
Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place
and Bevis Marks, almost every day.

As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any
mincing of the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused
to be driven by anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether
old Mr Garland came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party.  Of all
messages and inquiries, Kit was, in right of his position, the
bearer; thus it came about that, while the single gentleman
remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every morning with
nearly as much regularity as the General Postman.

Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply
about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the
clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street.  Whenever
the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen
and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee.

'Ha ha!' he would cry.  'Here's the pony again!  Most remarkable
pony, extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?'

Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass
standing on the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of
the street over the top of the window-blind, would take an
observation of the visitors.

'The old gentleman again!' he would exclaim, 'a very prepossessing
old gentleman, Mr Richard--charming countenance sir--extremely
calm--benevolence in every feature, sir.  He quite realises my
idea of King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his
kingdom, Mr Richard--the same good humour, the same white hair and
partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon.  Ah!  A
sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet!'

Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would
nod and smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into
the street to greet him, when some such conversation as the
following would ensue.

'Admirably groomed, Kit'--Mr Brass is patting the pony--'does you
great credit--amazingly sleek and bright to be sure.  He literally
looks as if he had been varnished all over.'

Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses
his conviction, 'that Mr Brass will not find many like him.'

'A beautiful animal indeed!' cries Brass.  'Sagacious too?'

'Bless you!' replies Kit, 'he knows what you say to him as well as
a Christian does.'

'Does he indeed!' cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the
same place from the same person in the same words a dozen times,
but is paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding.  'Dear me!'

'I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,' says Kit, pleased
with the attorney's strong interest in his favourite, 'that I
should come to be as intimate with him as I am now.'

'Ah!' rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of
virtue.  'A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming.
A subject of proper pride and congratulation, Christopher.  Honesty
is the best policy. --I always find it so myself.  I lost
forty-seven pound ten by being honest this morning.  But it's all
gain, it's gain!'

Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with
the water standing in his eyes.  Kit thinks that if ever there was
a good man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.

'A man,' says Sampson, 'who loses forty-seven pound ten in one
morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied.  If it had been
eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been
increased.  Every pound lost, would have been a hundredweight of
happiness gained.  The still small voice, Christopher,' cries
Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, 'is a-singing
comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy!'

Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so
completely home to his feelings, that he is considering what he
shall say, when Mr Garland appears.  The old gentleman is helped
into the chaise with great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and
the pony, after shaking his head several times, and standing for
three or four minutes with all his four legs planted firmly on the
ground, as if he had made up his mind never to stir from that spot,
but there to live and die, suddenly darts off, without the smallest
notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour.  Then, Mr
Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an
odd kind of smile--not at all a pleasant one in its expression--
and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during
their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of
pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and
heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a
penknife.

Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened
that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr
Swiveller, if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some
pretty distant place from Which he could not be expected to return
for two or three hours, or in all probability a much longer period,
as that gentleman was not, to say the truth, renowned for using
great expedition on such occasions, but rather for protracting and
spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of possibility.  Mr
Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew.  Mr Brass
would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with
great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before.  Kit
coming down-stairs would be called in; entertained with some moral
and agreeable conversation; perhaps entreated to mind the office
for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards
presented with one or two half-crowns as the case might be.  This
occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but that they came
from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his mother with
great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity; and
bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and
for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them
was having some new trifle every day of their lives.

While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the
office of Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone
therein, began to find the time hang heavy on his hands.  For the
better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent
his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a
cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed himself to play at
cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty
thousand pounds aside, besides many hazardous bets to a
considerable amount.

As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the
magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think
that on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they
often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing
sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after
some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always
had a cold from damp living.  Looking intently that way one night,
he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the
keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct,
he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was
aware of his approach.

'Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn't,' cried
the small servant, struggling like a much larger one.  'It's so
very dull, down-stairs, Please don't you tell upon me, please
don't.'

'Tell upon you!' said Dick.  'Do you mean to say you were looking
through the keyhole for company?'

'Yes, upon my word I was,' replied the small servant.

'How long have you been cooling your eye there?' said Dick.

'Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long
before.'

Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he
had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of
which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted
Mr Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and
recovered himself speedily.

'Well--come in'--he said, after a little consideration.  'Here--
sit down, and I'll teach you how to play.'

'Oh! I durstn't do it,' rejoined the small servant; 'Miss Sally 'ud
kill me, if she know'd I come up here.'

'Have you got a fire down-stairs?' said Dick.

'A very little one,' replied the small servant.

'Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went down there, so
I'll come,' said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket.  'Why,
how thin you are!  What do you mean by it?'

'It ain't my fault.'

'Could you eat any bread and meat?' said Dick, taking down his hat.
'Yes?  Ah! I thought so.  Did you ever taste beer?'
'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant.

'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to
the ceiling.  'She never tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip!
Why, how old are you?'

'I don't know.'

Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for
a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back,
vanished straightway.

Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public- house,
who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a
great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent
forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a
particular recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord,
at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to
conciliate his friendship.  Relieving the boy of his burden at the
door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent
surprise, Mr Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.

'There!' said Richard, putting the plate before her.  'First of all
clear that off, and then you'll see what's next.'

The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon
empty.

'Next,' said Dick, handing the purl, 'take a pull at that; but
moderate your transports, you know, for you're not used to it.
Well, is it good?'

'Oh! isn't it?' said the small servant.

Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this
reply, and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his
companion while he did so.  These preliminaries disposed of, he
applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt
tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning.

'Now,' said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and
trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and
dealt, 'those are the stakes.  If you win, you get 'em all.  If I
win, I get 'em.  To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall
call you the Marchioness, do you hear?'

The small servant nodded.

'Then, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'fire away!'

The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands,
considered which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and
fashionable air which such society required, took another pull at
the tankard, and waited for her lead.




CHAPTER 58


Mr Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying
success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of
the purl, and the striking of ten o'clock, combined to render that
gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of
withdrawing before Mr Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned.

'With which object in view, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller
gravely, 'I shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board
in my pocket, and to retire from the presence when I have finished
this tankard; merely observing, Marchioness, that since life like
a river is flowing, I care not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, on,
while such purl on the bank still is growing, and such eyes light
the waves as they run.  Marchioness, your health.  You will excuse
my wearing my hat, but the palace is damp, and the marble floor is
--if I may be allowed the expression--sloppy.'

As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had
been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which
attitude he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations,
and slowly sipped the last choice drops of nectar.

'The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at
the Play?' said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the
table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of
a theatrical bandit.

The Marchioness nodded.

'Ha!' said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown.  ''Tis well.
Marchioness!--but no matter.  Some wine there.  Ho!' He
illustrated these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to
himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from
it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely.

The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical
conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play,
or heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors
and in other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by
demonstrations so novel in their nature, and showed her concern so
plainly in her looks, that Mr Swiveller felt it necessary to
discharge his brigand manner for one more suitable to private life,
as he asked,

'Do they often go where glory waits 'em, and leave you here?'

'Oh, yes; I believe you they do,' returned the small servant.
'Miss Sally's such a one-er for that, she is.'

'Such a what?' said Dick.

'Such a one-er,' returned the Marchioness.

After a moment's reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his
responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk
on; as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and
her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to
render a momentary check of little consequence.

'They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,' said the small servant with a
shrewd look; 'they go to a many places, bless you!'

'Is Mr Brass a wunner?' said Dick.

'Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn't,' replied the small servant,
shaking her head.  'Bless you, he'd never do anything without her.'

'Oh!  He wouldn't, wouldn't he?' said Dick.

'Miss Sally keeps him in such order,' said the small servant;
'he always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it
sometimes.  Bless you, you wouldn't believe how much he catches
it.'

'I suppose,' said Dick, 'that they consult together, a good deal,
and talk about a great many people--about me for instance,
sometimes, eh, Marchioness?'

The Marchioness nodded amazingly.

'Complimentary?' said Mr Swiveller.

The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet
left off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side,
with a vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck.

'Humph!' Dick muttered.  'Would it be any breach of confidence,
Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who
has now the honour to--?'

'Miss Sally says you're a funny chap,' replied his friend.

'Well, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that's not
uncomplimentary.  Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a
degrading quality.  Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if
we may put any faith in the pages of history.'

'But she says,' pursued his companion, 'that you an't to be
trusted.'

'Why, really Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully;
'several ladies and gentlemen--not exactly professional persons,
but tradespeople, ma'am, tradespeople--have made the same remark.
The obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined
strongly to that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the
banquet.  It's a popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure
I don't know why, for I have been trusted in my time to a
considerable amount, and I can safely say that I never forsook my
trust until it deserted me--never.  Mr Brass is of the same
opinion, I suppose?'

His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint
that Mr Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his
sister; and seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, 'But
don't you ever tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.'

'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, rising, 'the word of a gentleman
is as good as his bond--sometimes better, as in the present case,
where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security.  I am
your friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in
this same saloon.  But, Marchioness,' added Richard, stopping in
his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small
servant, who was following with the candle; 'it occurs to me that
you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes,
to know all this.'

'I only wanted,' replied the trembling Marchioness, 'to know where
the key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn't have
taken much, if I had found it--only enough to squench my hunger.'

'You didn't find it then?' said Dick.  'But of course you didn't,
or you'd be plumper.  Good night, Marchioness.  Fare thee well, and
if for ever, then for ever fare thee well--and put up the chain,
Marchioness, in case of accidents.'

With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house;
and feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink
as promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather
strong and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to
his lodgings, and to bed at once.  Homeward he went therefore; and
his apartments (for he still retained the plural fiction) being at
no great distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own
bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the
other, he fell into deep cogitation.

'This Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, 'is a very
extraordinary person--surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the
taste of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less
remarkable), and taking a limited view of society through the
keyholes of doors--can these things be her destiny, or has some
unknown person started an opposition to the decrees of fate?  It is
a most inscrutable and unmitigated staggerer!'

When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he
became aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired
solemnity he proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with
exceeding gravity all the time, and sighing deeply.

'These rubbers,' said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in
exactly the same style as he wore his hat, 'remind me of the
matrimonial fireside.  Cheggs's wife plays cribbage; all-fours
likewise.  She rings the changes on 'em now.  From sport to sport
they hurry her to banish her regrets, and when they win a smile
from her, they think that she forgets--but she don't.  By this
time, I should say,' added Richard, getting his left cheek into
profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very
little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; 'by this time, I
should say, the iron has entered into her soul.  It serves her
right!'

Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic
mood, Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and
even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought
better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead.  At
last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.

Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but
as Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on
receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to
playing the flute; thinking after mature consideration that it was
a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own
sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow- feeling in the
bosoms of his neighbours.  In pursuance of this resolution, he now
drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a
small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from
its box, and began to play most mournfully.

The air was 'Away with melancholy'--a composition, which, when it
is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further
disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly
acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many
times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect.  Yet,
for half the night, or more, Mr Swiveller, lying sometimes on his
back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed
to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and
over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time
to take breath and soliloquise about the Marchioness, and then
beginning again with renewed vigour.  It was not until he had quite
exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into
the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs,
and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the
next doors, and over the way--that he shut up the music-book,
extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and
relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an
hour's exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to
quit from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for
that purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where
the beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks
a radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon.

Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his
coat for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting
on, for in consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only
to be got into by a series of struggles.  This difficulty overcome,
he took his seat at the desk.

'I say'--quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, 'you haven't
seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?'

'I didn't meet many in the street,' rejoined Mr Swiveller.  'I saw
one--a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance--but as he was
in company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with
whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking
to him.'

'No, but have you?' returned Miss Brass.  'Seriously, you know.'

'What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,'
said Mr Swiveller.  'Haven't I this moment come?'

'Well, all I know is,' replied Miss Sally, 'that it's not to be
found, and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on
the desk.'

'Halloa!' thought Richard, 'I hope the Marchioness hasn't been at
work here.'

'There was a knife too,' said Miss Sally, 'of the same pattern.
They were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone.
You haven't missed anything yourself, have you?'

Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be
quite sure that it WAS a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having
satisfied himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis
Marks, made answer in the negative.

'It's a very unpleasant thing, Dick,' said Miss Brass, pulling out
the tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; 'but
between you and me--between friends you know, for if Sammy knew
it, I should never hear the last of it--some of the office- money,
too, that has been left about, has gone in the same way.  In
particular, I have missed three half-crowns at three different
times.'

'You don't mean that?' cried Dick.  'Be careful what you say, old
boy, for this is a serious matter.  Are you quite sure?  Is there
no mistake?'

'It is so, and there can't be any mistake at all,' rejoined Miss
Brass emphatically.

'Then by Jove,' thought Richard, laying down his pen, 'I am afraid
the Marchioness is done for!'

The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more
probable it appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was
the culprit.  When he considered on what a spare allowance of food
she lived, how neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural
cunning had been sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely
doubted it.  And yet he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling
to have a matter of such gravity disturbing the oddity of their
acquaintance, that he thought, and thought truly, that rather than
receive fifty pounds down, he would have the Marchioness proved
innocent.

While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon
this theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great
mystery and doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling
a cheerful strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman
himself, beaming with virtuous smiles, appeared.

'Mr Richard, sir, good morning!  Here we are again, sir, entering
upon another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and
breakfast, and our spirits fresh and flowing.  Here we are, Mr
Richard, rising with the sun to run our little course--our course
of duty, sir--and, like him, to get through our day's work with
credit to ourselves and advantage to our fellow- creatures.  A
charming reflection sir, very charming!'

While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat
ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up
against the light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in,
in his hand.

Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm,
his employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore
a troubled expression.

'You're out of spirits, sir,' said Brass.  'Mr Richard, sir, we
should fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state.  It
becomes us, Mr Richard, sir, to--'

Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh.

'Dear me!' said Mr Sampson, 'you too!  Is anything the matter?  Mr
Richard, sir--'

Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to
him, to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent
conversation.  As his own position was not a very pleasant one
until the matter was set at rest one way or other, he did so; and
Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a most wasteful rate,
corroborated his account.

The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his
features.  Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money,
as Miss Sally had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened
it, looked outside, shut it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in
a whisper,

'This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance--Mr
Richard, sir, a most painful circumstance.  The fact is, that I
myself have missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and
have refrained from mentioning it, hoping that accident would
discover the offender; but it has not done so--it has not done so.
Sally--Mr Richard, sir--this is a particularly distressing
affair!'

As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some
papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets.
Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up.

'No, Mr Richard, sir,' rejoined Brass with emotion, 'I will not
take it up.  I will let it lie there, sir.  To take it up, Mr
Richard, sir, would imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have
unlimited confidence.  We will let it lie there, Sir, if you
please, and we will not take it up by any means.'  With that, Mr
Brass patted him twice or thrice on the shoulder, in a most
friendly manner, and entreated him to believe that he had as much
faith in his honesty as he had in his own.

Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this
as a doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then- existing
circumstances, a great relief to be assured that he was not
wrongfully suspected.  When he had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass
wrung him by the hand, and fell into a brown study, as did Miss
Sally likewise.  Richard too remained in a thoughtful state;
fearing every moment to hear the Marchioness impeached, and unable
to resist the conviction that she must be guilty.

When they had severally remained in this condition for some
minutes, Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with
her clenched fist, and cried, 'I've hit it!'--as indeed she had,
and chipped a piece out of it too; but that was not her meaning.

'Well,' cried Brass anxiously.  'Go on, will you!'

'Why,' replied his sister with an air of triumph, 'hasn't there
been somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last
three or four weeks; hasn't that somebody been left alone in it
sometimes--thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that
somebody isn't the thief!'

'What somebody?' blustered Brass.

'Why, what do you call him--Kit.'

'Mr Garland's young man?'

'To be sure.'

'Never!' cried Brass.  'Never.  I'll not hear of it.  Don't tell
me'-- said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his
hands as if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs.  'I'll
never believe it of him.  Never!'

'I say,' repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, 'that
he's the thief.'

'I say,' returned Sampson violently, 'that he is not.  What do you
mean?  How dare you?  Are characters to be whispered away like
this?  Do you know that he's the honestest and faithfullest fellow
that ever lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name?  Come
in, come in!'

These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they
partook of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that
preceded them had been uttered.  They were addressed to some person
who had knocked at the office-door; and they had hardly passed the
lips of Mr Brass, when this very Kit himself looked in.

'Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?'

'Yes, Kit,' said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and
frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; 'Yes Kit, he is.  I am
glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you.  Look in again, as
you come down-stairs, Kit.  That lad a robber!' cried Brass when he
had withdrawn, 'with that frank and open countenance!  I'd trust
him with untold gold.  Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step
directly to Wrasp and Co.'s in Broad Street, and inquire if they
have had instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter.  THAT lad a
robber,' sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath.  'Am
I blind, deaf, silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see
it before me?  Kit a robber!  Bah!'

Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable
scorn and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as
if to shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from
under its half-closed lid.




CHAPTER 59


When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the
single gentleman's apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an
hour or so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office.  He was not
singing as usual, nor was he seated at his desk.  The open door
showed him standing before the fire with his back towards it, and
looking so very strange that Kit supposed he must have been
suddenly taken ill.

'Is anything the matter, sir?' said Kit.

'Matter!' cried Brass.  'No.  Why anything the matter?'

'You are so very pale,' said Kit, 'that I should hardly have known
you.'

'Pooh pooh! mere fancy,' cried Brass, stooping to throw up the
cinders.  'Never better, Kit, never better in all my life.  Merry
too.  Ha ha!  How's our friend above-stairs, eh?'

'A great deal better,' said Kit.

'I'm glad to hear it,' rejoined Brass; 'thankful, I may say.  An
excellent gentleman--worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little
trouble--an admirable lodger.  Ha ha!  Mr Garland--he's well I
hope, Kit--and the pony--my friend, my particular friend you
know.  Ha ha!'

Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel
Cottage.  Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and
impatient, mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer,
took him by the button-hole.

'I have been thinking, Kit,' said the lawyer, 'that I could throw
some little emoluments in your mother's way--You have a mother, I
think?  If I recollect right, you told me--'

'Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.'

'A widow, I think? an industrious widow?'

'A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.'

'Ah!' cried Brass.  'That's affecting, truly affecting.  A poor
widow struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is
a delicious picture of human goodness.--Put down your hat, Kit.'

'Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.'

'Put it down while you stay, at any rate,' said Brass, taking it
from him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a
place for it on the desk.  'I was thinking, Kit, that we have often
houses to let for people we are concerned for, and matters of that
sort.  Now you know we're obliged to put people into those houses
to take care of 'em--very often undeserving people that we can't
depend upon.  What's to prevent our having a person that we CAN
depend upon, and enjoying the delight of doing a good action at the
same time?  I say, what's to prevent our employing this worthy
woman, your mother?  What with one job and another, there's lodging--
and good lodging too--pretty well all the year round, rent free,
and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, that would provide her with a
great many comforts she don't at present enjoy.  Now what do you
think of that?  Do you see any objection?  My only desire is to serve
you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.'

As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled
among the papers again, as if in search of something.

'How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?' replied
Kit with his whole heart.  'I don't know how to thank you sir, I
don't indeed.'

'Why then,' said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his
face close to Kit's with such a repulsive smile that the latter,
even in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite
startled.  'Why then, it's done.'

Kit looked at him in some confusion.

'Done, I say,' added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself
again in his usual oily manner.  'Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit,
so you shall find.  But dear me,' said Brass, 'what a time Mr
Richard is gone!  A sad loiterer to be sure!  Will you mind the
office one minute, while I run up-stairs?  Only one minute.  I'll
not detain you an instant longer, on any account, Kit.'

Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a
very short time returned.  Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the
same instant; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up
for lost time, Miss Brass herself encountered him in the doorway.

'Oh!' sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered.  'There goes
your pet, Sammy, eh?'

'Ah!  There he goes,' replied Brass.  'My pet, if you please.  An
honest fellow, Mr Richard, sir--a worthy fellow indeed!'

'Hem!' coughed Miss Brass.

'I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,' said the angry Sampson,
'that I'd stake my life upon his honesty.  Am I never to hear the
last of this?  Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean
suspicions?  Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant
fellow?  If you come to that, I'd sooner suspect your honesty than
his.'

Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow
pinch, regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.

'She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass, 'she exasperates
me beyond all bearing.  I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am.
These are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she
carries me out of myself.'

'Why don't you leave him alone?' said Dick.

'Because she can't, sir,' retorted Brass; 'because to chafe and vex
me is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I
don't believe she'd have her health.  But never mind,' said Brass,
'never mind.  I've carried my point.  I've shown my confidence in
the lad.  He has minded the office again.  Ha ha!  Ugh, you viper!'

The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in
her pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure.

'He has minded the office again,' said Brass triumphantly; 'he has
had my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he--why,
where's the--'

'What have you lost?' inquired Mr Swiveller.

'Dear me!' said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another,
and looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly
tossing the papers about, 'the note, Mr Richard, sir, the
five-pound note--what can have become of it?  I laid it down here--
God bless me!'

'What!' cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and
scattering the papers on the floor.  'Gone!  Now who's right?  Now
who's got it?  Never mind five pounds--what's five pounds?  He's
honest, you know, quite honest.  It would be mean to suspect him.
Don't run after him.  No, no, not for the world!'

'Is it really gone though?' said Dick, looking at Brass with a face
as pale as his own.

'Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,' replied the lawyer, feeling in all
his pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, 'I fear this is
a black business.  It's certainly gone, Sir.  What's to be done?'

'Don't run after him,' said Miss Sally, taking more snuff.  'Don't
run after him on any account.  Give him time to get rid of it, you
know.  It would be cruel to find him out!'

Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each
other, in a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse,
caught up their hats and rushed out into the street--darting along
in the middle of the road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as
though they were running for their lives.

It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and
having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance
ahead.  As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken,
however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the
very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run
again.

'Stop!' cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr
Swiveller pounced upon the other.  'Not so fast sir.  You're in a
hurry?'

'Yes, I am,' said Kit, looking from one to the other in great
surprise.

'I--I--can hardly believe it,' panted Sampson, 'but something of
value is missing from the office.  I hope you don't know what.'

'Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!' cried Kit, trembling from head
to foot; 'you don't suppose--'

'No, no,' rejoined Brass quickly, 'I don't suppose anything.  Don't
say I said you did.  You'll come back quietly, I hope?'

'Of course I will,' returned Kit.  'Why not?'

'To be sure!' said Brass.  'Why not?  I hope there may turn out to
be no why not.  If you knew the trouble I've been in, this morning,
through taking your part, Christopher, you'd be sorry for it.'

'And I am sure you'll be sorry for having suspected me sir,'
replied Kit.  'Come.  Let us make haste back.'

'Certainly!' cried Brass, 'the quicker, the better.  Mr Richard--
have the goodness, sir, to take that arm.  I'll take this one.
It's not easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances
it must be done, sir; there's no help for it.'

Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when
they secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist.
But, quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made
any struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the
public streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with
the tears standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this--
and suffered them to lead him off.  While they were on the way
back, Mr Swiveller, upon whom his present functions sat very
irksomely, took an opportunity of whispering in his ear that if he
would confess his guilt, even by so much as a nod, and promise not
to do so any more, he would connive at his kicking Sampson Brass on
the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit indignantly rejecting
this proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but to hold him tight
until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into the presence
of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution of
locking the door.

'Now, you know,' said Brass, 'if this is a case of innocence, it is
a case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest
disclosure is the best satisfaction for everybody.  Therefore if
you'll consent to an examination,' he demonstrated what kind of
examination he meant by turning back the cuffs of his coat, 'it
will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties.'

'Search me,' said Kit, proudly holding up his arms.  'But mind, sir--
I know you'll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.'

'It is certainly a very painful occurrence,' said Brass with a
sigh, as he dived into one of Kit's pockets, and fished up a
miscellaneous collection of small articles; 'very painful.  Nothing
here, Mr Richard, Sir, all perfectly satisfactory.  Nor here, sir.
Nor in the waistcoat, Mr Richard, nor in the coat tails.  So far,
I am rejoiced, I am sure.'

Richard Swiveller, holding Kit's hat in his hand, was watching the
proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the
slightest possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of
his eyes, looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor
fellow's sleeves as if it were a telescope--when Sampson turning
hastily to him, bade him search the hat.

'Here's a handkerchief,' said Dick.

'No harm in that sir,' rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the
other sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was
contemplating an immense extent of prospect.  'No harm in a
handkerchief Sir, whatever.  The faculty don't consider it a
healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard, to carry one's handkerchief
in one's hat--I have heard that it keeps the head too warm--but
in every other point of view, its being there, is extremely
satisfactory--extremely so.'

An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit
himself, cut the lawyer short.  He turned his head, and saw Dick
standing with the bank-note in his hand.

'In the hat?' cried Brass in a sort of shriek.

'Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,' said Dick,
aghast at the discovery.

Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the
ceiling, at the floor--everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite
stupefied and motionless.

'And this,' cried Sampson, clasping his hands, 'is the world that
turns upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions
round Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort!  This is
human natur, is it!  Oh natur, natur!  This is the miscreant that
I was going to benefit with all my little arts, and that, even now,
I feel so much for, as to wish to let him go!  But,' added Mr Brass
with greater fortitude, 'I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an
example in carrying the laws of my happy country into effect.
Sally my dear, forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side.
Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to run and fetch a constable.
The weakness is past and over sir, and moral strength returns.  A
constable, sir, if you please!'




CHAPTER 60


Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed
upon the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr
Brass maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp
of Miss Sally upon the other; although this latter detention was in
itself no small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides
screwing her knuckles inconveniently into his throat from time to
time, had fastened upon him in the first instance with so tight a
grip that even in the disorder and distraction of his thoughts he
could not divest himself of an uneasy sense of choking.  Between
the brother and sister he remained in this posture, quite
unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller returned, with a police
constable at his heels.

This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes;
looking upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to
housebreaking or ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular
course of business; and regarding the perpetrators in the light of
so many customers coming to be served at the wholesale and retail
shop of criminal law where he stood behind the counter; received Mr
Brass's statement of facts with about as much interest and
surprise, as an undertaker might evince if required to listen to a
circumstantial account of the last illness of a person whom he was
called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit into custody
with a decent indifference.

'We had better,' said this subordinate minister of justice, 'get to
the office while there's a magistrate sitting.  I shall want you to
come along with us, Mr Brass, and the--' he looked at Miss Sally as
if in some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other
fabulous monster.

'The lady, eh?' said Sampson.

'Ah!' replied the constable.  'Yes--the lady.  Likewise the young
man that found the property.'

'Mr Richard, Sir,' said Brass in a mournful voice.  'A sad
necessity.  But the altar of our country sir--'

'You'll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?' interrupted the
constable, holding Kit (whom his other captors had released)
carelessly by the arm, a little above the elbow.  'Be so good as
send for one, will you?'

'But, hear me speak a word,' cried Kit, raising his eyes and
looking imploringly about him.  'Hear me speak a word.  I am no
more guilty than any one of you.  Upon my soul I am not.  I a
thief!  Oh, Mr Brass, you know me better.  I am sure you know me
better.  This is not right of you, indeed.'

'I give you my word, constable--' said Brass.  But here the
constable interposed with the constitutional principle 'words be
blowed;' observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and
sucklings, and that oaths were the food for strong men.

'Quite true, constable,' assented Brass in the same mournful tone.
'Strictly correct.  I give you my oath, constable, that down to a
few minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such
confidence in that lad, that I'd have trusted him with--a
hackney-coach, Mr Richard, sir; you're very slow, Sir.'

'Who is there that knows me,' cried Kit, 'that would not trust me--
that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me;
whether I have ever wronged them of a farthing.  Was I ever once
dishonest when I was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would
begin now!  Oh consider what you do.  How can I meet the kindest
friends that ever human creature had, with this dreadful charge
upon me!'

Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if
he had thought of that, before, and was about to make some other
gloomy observations when the voice of the single gentleman was
heard, demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what
was the cause of all that noise and hurry.  Kit made an involuntary
start towards the door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but
being speedily detained by the constable, had the agony of seeing
Sampson Brass run out alone to tell the story in his own way.

'And he can hardly believe it, either,' said Sampson, when he
returned, 'nor nobody will.  I wish I could doubt the evidence of
my senses, but their depositions are unimpeachable.  It's of no use
cross-examining my eyes,' cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them,
'they stick to their first account, and will.  Now, Sarah, I hear
the coach in the Marks; get on your bonnet, and we'll be off.  A
sad errand! a moral funeral, quite!'

'Mr Brass,' said Kit.  'do me one favour.  Take me to Mr
Witherden's first.'

Sampson shook his head irresolutely.

'Do,' said Kit.  'My master's there.  For Heaven's sake, take me
there, first.'

'Well, I don't know,' stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons
for wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary.
'How do we stand in point of time, constable, eh?'

The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with
great philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would
have time enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there,
any longer, they must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally
expressed his opinion that that was where it was, and that was all
about it.

Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still
remaining immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to
the horses, Mr Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner,
and declared himself quite ready.  Therefore, the constable, still
holding Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before
him, so as to keep him at about three-quarters of an arm's length
in advance (which is the professional mode), thrust him into the
vehicle and followed himself.  Miss Sally entered next; and there
being now four inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the
coachman drive on.

Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which
had taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach
window, almost hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the
streets which might give him reason to believe he was in a dream.
Alas!  Everything was too real and familiar: the same succession of
turnings, the same houses, the same streams of people running side
by side in different directions upon the pavement, the same bustle
of carts and carriages in the road, the same well-remembered
objects in the shop windows: a regularity in the very noise and
hurry which no dream ever mirrored.  Dream-like as the story was,
it was true.  He stood charged with robbery; the note had been
found upon him, though he was innocent in thought and deed; and
they were carrying him back, a prisoner.

Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping
heart of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the
consciousness of innocence would be insufficient to support him in
the presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and
sinking in hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to
the notary's, poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window,
observant of nothing,--when all at once, as though it had been
conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face of Quilp.

And what a leer there was upon the face!  It was from the open
window of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread
himself over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head
resting on both his hands, that what between this attitude and his
being swoln with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated
into twice his usual breadth.  Mr Brass, on recognising him,
immediately stopped the coach.  As it came to a halt directly
opposite to where he stood, the dwarf pulled off his hat, and
saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness.
'Aha!' he cried.  'Where now, Brass? where now?  Sally with you
too?  Sweet Sally!  And Dick?  Pleasant Dick!  And Kit!  Honest
Kit!'

'He's extremely cheerful!' said Brass to the coachman.  'Very much
so!  Ah, sir--a sad business!  Never believe in honesty any more,
sir.'

'Why not?' returned the dwarf.  'Why not, you rogue of a lawyer,
why not?'

'Bank-note lost in our office sir,' said Brass, shaking his head.
'Found in his hat sir--he previously left alone there--no mistake
at all sir--chain of evidence complete--not a link wanting.'

'What!' cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window.  'Kit
a thief!  Kit a thief!  Ha ha ha!  Why, he's an uglier-looking
thief than can be seen anywhere for a penny.  Eh, Kit--eh?  Ha ha
ha!  Have you taken Kit into custody before he had time and
opportunity to beat me!  Eh, Kit, eh?'  And with that, he burst
into a yell of laughter, manifestly to the great terror of the
coachman, and pointed to a dyer's pole hard by, where a dangling
suit of clothes bore some resemblance to a man upon a gibbet.

'Is it coming to that, Kit!' cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands
violently.  'Ha ha ha ha!  What a disappointment for little Jacob,
and for his darling mother!  Let him have the Bethel minister to
comfort and console him, Brass.  Eh, Kit, eh?  Drive on coachey,
drive on.  Bye bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your
spirits; my love to the Garlands--the dear old lady and gentleman.
Say I inquired after 'em, will you?  Blessings on 'em, on you, and
on everybody, Kit.  Blessings on all the world!'

With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent
until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and
when he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled
upon the ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment.

When they reached the notary's, which they were not long in doing,
for they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little
distance from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach
door with a melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany
him into the office, with the view of preparing the good people
within, for the mournful intelligence that awaited them.  Miss
Sally complying, he desired Mr Swiveller to accompany them.  So,
into the office they went; Mr Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm;
and Mr Swiveller following, alone.

The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office,
talking to Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat
writing at the desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation
as happened to fall in his way.  This posture of affairs Mr Brass
observed through the glass-door as he was turning the handle, and
seeing that the notary recognised him, he began to shake his head
and sigh deeply while that partition yet divided them.

'Sir,' said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two fore-
fingers of his right hand beaver glove, 'my name is Brass--Brass
of Bevis Marks, Sir.  I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of
being concerned against you in some little testamentary matters.
How do you do, sir?'

'My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr
Brass,' said the notary, turning away.

'Thank you Sir,' said Brass, 'thank you, I am sure.  Allow me, Sir,
to introduce my sister--quite one of us Sir, although of the
weaker sex--of great use in my business Sir, I assure you.  Mr
Richard, sir, have the goodness to come foward if you please--No
really,' said Brass, stepping between the notary and his private
office (towards which he had begun to retreat), and speaking in the
tone of an injured man, 'really Sir, I must, under favour, request
a word or two with you, indeed.'

'Mr Brass,' said the other, in a decided tone, 'I am engaged.  You
see that I am occupied with these gentlemen.  If you will
communicate your business to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive
every attention.'

'Gentlemen,' said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat,
and looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile--
'Gentlemen, I appeal to you--really, gentlemen--consider, I beg
of you.  I am of the law.  I am styled "gentleman" by Act of
Parliament.  I maintain the title by the annual payment of twelve
pound sterling for a certificate.  I am not one of your players of
music, stage actors, writers of books, or painters of pictures, who
assume a station that the laws of their country don't recognise.
I am none of your strollers or vagabonds.  If any man brings his
action against me, he must describe me as a gentleman, or his
action is null and void.  I appeal to you--is this quite
respectful?  Really gentlemen--'

'Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr
Brass?' said the notary.

'Sir,' rejoined Brass, 'I will.  Ah Mr Witherden! you little know
the--but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I
believe the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.'

'Of both,' said the notary.

'In-deed!' rejoined Brass, cringing excessively.  'But I might have
known that, from the uncommon likeness.  Extremely happy, I am
sure, to have the honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen,
although the occasion is a most painful one.  One of you gentlemen
has a servant called Kit?'

'Both,' replied the notary.
'Two Kits?' said Brass smiling.  'Dear me!'

'One Kit, sir,' returned Mr Witherden angrily, 'who is employed by
both gentlemen.  What of him?'

'This of him, sir,' rejoined Brass, dropping his voice
impressively.  'That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and
unlimited confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my
equal--that young man has this morning committed a robbery in my
office, and been taken almost in the fact.'

'This must be some falsehood!' cried the notary.

'It is not possible,' said Mr Abel.

'I'll not believe one word of it,' exclaimed the old gentleman.

Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined,

'Mr Witherden, sir, YOUR words are actionable, and if I was a man
of low and mean standing, who couldn't afford to be slandered, I
should proceed for damages.  Hows'ever, sir, being what I am, I
merely scorn such expressions.  The honest warmth of the other
gentleman I respect, and I'm truly sorry to be the messenger of
such unpleasant news.  I shouldn't have put myself in this painful
position, I assure you, but that the lad himself desired to be
brought here in the first instance, and I yielded to his prayers.
Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the goodness to tap at the window
for the constable that's waiting in the coach?'

The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when
these words were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was
desired, and leaping off his stool with something of the excitement
of an inspired prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of
time been realised, held the door open for the entrance of the
wretched captive.

Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the
rude eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called
Heaven to witness that he was innocent, and that how the property
came to be found upon him he knew not!  Such a confusion of
tongues, before the circumstances were related, and the proofs
disclosed!  Such a dead silence when all was told, and his three
friends exchanged looks of doubt and amazement!

'Is it not possible,' said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, 'that
this note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,--
such as the removal of papers on the desk, for instance?'

But this was clearly shown to be quite impossible.  Mr Swiveller,
though an unwilling witness, could not help proving to
demonstration, from the position in which it was found, that it
must have been designedly secreted.

'It's very distressing,' said Brass, 'immensely distressing, I am
sure.  When he comes to be tried, I shall be very happy to
recommend him to mercy on account of his previous good character.
I did lose money before, certainly, but it doesn't quite follow
that he took it.  The presumption's against him--strongly against
him--but we're Christians, I hope?'

'I suppose,' said the constable, looking round, 'that no gentleman
here can give evidence as to whether he's been flush of money of
late, Do you happen to know, Sir?'

'He has had money from time to time, certainly,' returned Mr
Garland, to whom the man had put the question.  'But that, as he
always told me, was given him by Mr Brass himself.'

'Yes to be sure,' said Kit eagerly.  'You can bear me out in that,
Sir?'

'Eh?' cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of
stupid amazement.

'The money you know, the half-crowns, that you gave me--from the
lodger,' said Kit.

'Oh dear me!' cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning heavily.
'This is a bad case, I find; a very bad case indeed.'

'What!  Did you give him no money on account of anybody, Sir?'
asked Mr Garland, with great anxiety.

'I give him money, Sir!' returned Sampson.  'Oh, come you know,
this is too barefaced.  Constable, my good fellow, we had better be
going.'

'What!' shrieked Kit.  'Does he deny that he did? ask him,
somebody, pray.  Ask him to tell you whether he did or not!'

'Did you, sir?' asked the notary.

'I tell you what, gentlemen,' replied Brass, in a very grave
manner, 'he'll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel
any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some
other tack.  Did I, sir?  Of course I never did.'

'Gentlemen,' cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, 'Master, Mr
Abel, Mr Witherden, every one of you--he did it!  What I have done
to offend him, I don't know, but this is a plot to ruin me.  Mind,
gentlemen, it's a plot, and whatever comes of it, I will say with
my dying breath that he put that note in my hat himself!  Look at
him, gentlemen! see how he changes colour.  Which of us looks the
guilty person--he, or I?'

'You hear him, gentlemen?' said Brass, smiling, 'you hear him.
Now, does this case strike you as assuming rather a black
complexion, or does it not?  Is it at all a treacherous case, do
you think, or is it one of mere ordinary guilt?  Perhaps,
gentlemen, if he had not said this in your presence and I had
reported it, you'd have held this to be impossible likewise, eh?'

With such pacific and bantering remarks did Mr Brass refute the
foul aspersion on his character; but the virtuous Sarah, moved by
stronger feelings, and having at heart, perhaps, a more jealous
regard for the honour of her family, flew from her brother's side,
without any previous intimation of her design, and darted at the
prisoner with the utmost fury.  It would undoubtedly have gone hard
with Kit's face, but that the wary constable, foreseeing her
design, drew him aside at the critical moment, and thus placed Mr
Chuckster in circumstances of some jeopardy; for that gentleman
happening to be next the object of Miss Brass's wrath; and rage
being, like love and fortune, blind; was pounced upon by the fair
enslaver, and had a false collar plucked up by the roots, and his
hair very much dishevelled, before the exertions of the company
could make her sensible of her mistake.

The constable, taking warning by this desperate attack, and
thinking perhaps that it would be more satisfactory to the ends of
justice if the prisoner were taken before a magistrate, whole,
rather than in small pieces, led him back to the hackney-coach
without more ado, and moreover insisted on Miss Brass becoming an
outside passenger; to which proposal the charming creature, after
a little angry discussion, yielded her consent; and so took her
brother Sampson's place upon the box: Mr Brass with some reluctance
agreeing to occupy her seat inside.  These arrangements perfected,
they drove to the justice-room with all speed, followed by the
notary and his two friends in another coach.  Mr Chuckster alone
was left behind--greatly to his indignation; for he held the
evidence he could have given, relative to Kit's returning to work
out the shilling, to be so very material as bearing upon his
hypocritical and designing character, that he considered its
suppression little better than a compromise of felony.

At the justice-room, they found the single gentleman, who had gone
straight there, and was expecting them with desperate impatience.
But not fifty single gentlemen rolled into one could have helped
poor Kit, who in half an hour afterwards was committed for trial,
and was assured by a friendly officer on his way to prison that
there was no occasion to be cast down, for the sessions would soon
be on, and he would, in all likelihood, get his little affair
disposed of, and be comfortably transported, in less than a
fortnight.




CHAPTER 61


Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very
questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much
misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent.  The world, being in
the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a
little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim
of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail
to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come
right at last; 'in which case,' say they who have hunted him down,
'--though we certainly don't expect it--nobody will be better
pleased than we.'  Whereas, the world would do well to reflect,
that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly
constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable,
the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and that many clear
consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound
hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the knowledge of
their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and rendering
them the less endurable.

The world, however, was not in fault in Kit's case.  But Kit was
innocent; and knowing this, and feeling that his best friends
deemed him guilty--that Mr and Mrs Garland would look upon him as
a monster of ingratitude--that Barbara would associate him with
all that was bad and criminal--that the pony would consider
himself forsaken--and that even his own mother might perhaps yield
to the strong appearances against him, and believe him to be the
wretch he seemed--knowing and feeling all this, he experienced, at
first, an agony of mind which no words can describe, and walked up
and down the little cell in which he was locked up for the night,
almost beside himself with grief.

Even when the violence of these emotions had in some degree
subsided, and he was beginning to grow more calm, there came into
his mind a new thought, the anguish of which was scarcely less.
The child--the bright star of the simple fellow's life--she, who
always came back upon him like a beautiful dream--who had made
the poorest part of his existence, the happiest and best--who had
ever been so gentle, and considerate, and good--if she were ever
to hear of this, what would she think!  As this idea occurred to
him, the walls of the prison seemed to melt away, and the old place
to reveal itself in their stead, as it was wont to be on winter
nights--the fireside, the little supper table, the old man's hat,
and coat, and stick--the half-opened door, leading to her little
room--they were all there.  And Nell herself was there, and he--
both laughing heartily as they had often done--and when he had got
as far as this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon his
poor bedstead and wept.

It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end;
but he slept too, and dreamed--always of being at liberty, and
roving about, now with one person and now with another, but ever
with a vague dread of being recalled to prison; not that prison,
but one which was in itself a dim idea--not of a place, but of a
care and sorrow: of something oppressive and always present, and
yet impossible to define.  At last, the morning dawned, and there
was the jail itself--cold, black, and dreary, and very real
indeed.
He was left to himself, however, and there was comfort in that.  He
had liberty to walk in a small paved yard at a certain hour, and
learnt from the turnkey, who came to unlock his cell and show him
where to wash, that there was a regular time for visiting, every
day, and that if any of his friends came to see him, he would be
fetched down to the grate.  When he had given him this information,
and a tin porringer containing his breakfast, the man locked him up
again; and went clattering along the stone passage, opening and
shutting a great many other doors, and raising numberless loud
echoes which resounded through the building for a long time, as if
they were in prison too, and unable to get out.

This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like
some few others in the jail, apart from the mass of prisoners;
because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and
irreclaimable, and had never occupied apartments in that mansion
before.  Kit was thankful for this indulgence, and sat reading the
church catechism very attentively (though he had known it by heart
from a little child), until he heard the key in the lock, and the
man entered again.

'Now then,' he said, 'come on!'

'Where to, Sir?' asked Kit.

The man contented himself by briefly replying 'Wisitors;' and
taking him by the arm in exactly the same manner as the constable
had done the day before, led him, through several winding ways and
strong gates, into a passage, where he placed him at a grating and
turned upon his heel.  Beyond this grating, at the distance of
about four or five feet, was another exactly like it.  In the space
between, sat a turnkey reading a newspaper, and outside the further
railing, Kit saw, with a palpitating heart, his mother with the
baby in her arms; Barbara's mother with her never-failing umbrella;
and poor little Jacob, staring in with all his might, as though he
were looking for the bird, or the wild beast, and thought the men
were mere accidents with whom the bars could have no possible
concern.

But when little Jacob saw his brother, and, thrusting his arms
between the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, but
still stood afar off with his head resting on the arm by which he
held to one of the bars, he began to cry most piteously; whereupon,
Kit's mother and Barbara's mother, who had restrained themselves as
much as possible, burst out sobbing and weeping afresh.  Poor Kit
could not help joining them, and not one of them could speak a
word.  During this melancholy pause, the turnkey read his newspaper
with a waggish look (he had evidently got among the facetious
paragraphs) until, happening to take his eyes off for an instant,
as if to get by dint of contemplation at the very marrow of some
joke of a deeper sort than the rest, it appeared to occur to him,
for the first time, that somebody was crying.

'Now, ladies, ladies,' he said, looking round with surprise, 'I'd
advise you not to waste time like this.  It's allowanced here, you
know.  You mustn't let that child make that noise either.  It's
against all rules.'

'I'm his poor mother, sir,'--sobbed Mrs Nubbles, curtseying humbly,
'and this is his brother, sir.  Oh dear me, dear me!'

'Well!' replied the turnkey, folding his paper on his knee, so as
to get with greater convenience at the top of the next column.  'It
can't be helped you know.  He ain't the only one in the same fix.
You mustn't make a noise about it!'

With that he went on reading.  The man was not unnaturally cruel or
hard-hearted.  He had come to look upon felony as a kind of
disorder, like the scarlet fever or erysipelas: some people had it--
some hadn't--just as it might be.

'Oh! my darling Kit,' said his mother, whom Barbara's mother had
charitably relieved of the baby, 'that I should see my poor boy
here!'

'You don't believe that I did what they accuse me of, mother dear?'
cried Kit, in a choking voice.

'I believe it!' exclaimed the poor woman, 'I that never knew you
tell a lie, or do a bad action from your cradle--that have never
had a moment's sorrow on your account, except it was the poor meals
that you have taken with such good humour and content, that I
forgot how little there was, when I thought how kind and thoughtful
you were, though you were but a child!--I believe it of the son
that's been a comfort to me from the hour of his birth until this
time, and that I never laid down one night in anger with!  I
believe it of you Kit!--'

'Why then, thank God!' said Kit, clutching the bars with an
earnestness that shook them, 'and I can bear it, mother!  Come what
may, I shall always have one drop of happiness in my heart when I
think that you said that.'

At this the poor woman fell a-crying again, and Barbara's mother
too.  And little Jacob, whose disjointed thoughts had by this time
resolved themselves into a pretty distinct impression that Kit
couldn't go out for a walk if he wanted, and that there were no
birds, lions, tigers or other natural curiosities behind those bars--
nothing indeed, but a caged brother--added his tears to theirs
with as little noise as possible.

Kit's mother, drying her eyes (and moistening them, poor soul, more
than she dried them), now took from the ground a small basket, and
submissively addressed herself to the turnkey, saying, would he
please to listen to her for a minute?  The turnkey, being in the
very crisis and passion of a joke, motioned to her with his hand to
keep silent one minute longer, for her life.  Nor did he remove his
hand into its former posture, but kept it in the same warning
attitude until he had finished the paragraph, when he paused for a
few seconds, with a smile upon his face, as who should say 'this
editor is a comical blade--a funny dog,' and then asked her what
she wanted.

'I have brought him a little something to eat,' said the good
woman.  'If you please, Sir, might he have it?'

'Yes,--he may have it.  There's no rule against that.  Give it to
me when you go, and I'll take care he has it.'

'No, but if you please sir--don't be angry with me sir--I am his
mother, and you had a mother once--if I might only see him eat a
little bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was
all comfortable.'

And again the tears of Kit's mother burst forth, and of Barbara's
mother, and of little Jacob.  As to the baby, it was crowing and
laughing with its might--under the idea, apparently, that the
whole scene had been invented and got up for its particular
satisfaction.

The turnkey looked as if he thought the request a strange one and
rather out of the common way, but nevertheless he laid down his
paper, and coming round where Kit's mother stood, took the basket
from her, and after inspecting its contents, handed it to Kit, and
went back to his place.  It may be easily conceived that the
prisoner had no great appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and
ate as hard as he could, while, at every morsel he put into his
mouth, his mother sobbed and wept afresh, though with a softened
grief that bespoke the satisfaction the sight afforded her.

While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about
his employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion
concerning him; but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself
broken the intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and
delicacy, late on the previous night, but had himself expressed no
opinion of his innocence or guilt.  Kit was on the point of
mustering courage to ask Barbara's mother about Barbara, when the
turnkey who had conducted him, reappeared, a second turnkey
appeared behind his visitors, and the third turnkey with the
newspaper cried 'Time's up!'--adding in the same breath 'Now for
the next party!' and then plunging deep into his newspaper again.
Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from his mother,
and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears.  As he was
crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the
guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to
stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.

'This is Christopher Nubbles, isn't it, that come in last night for
felony?' said the man.

His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.

'Then here's your beer,' said the other man to Christopher.  'What
are you looking at?  There an't a discharge in it.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Kit.  'Who sent it me?'

'Why, your friend,' replied the man.  'You're to have it every day,
he says.  And so you will, if he pays for it.'

'My friend!' repeated Kit.

'You're all abroad, seemingly,' returned the other man.  'There's
his letter.  Take hold!'

Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.

'Drink of this cup, you'll find there's a spell in its every drop
'gainst the ills of mortality.  Talk of the cordial that sparkled
for Helen!  HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and
Co.'s).--If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the
Governor.  Yours, R.  S.'

'R.  S.!' said Kit, after some consideration.  'It must be Mr
Richard Swiveller.  Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him
heartily.'




CHAPTER 62.


A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on
Quilp's wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog,
as though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson
Brass, as he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that
the excellent proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and
probably waiting with his accustomed patience and sweetness of
temper the fulfilment of the appointment which now brought Mr Brass
within his fair domain.

'A treacherous place to pick one's steps in, of a dark night,'
muttered Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some
stray lumber, and limped in pain.  'I believe that boy strews the
ground differently every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one;
unless his master does it with his own hands, which is more than
likely.  I hate to come to this place without Sally.  She's more
protection than a dozen men.'

As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr
Brass came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and
over his shoulder.

'What's he about, I wonder?' murmured the lawyer, standing on
tiptoe, and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing
inside, which at that distance was impossible--'drinking, I
suppose,--making himself more fiery and furious, and heating his
malice and mischievousness till they boil.  I'm always afraid to
come here by myself, when his account's a pretty large one.  I
don't believe he'd mind throttling me, and dropping me softly into
the river when the tide was at its strongest, any more than he'd
mind killing a rat--indeed I don't know whether he wouldn't
consider it a pleasant joke.  Hark!  Now he's singing!'

Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise,
but it was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous
repetition of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long
stress upon the last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar.
Nor did the burden of this performance bear any reference to love,
or war, or wine, or loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of
song, but to a subject not often set to music or generally known in
ballads; the words being these:--'The worthy magistrate, after
remarking that the prisoner would find some difficulty in
persuading a jury to believe his tale, committed him to take his
trial at the approaching sessions; and directed the customary
recognisances to be entered into for the pros-e-cu-tion.'

Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all
possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and
began again.

'He's dreadfully imprudent,' muttered Brass, after he had listened
to two or three repetitions of the chant.  'Horribly imprudent.  I
wish he was dumb.  I wish he was deaf.  I wish he was blind.  Hang
him,' cried Brass, as the chant began again.  'I wish he was dead!'

Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his
client, Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of
smoothness, and waiting until the shriek came again and was dying
away, went up to the wooden house, and knocked at the door.

'Come in!' cried the dwarf.

'How do you do to-night sir?' said Sampson, peeping in.  'Ha ha ha!
How do you do sir?  Oh dear me, how very whimsical!  Amazingly
whimsical to be sure!'

'Come in, you fool!' returned the dwarf, 'and don't stand there
shaking your head and showing your teeth.  Come in, you false
witness, you perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!'

'He has the richest humour!' cried Brass, shutting the door behind
him; 'the most amazing vein of comicality!  But isn't it rather
injudicious, sir--?'

'What?' demanded Quilp.  'What, Judas?'

'Judas!' cried Brass.  'He has such extraordinary spirits!  His
humour is so extremely playful!  Judas!  Oh yes--dear me, how very
good!  Ha ha ha!'
All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with
ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed
figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall
in a corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol
whom the dwarf worshipped.  A mass of timber on its head, carved
into the dim and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with
a representation of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the
shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some
famous admiral; but, without those helps, any observer might have
supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or
great sea-monster.  Being originally much too large for the
apartment which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn
short off at the waist.  Even in this state it reached from floor
to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward, with that excessively
wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive politeness, by
which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to reduce
everything else to mere pigmy proportions.

'Do you know it?' said the dwarf, watching Sampson's eyes.  'Do you
see the likeness?'

'Eh?' said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a
little back, as connoisseurs do.  'Now I look at it again, I fancy
I see a--yes, there certainly is something in the smile that
reminds me of--and yet upon my word I--'

Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the
smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much
perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like
himself, and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or
whether he was pleased to consider it as the likeness of some
enemy.  He was not very long in doubt; for, while he was surveying
it with that knowing look which people assume when they are
contemplating for the first time portraits which they ought to
recognise but don't, the dwarf threw down the newspaper from which
he had been chanting the words already quoted, and seizing a rusty
iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the figure such a
stroke on the nose that it rocked again.

'Is it like Kit--is it his picture, his image, his very self?'
cried the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible
countenance, and covering it with deep dimples.  'Is it the exact
model and counterpart of the dog--is it--is it--is it?'  And
with every repetition of the question, he battered the great image,
until the perspiration streamed down his face with the violence of
the exercise.

Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from
a secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable
spectacle by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is
better than a play to people who don't live near it, there was
something in the earnestness of Mr Quilp's manner which made his
legal adviser feel that the counting-house was a little too small,
and a deal too lonely, for the complete enjoyment of these humours.
Therefore, he stood as far off as he could, while the dwarf was
thus engaged; whimpering out but feeble applause; and when Quilp
left off and sat down again from pure exhaustion, approached with
more obsequiousness than ever.

'Excellent indeed!' cried Brass.  'He he!  Oh, very good Sir.  You
know,' said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised
animal, 'he's quite a remarkable man--quite!'

'Sit down,' said the dwarf.  'I bought the dog yesterday.  I've
been screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and
cutting my name on him.  I mean to burn him at last.'

'Ha ha!' cried Brass.  'Extremely entertaining, indeed!'

'Come here,' said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near.  'What's
injudicious, hey?'

'Nothing Sir--nothing.  Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I
thought that song--admirably humorous in itself you know--was
perhaps rather--'

'Yes,' said Quilp, 'rather what?'

'Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the
confines of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,' returned Brass, looking
timidly at the dwarf's cunning eyes, which were turned towards the
fire and reflected its red light.

'Why?' inquired Quilp, without looking up.

'Why, you know, sir,' returned Brass, venturing to be more
familiar: '--the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little
combinings together, of friends, for objects in themselves
extremely laudable, but which the law terms conspiracies, are--you
take me, sir?--best kept snug and among friends, you know.'

'Eh!' said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance.
'What do you mean?'

'Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!' cried
Brass, nodding his head.  'Mum, sir, even here--my meaning, sir,
exactly.'

'YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,--what's your
meaning?' retorted Quilp.  'Why do you talk to me of combining
together?  Do I combine?  Do I know anything about your
combinings?'

'No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,' returned Brass.

'if you so wink and nod at me,' said the dwarf, looking about him
as if for his poker, 'I'll spoil the expression of your monkey's
face, I will.'
'Don't put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,' rejoined Brass,
checking himself with great alacrity.  'You're quite right, sir,
quite right.  I shouldn't have mentioned the subject, sir.  It's
much better not to.  You're quite right, sir.  Let us change it, if
you please.  You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger.
He has not returned, sir.'

'No?' said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and
watching it to prevent its boiling over.  'Why not?'

'Why, sir,' returned Brass, 'he--dear me, Mr Quilp, sir--'

'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act
of carrying the saucepan to his mouth.

'You have forgotten the water, sir,' said Brass.  'And--excuse me,
sir--but it's burning hot.'

Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr
Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank
off all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity
about half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took
it off the fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely.  Having swallowed
this gentle stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade
Mr Brass proceed.

'But first,' said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, 'have a drop
yourself--a nice drop--a good, warm, fiery drop.'

'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'if there was such a thing as a mouthful
of water that could be got without trouble--'

'There's no such thing to be had here,' cried the dwarf.  'Water
for lawyers!  Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot
blistering pitch and tar--that's the thing for them--eh, Brass,
eh?'

'Ha ha ha!' laughed Mr Brass.  'Oh very biting! and yet it's like
being tickled--there's a pleasure in it too, sir!'

'Drink that,' said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some
more.  'Toss it off, don't leave any heeltap, scorch your throat
and be happy!'

The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which
immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form
came rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the
colour of his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a
violent fit of coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard
to declare, with the constancy of a martyr, that it was 'beautiful
indeed!'  While he was yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf
renewed their conversation.

'The lodger,' said Quilp, '--what about him?'
'He is still, sir,' returned Brass, with intervals of coughing,
'stopping with the Garland family.  He has only been home once,
Sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit.  He informed
Mr Richard, sir, that he couldn't bear the house after what had
taken place; that he was wretched in it; and that he looked upon
himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the
occurrence.--A very excellent lodger Sir.  I hope we may not lose
him.'

'Yah!' cried the dwarf.  'Never thinking of anybody but yourself--
why don't you retrench then--scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?'

'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'upon my word I think Sarah's as good an
economiser as any going.  I do indeed, Mr Quilp.'

'Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!' cried the
dwarf.  'You took a clerk to oblige me.'

'Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,' replied Sampson.  'Yes,
Sir, I did.'

'Then now you may discharge him,' said Quilp.  'There's a means of
retrenchment for you at once.'

'Discharge Mr Richard, sir?' cried Brass.

'Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the
question?  Yes.'

'Upon my word, Sir,' said Brass, 'I wasn't prepared for this-'

'How could you be?' sneered the dwarf, 'when I wasn't?  How often
am I to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have
my eye on him and know where he was--and that I had a plot, a
scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very
cream and essence was, that this old man and grandchild (who have
sunk underground I think) should be, while he and his precious
friend believed them rich, in reality as poor as frozen rats?'

'I quite understood that, sir,' rejoined Brass.  'Thoroughly.'

'Well, Sir,' retorted Quilp, 'and do you understand now, that
they're not poor--that they can't be, if they have such men as
your lodger searching for them, and scouring the country far and
wide?'

'Of course I do, Sir,' said Sampson.

'Of course you do,' retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his
words.  'Of course do you understand then, that it's no matter what
comes of this fellow? of course do you understand that for any
other purpose he's no man for me, nor for you?'

'I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,' returned Brass, 'that he
was of no use at all in the business.  You can't put any confidence
in him, sir.  If you'll believe me I've found that fellow, in the
commonest little matters of the office that have been trusted to
him, blurting out the truth, though expressly cautioned.  The
aggravation of that chap sir, has exceeded anything you can
imagine, it has indeed.  Nothing but the respect and obligation I
owe to you, sir--'

As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue,
unless he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped
him on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and
requested that he would be so obliging as to hold his peace.

'Practical, sir, practical,' said Brass, rubbing the place and
smiling; 'but still extremely pleasant--immensely so!'

'Hearken to me, will you?' returned Quilp, 'or I'll be a little
more pleasant, presently.  There's no chance of his comrade and
friend returning.  The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn,
for some knavery, and has found his way abroad.  Let him rot
there.'

'Certainly, sir.  Quite proper.--Forcible!' cried Brass, glancing
at the admiral again, as if he made a third in company.  'Extremely
forcible!'

'I hate him,' said Quilp between his teeth, 'and have always hated
him, for family reasons.  Besides, he was an intractable ruffian;
otherwise he would have been of use.  This fellow is pigeon-hearted
and light-headed.  I don't want him any longer.  Let him hang or
drown--starve--go to the devil.'

'By all means, sir,' returned Brass.  'When would you wish him,
sir, to--ha, ha!--to make that little excursion?'

'When this trial's over,' said Quilp.  'As soon as that's ended,
send him about his business.'

'It shall be done, sir,' returned Brass; 'by all means.  It will be
rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under
control.  Ah, Mr Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased
Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what
blessed results would have flowed from such a union!  You never saw
our dear father, sir?--A charming gentleman.  Sarah was his pride
and joy, sir.  He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey,
Mr Quilp, if he could have found her such a partner.  You esteem
her, sir?'

'I love her,' croaked the dwarf.

'You're very good, Sir,' returned Brass, 'I am sure.  Is there any
other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little
matter of Mr Richard?'

'None,' replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan.  'Let us drink the
lovely Sarah.'

'If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn't quite boiling,'
suggested Brass humbly, 'perhaps it would be better.  I think it
will be more agreeable to Sarah's feelings, when she comes to hear
from me of the honour you have done her, if she learns it was in
liquor rather cooler than the last, Sir.'

But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear.  Sampson
Brass, who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled
to take further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that,
instead of at all contributing to his recovery, they had the novel
effect of making the counting-house spin round and round with
extreme velocity, and causing the floor and ceiling to heave in a
very distressing manner.  After a brief stupor, he awoke to a
consciousness of being partly under the table and partly under the
grate.  This position not being the most comfortable one he could
have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger to his feet, and,
holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host.

Mr Brass's first impression was, that his host was gone and had
left him there alone--perhaps locked him in for the night.  A
strong smell of tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas,
he looked upward, and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his
hammock.

'Good bye, Sir,' cried Brass faintly.  'Good bye, Sir.'

'Won't you stop all night?' said the dwarf, peeping out.  'Do stop
all night!'

'I couldn't indeed, Sir,' replied Brass, who was almost dead from
nausea and the closeness of the room.  'If you'd have the goodness
to show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard,
sir--'

Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head
first, or his arms first, but bodily--altogether.

'To be sure,' he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only
light in the place.  'Be careful how you go, my dear friend.  Be
sure to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are
upwards.  There's a dog in the lane.  He bit a man last night, and
a woman the night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child--but
that was in play.  Don't go too near him.'

'Which side of the road is he, sir?' asked Brass, in great dismay.

'He lives on the right hand,' said Quilp, 'but sometimes he hides
on the left, ready for a spring.  He's uncertain in that respect.
Mind you take care of yourself.  I'll never forgive you if you
don't.  There's the light out--never mind--you know the way--
straight on!'
Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast,
and now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture
of delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now
and then falling heavily down.  At length, however, he got quit of
the place, and was out of hearing.

The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his
hammock.




CHAPTER 63


The professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece
of information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business
at the Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon
disposed of, turned out to be quite correct in his
prognostications.  In eight days' time, the sessions commenced.  In
one day afterwards, the Grand jury found a True Bill against
Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two days from that finding,
the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called upon to plead Guilty
or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the said Christopher did
feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office
of one Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank Note for Five Pounds
issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England; in
contravention of the Statutes in that case made and provided, and
against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and
dignity.

To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling
voice, pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit
of forming hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had
Christopher, if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe,
that confinement and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and
that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten
or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces,
the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather
disconcerting and startling circumstance.  To this, it must be
added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more
terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair; and
if, in addition to these considerations, there be taken into
account Kit's natural emotion on seeing the two Mr Garlands and the
little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces, it will
perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have
been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home.

Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr
Witherden, since the time of his arrest, he had been given to
understand that they had employed counsel for him.  Therefore, when
one of the gentlemen in wigs got up and said 'I am for the
prisoner, my Lord,' Kit made him a bow; and when another gentleman
in a wig got up and said 'And I'm against him, my Lord,' Kit
trembled very much, and bowed to him too.  And didn't he hope in
his own heart that his gentleman was a match for the other
gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time!

The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in
dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly
procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the
misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure;
telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must
expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the
other jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that
prisoner.  And when he had told them all about the case, and that
he had never known a worse case, he stopped a little while, like a
man who had something terrible to tell them, and then said that he
understood an attempt would be made by his learned friend (and here
he looked sideways at Kit's gentleman) to impeach the testimony of
those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before them; but he
did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a greater
respect and veneration for the character of the prosecutor; than
whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed,
a more honourable member of that most honourable profession to
which he was attached.  And then he said, did the jury know Bevis
Marks?  And if they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for their
own character, they did) did they know the historical and elevating
associations connected with that most remarkable spot?  Did they
believe that a man like Brass could reside in a place like Bevis
Marks, and not be a virtuous and most upright character?  And when
he had said a great deal to them on this point, he remembered that
it was an insult to their understandings to make any remarks on
what they must have felt so strongly without him, and therefore
called Sampson Brass into the witness-box, straightway.

Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to
the judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him
before, and who hopes he has been pretty well since their last
meeting, folds his arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to
say 'Here I am--full of evidence--Tap me!'  And the gentleman
does tap him presently, and with great discretion too; drawing off
the evidence by little and little, and making it run quite clear
and bright in the eyes of all present.  Then, Kit's gentleman takes
him in hand, but can make nothing of him; and after a great many
very long questions and very short answers, Mr Sampson Brass goes
down in glory.

To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by
Mr Brass's gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit's.  In short, Kit's
gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she
has said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his
client), and therefore lets her go, in some confusion.  Then, Mr
Brass's gentleman calls Richard Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller
appears accordingly.

Now, Mr Brass's gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this
witness is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner--which, to say
the truth, he is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered
to lie in what is familiarly termed badgering.  Wherefore, he
begins by requesting the officer to be quite sure that this witness
kisses the book, then goes to work at him, tooth and nail.

'Mr Swiveller,' says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his
tale with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it:
'Pray sir, where did you dine yesterday?'--'Where did I dine
yesterday?'--'Aye, sir, where did you dine yesterday--was it near
here, sir?'--'Oh to be sure--yes--just over the way.'--'To be sure.
Yes.  just over the way,' repeats Mr Brass's gentleman, with a
glance at the court.--'Alone, sir?'--'I beg your pardon,' says Mr
Swiveller, who has not caught the question--'Alone, sir?' repeats
Mr Brass's gentleman in a voice of thunder, 'did you dine alone?
Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!'--'Oh yes, to be sure--yes, I
did,' says Mr Swiveller with a smile.--'Have the goodness to banish
a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the place in which you
stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful that it's only
that place),' says Mr Brass's gentleman, with a nod of the head,
insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller's legitimate sphere of
action; 'and attend to me.  You were waiting about here, yesterday,
in expectation that this trial was coming on.  You dined over the
way.  You treated somebody.  Now, was that somebody brother to the
prisoner at the bar?'--Mr Swiveller is proceeding to explain--'Yes
or No, sir,' cries Mr Brass's gentleman--'But will you allow me--'
--'Yes or No, sir'--'Yes it was, but--'--'Yes it was,' cries the
gentleman, taking him up short.  'And a very pretty witness YOU
are!'

Down sits Mr Brass's gentleman.  Kit's gentleman, not knowing how
the matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject.  Richard
Swiveller retires abashed.  Judge, jury and spectators have visions
of his lounging about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered,
dissolute young fellow of six feet high.  The reality is, little
Jacob, with the calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and
himself tied up in a shawl.  Nobody knows the truth; everybody
believes a falsehood; and all because of the ingenuity of Mr
Brass's gentleman.

Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass's gentleman
shines again.  It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character
with Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and
that he was suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown
reasons.  'Really Mr Garland,' says Mr Brass's gentleman, 'for a
person who has arrived at your time of life, you are, to say the
least of it, singularly indiscreet, I think.'  The jury think so
too, and find Kit guilty.  He is taken off, humbly protesting his
innocence.  The spectators settle themselves in their places with
renewed attention, for there are several female witnesses to be
examined in the next case, and it has been rumoured that Mr Brass's
gentleman will make great fun in cross-examining them for the
prisoner.

Kit's mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs,
accompanied by Barbara's mother (who, honest soul! never does
anything but cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues.
The newspaper-reading turnkey has told them all.  He don't think it
will be transportation for life, because there's time to prove the
good character yet, and that is sure to serve him.  He wonders what
he did it for.  'He never did it!' cries Kit's mother.  'Well,'
says the turnkey, 'I won't contradict you.  It's all one, now,
whether he did it or not.'

Kit's mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it--
God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in
how much agony.  Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under
pretence of having the children lifted up to kiss him, prays
Barbara's mother in a whisper to take her home.

'Some friend will rise up for us, mother,' cried Kit, 'I am sure.
If not now, before long.  My innocence will come out, mother, and
I shall be brought back again; I feel confidence in that.  You must
teach little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they
thought I had ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to
understand, it would break my heart to know it, if I was thousands
of miles away.--Oh! is there no good gentleman here, who will
take care of her!'

The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon
the earth, insensible.  Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows
the bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in
one arm after the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to
Kit, and commanding Barbara's mother to follow, for he has a coach
waiting, bears her swiftly off.

Well; Richard took her home.  And what astonishing absurdities in
the way of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road,
no man knows.  He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered;
and, having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis
Marks, bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the
door while he went in for 'change.'

'Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass cheerfully, 'Good evening!'

Monstrous as Kit's tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did,
that night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany.
Perhaps it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his
careless nature this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very
strong upon him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he
wanted.

'Money?' cried Brass, taking out his purse.  'Ha ha!  To be sure,
Mr Richard, to be sure, sir.  All men must live.  You haven't
change for a five-pound note, have you sir?'

'No,' returned Dick, shortly.

'Oh!' said Brass, 'here's the very sum.  That saves trouble.
You're very welcome I'm sure.--Mr Richard, sir--'
Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round.

'You needn't,' said Brass, 'trouble yourself to come back any more,
Sir.'

'Eh?'

'You see, Mr Richard,' said Brass, thrusting his hands in his
pockets, and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, 'the fact is,
that a man of your abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry
and mouldy line.  It's terrible drudgery--shocking.  I should say,
now, that the stage, or the--or the army, Mr Richard--or
something very superior in the licensed victualling way--was the
kind of thing that would call out the genius of such a man as you.
I hope you'll look in to see us now and then.  Sally, Sir, will be
delighted I'm sure.  She's extremely sorry to lose you, Mr Richard,
but a sense of her duty to society reconciles her.  An amazing
creature that, sir!  You'll find the money quite correct, I think.
There's a cracked window sir, but I've not made any deduction on
that account.  Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard, let us
part liberally.  A delightful sentiment, sir!'

To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one
word, but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight
round ball: looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some
intention of bowling him down with it.  He only took it under his
arm, however, and marched out of the office in profound silence.
When he had closed the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for
a few moments with the same portentous gravity, and nodding his
head once, in a slow and ghost-like manner, vanished.

He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with
great designs for the comforting of Kit's mother and the aid of Kit
himself.

But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard
Swiveller, are extremely precarious.  The spiritual excitement of
the last fortnight, working upon a system affected in no slight
degree by the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little
too much for him.  That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an
alarming illness, and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a
raging fever.




CHAPTER 64

Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce
thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change
of posture, a moment's peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through
deserts of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or
sound suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull
eternal weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his
miserable body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still
to one ever-present anxiety--to a sense of something left undone,
of some fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care
that would not be driven away, and which haunted the distempered
brain, now in this form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but
recognisable for the same phantom in every shape it took: darkening
every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber horrible--
in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the unfortunate
Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at last,
when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held
down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more.

He awoke.  With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than
sleep itself, he began gradually to remember something of these
sufferings, and to think what a long night it had been, and whether
he had not been delirious twice or thrice.  Happening, in the midst
of these cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find
how heavy it seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was.
Still, he felt indifferent and happy; and having no curiosity to
pursue the subject, remained in the same waking slumber until his
attention was attracted by a cough.  This made him doubt whether he
had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at
having a companion in the room.  Still, he lacked energy to follow
up this train of thought; and unconsciously fell, in a luxury of
repose, to staring at some green stripes on the bed-furniture, and
associating them strangely with patches of fresh turf, while the
yellow ground between made gravel-walks, and so helped out a long
perspective of trim gardens.

He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite
lost himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more.
The walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising
himself a little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one
hand, he looked out.

The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what
unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins,
and articles of linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture
of a sick chamber--all very clean and neat, but all quite
different from anything he had left there, when he went to bed!
The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar;
the floor newly sprinkled; the--the what?  The Marchioness?

Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table.  There she sat,
intent upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as
if she feared to disturb him--shuffling the cards, cutting,
dealing, playing, counting, pegging--going through all the
mysteries of cribbage as if she had been in full practice from her
cradle!  Mr Swiveller contemplated these things for a short time,
and suffering the curtain to fall into its former position, laid
his head on the pillow again.

'I'm dreaming,' thought Richard, 'that's clear.  When I went to
bed, my hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see
through 'em.  If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake,
in an Arabian Night, instead of a London one.  But I have no doubt
I'm asleep.  Not the least.'

Here the small servant had another cough.

'Very remarkable!' thought Mr Swiveller.  'I never dreamt such a
real cough as that before.  I don't know, indeed, that I ever
dreamt either a cough or a sneeze.  Perhaps it's part of the
philosophy of dreams that one never does.  There's another--and
another--I say!--I'm dreaming rather fast!'

For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after
some reflection, pinched himself in the arm.

'Queerer still!' he thought.  'I came to bed rather plump than
otherwise, and now there's nothing to lay hold of.  I'll take
another survey.'

The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr
Swiveller that the objects by which he was surrounded were real,
and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.

'It's an Arabian Night; that's what it is,' said Richard.  'I'm in
Damascus or Grand Cairo.  The Marchioness is a Genie, and having
had a wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young
man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of
China, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together.
Perhaps,' said Mr Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow,
and looking on that side of his bed which was next the wall, 'the
Princess may be still--No, she's gone.'

Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking
it to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and
doubt, Mr Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take
the first favourable opportunity of addressing his companion.  An
occasion presented itself.  The Marchioness dealt, turned up a
knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr
Swiveller called out as loud as he could--'Two for his heels!'

The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands.  'Arabian
Night, certainly,' thought Mr Swiveller; 'they always clap their
hands instead of ringing the bell.  Now for the two thousand black
slaves, with jars of jewels on their heads!'

It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy;
for directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry;
declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she
was 'so glad, she didn't know what to do.'

'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, 'be pleased to draw
nearer.  First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me
where I shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my
flesh?'

The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again;
whereupon Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected
likewise.

'I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances,
Marchioness,' said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a
trembling lip, 'that I have been ill.'

'You just have!' replied the small servant, wiping her eyes.  'And
haven't you been a talking nonsense!'

'Oh!' said Dick.  'Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?'

'Dead, all but,' replied the small servant.  'I never thought you'd
get better.  Thank Heaven you have!'

Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while.  By and bye, he began to
talk again, inquiring how long he had been there.

'Three weeks to-morrow,' replied the servant.

'Three what?' said Dick.

'Weeks,' returned the Marchioness emphatically; 'three long, slow
weeks.'

The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard
to fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his
full length.  The Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more
comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool--
a discovery that filled her with delight--cried a little more,
and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin
dry toast.

While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful
heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made
herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally
Brass, whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough.  When the
Marchioness had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on
a tray, and brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak
tea, with which (she said) the doctor had left word he might
refresh himself when he awoke.  She propped him up with pillows, if
not as skilfully as if she had been a professional nurse all her
life, at least as tenderly; and looked on with unutterable
satisfaction while the patient--stopping every now and then to
shake her by the hand--took his poor meal with an appetite and
relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other
circumstances, would have failed to provoke.  Having cleared away,
and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down
at the table to take her own tea.

'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'how's Sally?'

The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very
uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.

'What, haven't you seen her lately?' said Dick.

'Seen her!' cried the small servant.  'Bless you, I've run away!'

Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so
remained for about five minutes.  By slow degrees he resumed his
sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:

'And where do you live, Marchioness?'

'Live!' cried the small servant.  'Here!'

'Oh!' said Mr Swiveller.

And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had
been shot.  Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech,
until she had finished her meal, put everything in its place, and
swept the hearth; when he motioned her to bring a chair to the
bedside, and, being propped up again, opened a farther
conversation.

'And so,' said Dick, 'you have run away?'

'Yes,' said the Marchioness, 'and they've been a tizing of me.'

'Been--I beg your pardon,' said Dick--'what have they been doing?'

'Been a tizing of me--tizing you know--in the newspapers,'
rejoined the Marchioness.

'Aye, aye,' said Dick, 'advertising?'

The small servant nodded, and winked.  Her eyes were so red with
waking and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with
greater consistency.  And so Dick felt.

'Tell me,' said he, 'how it was that you thought of coming here.'

'Why, you see,' returned the Marchioness, 'when you was gone, I
hadn't any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back,
and I didn't know where either him or you was to be found, you
know.  But one morning, when I was-'

'Was near a keyhole?' suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she
faltered.

'Well then,' said the small servant, nodding; 'when I was near the
office keyhole--as you see me through, you know--I heard somebody
saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged
at, and that you was took very bad, and wouldn't nobody come and
take care of you.  Mr Brass, he says, "It's no business of mine,"
he says; and Miss Sally, she says, "He's a funny chap, but it's no
business of mine;" and the lady went away, and slammed the door to,
when she went out, I can tell you.  So I run away that night, and
come here, and told 'em you was my brother, and they believed me,
and I've been here ever since.'

'This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!'
cried Dick.

'No I haven't,' she returned, 'not a bit of it.  Don't you mind
about me.  I like sitting up, and I've often had a sleep, bless
you, in one of them chairs.  But if you could have seen how you
tried to jump out o' winder, and if you could have heard how you
used to keep on singing and making speeches, you wouldn't have
believed it--I'm so glad you're better, Mr Liverer.'

'Liverer indeed!' said Dick thoughtfully.  'It's well I am a
liverer.  I strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but
for you.'

At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant's hand in his
again, and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling
to express his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that
she quickly changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging
him to keep very quiet.

'The doctor,' she told him, 'said you was to be kept quite still,
and there was to be no noise nor nothing.  Now, take a rest, and
then we'll talk again.  I'll sit by you, you know.  If you shut
your eyes, perhaps you'll go to sleep.  You'll be all the better
for it, if you do.'

The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to
the bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the
concoction of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of
chemists.  Richard Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a
slumber, and waking in about half an hour, inquired what time it
was.

'Just gone half after six,' replied his small friend, helping him
to sit up again.

'Marchioness,' said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and
turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment
flashed upon him, 'what has become of Kit?'

He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she
said.

'Has he gone?' asked Dick--'his mother--how is she,--what has
become of her?'

His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about
them.  'But, if I thought,' said she, very slowly, 'that you'd keep
quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you--
but I won't now.'

'Yes, do,' said Dick.  'It will amuse me.'

'Oh! would it though!' rejoined the small servant, with a horrified
look.  'I know better than that.  Wait till you're better and then
I'll tell you.'


Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes,
being large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so
much, that she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think
any more about it.  What had already fallen from her, however, had
not only piqued his curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore
he urged her to tell him the worst at once.

'Oh there's no worst in it,' said the small servant.  'It hasn't
anything to do with you.'

'Has it anything to do with--is it anything you heard through
chinks or keyholes--and that you were not intended to hear?' asked
Dick, in a breathless state.

'Yes,' replied the small servant.

'In--in Bevis Marks?' pursued Dick hastily.  'Conversations
between Brass and Sally?'

'Yes,' cried the small servant again.

Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her
by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it,
and freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being
wholly unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation.
She, seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of
postponing her revelation might be much more injurious than any
that were likely to ensue from its being made at once, promised
compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself perfectly
quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about.

'But if you begin to do that,' said the small servant, 'I'll leave
off.  And so I tell you.'

'You can't leave off, till you have gone on,' said Dick.  'And do
go on, there's a darling.  Speak, sister, speak.  Pretty Polly say.
Oh tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech
you!'

Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller
poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn
and tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:

'Well!  Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where
we played cards, you know.  Miss Sally used to keep the key of the
kitchen door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to
take away the candle and rake out the fire.  When she had done
that, she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the
outside, put the key in her pocket again, and kept me locked up
till she come down in the morning--very early I can tell you--and
let me out.  I was terrible afraid of being kept like this, because
if there was a fire, I thought they might forget me and only take
care of themselves you know.  So, whenever I see an old rusty key
anywhere, I picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and at
last I found in the dust cellar a key that did fit it.'

Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs.  But
the small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided
again, and pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact,
entreated her to proceed.

'They kept me very short,' said the small servant.  'Oh! you can't
think how short they kept me!  So I used to come out at night after
they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit,
or sangwitches that you'd left in the office, or even pieces of
orange peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine.
Did you ever taste orange peel and water?'

Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor;
and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her
narrative.

'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice,' said the small
servant, 'but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear
a little more seasoning, certainly.  Well, sometimes I used to come
out after they'd gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and
one or two nights before there was all that precious noise in the
office--when the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs
while Mr Brass and Miss Sally was a-sittin' at the office fire; and
I tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of
the safe.'

Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of
the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of
the utmost concern.  But the small servant pausing, and holding up
her finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern
did not.

'There was him and her,' said the small servant, 'a-sittin' by the
fire, and talking softly together.  Mr Brass says to Miss Sally,
"Upon my word," he says "it's a dangerous thing, and it might get
us into a world of trouble, and I don't half like it." She says--
you know her way--she says, "You're the chickenest-hearted,
feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think," she says, "that I
ought to have been the brother, and you the sister.  Isn't Quilp,"
she says, "our principal support?" "He certainly is," says Mr
Brass, "And an't we," she says, "constantly ruining somebody or
other in the way of business?" "We certainly are," says Mr Brass.
"Then does it signify," she says, "about ruining this Kit when
Quilp desires it?" "It certainly does not signify," says Mr Brass.
Then they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being
no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass pulls out his
pocket-book, and says, "Well," he says, 'here it is--Quilp's own
five-pound note.  We'll agree that way, then," he says.  "Kit's
coming to-morrow morning, I know.  While he's up-stairs, you'll get
out of the way, and I'll clear off Mr Richard.  Having Kit alone,
I'll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat.
I'll manage so, besides," he says, 'that Mr Richard shall find it
there, and be the evidence.  And if that don't get Christopher out
of Mr Quilp's way, and satisfy Mr Quilp's grudges," he says, "the
Devil's in it." Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and
as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any
longer, I went down-stairs again.--There!'

The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much
agitation as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain
him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story
had been told to anybody.

'How could it be?' replied his nurse.  'I was almost afraid to
think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off.  When I
heard 'em say they had found him guilty of what he didn't do, you
was gone, and so was the lodger--though I think I should have been
frightened to tell him, even if he'd been there.  Ever since I come
here, you've been out of your senses, and what would have been the
good of telling you then?'

'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and
flinging it to the other end of the room; 'if you'll do me the
favour to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it
is, I'll get up.'

'You mustn't think of such a thing,' cried his nurse.

'I must indeed,' said the patient, looking round the room.
'Whereabouts are my clothes?'

'Oh, I'm so glad--you haven't got any,' replied the Marchioness.

'Ma'am!' said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.

'I've been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that
was ordered for you.  But don't take on about that,' urged the
Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow.  'You're too weak
to stand, indeed.'

'I am afraid,' said Richard dolefully, 'that you're right.  What
ought I to do! what is to be done!'

It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the
first step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr
Garlands instantly.  It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet
left the office.  In as little time as it takes to tell it, the
small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a
verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to
recognise either, without difficulty; and a special caution to be
shy of Mr Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman's known
antipathy to Kit.  Armed with these slender powers, she hurried
away, commissioned to bring either old Mr Garland or Mr Abel,
bodily, to that apartment.

'I suppose,' said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped
into the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, 'I
suppose there's nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?'

'No, nothing.'

'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire--even an
umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear
Marchioness.  I should have died without you!'




CHAPTER 65


It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick
nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very
neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear,
would probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the
supreme authority over her person.  Not unmindful of the risk she
ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she
dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and,
without any present reference to the point to which her journey
tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick
and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.

When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her
course for the notary's office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of
apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than
in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of
attracting notice--she easily procured a direction.  As carrier-
pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air
at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for
which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and
round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly
down upon the port for which she was bound.

She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in
some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in
head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was
rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely
large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult
to find again, among the crowd of passengers.  Indeed, the poor
little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having
to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and
suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing
and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the
street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out and
exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.

But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as
there were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore
some hope that she was not too late.  So the Marchioness dried her
eyes with the backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the
steps, peeped in through the glass door.

Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such
preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down
his wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck
more gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers
by the aid of a little triangular bit of looking glass.  Before the
ashes of the fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly
judged to be the notary, and the other (who was buttoning his
great-coat and was evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel
Garland.

Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with
herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out,
as there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr
Chuckster, and less difficulty in delivering her message.  With
this purpose she slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down
upon a door-step just opposite.

She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the
street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns,
a pony.  This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in
it; but neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the
least, as he reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or
stood still again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the
smallest reference to them--just as the fancy seized him, and as
if he were the freest animal in creation.  When they came to the
notary's door, the man called out in a very respectful manner, 'Woa
then'--intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it
would be that they stopped there.  The pony made a moment's pause;
but, as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required
might be to establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he
immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street
corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own
accord.

'Oh! you're a precious creatur!' said the man--who didn't venture
by the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the
pavement.  'I wish I had the rewarding of you--I do.'

'What has he been doing?' said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his
neck as he came down the steps.

'He's enough to fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler.  'He
is the most wicious rascal--Woa then, will you?'

'He'll never stand still, if you call him names,' said Mr Abel,
getting in, and taking the reins.  'He's a very good fellow if you
know how to manage him.  This is the first time he has been out,
this long while, for he has lost his old driver and wouldn't stir
for anybody else, till this morning.  The lamps are right, are
they?  That's well.  Be here to take him to-morrow, if you please.
Good night!'

And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention,
the pony yielded to Mr Abel's mildness, and trotted gently off.

All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the
small servant had been afraid to approach.  She had nothing for it
now, therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel
to stop.  Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was
unable to make him hear.  The case was desperate; for the pony was
quickening his pace.  The Marchioness hung on behind for a few
moments, and, feeling that she could go no farther, and must soon
yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in
so doing lost one of the shoes for ever.

Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite
enough to do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without
looking round: little dreaming of the strange figure that was close
behind him, until the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered
her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her
position, uttered close into his ear, the words--'I say, Sir'--

He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony,
cried, with some trepidation, 'God bless me, what is this!'

'Don't be frightened, Sir,' replied the still panting messenger.
'Oh I've run such a way after you!'

'What do you want with me?' said Mr Abel.  'How did you come here?'

'I got in behind,' replied the Marchioness.  'Oh please drive on,
sir--don't stop--and go towards the City, will you?  And oh do
please make haste, because it's of consequence.  There's somebody
wants to see you there.  He sent me to say would you come directly,
and that he knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove
his innocence.'

'What do you tell me, child?'

'The truth, upon my word and honour I do.  But please to drive on--
quick, please!  I've been such a time gone, he'll think I'm
lost.'

Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward.  The pony, impelled
by some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great
pace, and neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric
performances, until they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller's
lodging, where, marvellous to relate, he consented to stop when Mr
Abel checked him.

'See!  It's the room up there,' said the Marchioness, pointing to
one where there was a faint light.  'Come!'

Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in
existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard
of people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and
murdered, under circumstances very like the present, and, for
anything he knew to the contrary, by guides very like the
Marchioness.  His regard for Kit, however, overcame every other
consideration.  So, entrusting Whisker to the charge of a man who
was lingering hard by in expectation of the Job, he suffered his
companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the dark and narrow
stairs.

He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a
dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in
bed.

'An't it nice to see him lying there so quiet?' said his guide, in
an earnest whisper.  'Oh! you'd say it was, if you had only seen
him two or three days ago.'

Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from
the bed and very near the door.  His guide, who appeared to
understand his reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her
hand, approached the bed.  As she did so, the sleeper started up,
and he recognised in the wasted face the features of Richard
Swiveller.

'Why, how is this?' said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him.
'You have been ill?'

'Very,' replied Dick.  'Nearly dead.  You might have chanced to
hear of your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to
fetch you.  Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please.
Sit down, Sir.'

Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his
guide, and took a chair by the bedside.

'I have sent for you, Sir,' said Dick--'but she told you on what
account?'

'She did.  I am quite bewildered by all this.  I really don't know
what to say or think,' replied Mr Abel.

'You'll say that presently,' retorted Dick.  'Marchioness, take a
seat on the bed, will you?  Now, tell this gentleman all that you
told me; and be particular.  Don't you speak another word, Sir.'

The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as
before, without any deviation or omission.  Richard Swiveller kept
his eyes fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it
was concluded, took the word again.

'You have heard it all, and you'll not forget it.  I'm too giddy
and too queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will
know what to do.  After this long delay, every minute is an age.
If ever you went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night.
Don't stop to say one word to me, but go.  She will be found here,
whenever she's wanted; and as to me, you're pretty sure to find me
at home, for a week or two.  There are more reasons than one for
that.  Marchioness, a light!  If you lose another minute in looking
at me, sir, I'll never forgive you!'

Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion.  He was gone in
an instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him
down-stairs, reported that the pony, without any preliminary
objection whatever, had dashed away at full gallop.

'That's right!' said Dick; 'and hearty of him; and I honour him
from this time.  But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am
sure you must be tired.  Do have a mug of beer.  It will do me as
much good to see you take it as if I might drink it myself.'

Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small
nurse to indulge in such a luxury.  Having eaten and drunk to Mr
Swiveller's extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put
everything in neat order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet
and lay down upon the rug before the fire.

Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, 'Strew then,
oh strew, a bed of rushes.  Here will we stay, till morning
blushes.  Good night, Marchioness!'




CHAPTER 66


On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by
slow degrees, of whispering voices in his room.  Looking out
between the curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary,
and the single gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and
talking to her with great earnestness but in very subdued tones--
fearing, no doubt, to disturb him.  He lost no time in letting them
know that this precaution was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen
directly approached his bedside.  Old Mr Garland was the first to
stretch out his hand, and inquire how he felt.

Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as
weak as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside
and pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their
interference, set his breakfast before him, and insisted on his
taking it before he underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being
spoken to.  Mr Swiveller, who was perfectly ravenous, and had had,
all night, amazingly distinct and consistent dreams of mutton
chops, double stout, and similar delicacies, felt even the weak tea
and dry toast such irresistible temptations, that he consented to
eat and drink on one condition.

'And that is,' said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland's
hand, 'that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit
or drop.  Is it too late?'

'For completing the work you began so well last night?' returned
the old gentleman.  'No.  Set your mind at rest on that point.  It
is not, I assure you.'

Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his
food with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest
in the eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat.
The manner of this meal was this:--Mr Swiveller, holding the slice
of toast or cup of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or
drink, as the case might be, constantly kept, in his right, one
palm of the Marchioness tight locked; and to shake, or even to kiss
this imprisoned hand, he would stop every now and then, in the very
act of swallowing, with perfect seriousness of intention, and the
utmost gravity.  As often as he put anything into his mouth,
whether for eating or drinking, the face of the Marchioness lighted
up beyond all description; but whenever he gave her one or other of
these tokens of recognition, her countenance became overshadowed,
and she began to sob.  Now, whether she was in her laughing joy, or
in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help turning to the
visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say, 'You see this
fellow--can I help this?'--and they, being thus made, as it were,
parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look, 'No.
Certainly not.'  This dumb-show, taking place during the whole time
of the invalid's breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and
emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly
questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was
spoken from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in
themselves so slight and unimportant.

At length--and to say the truth before very long--Mr Swiveller
had despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his
recovery it was discreet to let him have.  But the cares of the
Marchioness did not stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and
presently returning with a basin of fair water, she laved his face
and hands, brushed his hair, and in short made him as spruce and
smart as anybody under such circumstances could be made; and all
this, in as brisk and business-like a manner, as if he were a very
little boy, and she his grown-up nurse.  To these various
attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in a kind of grateful
astonishment beyond the reach of language.  When they were at last
brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn into a distant
corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by that time),
he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook hands
heartily with the air.

'Gentlemen,' said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and
turning round again, 'you'll excuse me.  Men who have been brought
so low as I have been, are easily fatigued.  I am fresh again now,
and fit for talking.  We're short of chairs here, among other
trifles, but if you'll do me the favour to sit upon the bed--'

'What can we do for you?' said Mr Garland, kindly.

'if you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real,
sober earnest,' returned Dick, 'I'd thank you to get it done
off-hand.  But as you can't, and as the question is not what you
will do for me, but what you will do for somebody else who has a
better claim upon you, pray sir let me know what you intend doing.'

'It's chiefly on that account that we have come just now,' said the
single gentleman, 'for you will have another visitor presently.  We
feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what
steps we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we
stirred in the matter.'

'Gentlemen,' returned Dick, 'I thank you.  Anybody in the helpless
state that you see me in, is naturally anxious.  Don't let me
interrupt you, sir.'

'Then, you see, my good fellow,' said the single gentleman, 'that
while we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure,
which has so providentially come to light--'

'Meaning hers?' said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.

'--Meaning hers, of course.  While we have no doubt of that, or
that a proper use of it would procure the poor lad's immediate
pardon and liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by
itself, enable us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany.
I should tell you that this doubt has been confirmed into something
very nearly approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been
enabled, in this short space of time, to take upon the subject.
You'll agree with us, that to give him even the most distant chance
of escape, if we could help it, would be monstrous.  You say with
us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.'

'Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly.  That is if somebody must--but
upon my word, I'm unwilling that Anybody should.  Since laws were
made for every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me--
and so forth you know--doesn't it strike you in that light?'

The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller
had put the question were not the clearest in the world, and
proceeded to explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem
in the first instance; and that their design was to endeavour to
extort a confession from the gentle Sarah.

'When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said,
'and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without
strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the
other two effectually.  If we could do that, she might go scot-free
for aught I cared.'

Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner,
representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing,
that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to
manage than Quilp himself--that, for any tampering, terrifying, or
cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject--that
she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape--
in short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally
defeated.  But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other
course.  The single gentleman has been described as explaining
their joint intentions, but it should have been written that they
all spoke together; that if any one of them by chance held his
peace for a moment, he stood gasping and panting for an opportunity
to strike in again: in a word, that they had reached that pitch of
impatience and anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor
reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to turn the most
impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider
their determination.  So, after telling Mr Swiveller how they had
not lost sight of Kit's mother and the children; how they had never
once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in
their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they
had been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his
guilt, and their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he,
Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for everything
should be happily adjusted between that time and night;--after
telling him all this, and adding a great many kind and cordial
expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to
recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, took
their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard Swiveller must
assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof the results
might have been fatal.

Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the
room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the
setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of
a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and
made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again.
Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and
hobbled to the door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a
strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room
and presently unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and
coffee, and wine, and rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls
ready trussed for boiling, and calves'-foot jelly, and arrow-root,
and sago, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant,
who had never thought it possible that such things could be, except
in shops, stood rooted to the spot in her one shoe, with her mouth
and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone.
But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who emptied the hamper, big
as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice old lady, who
appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the hamper too
(it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on tiptoe and
without noise--now here, now there, now everywhere at once--began
to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken broth in
small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to cut
them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses
of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat
could be prepared for her refreshment.  The whole of which
appearances were so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller,
when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the
strong man walk off with the empty basket, plainly leaving all that
abundance for his use and benefit, was fain to lie down and fall
asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his
mind.

Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland,
repaired to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and
sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms
mysterious and brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to
consult her, with her company there, as speedily as possible.  The
communication performed its errand so well, that within ten minutes
of the messenger's return and report of its delivery, Miss Brass
herself was announced.

'Pray ma'am,' said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in
the room, 'take a chair.'

Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and
seemed--as indeed she was--not a little astonished to find that
the lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same
person.

'You did not expect to see me?' said the single gentleman.

'I didn't think much about it,' returned the beauty.  'I supposed
it was business of some kind or other.  If it's about the
apartments, of course you'll give my brother regular notice, you
know--or money.  That's very easily settled.  You're a responsible
party, and in such a case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty
much the same.'

'I am obliged to you for your good opinion,' retorted the single
gentleman, 'and quite concur in these sentiments.  But that is not
the subject on which I wish to speak with you.'

'Oh!' said Sally.  'Then just state the particulars, will you?  I
suppose it's professional business?'

'Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.'

'Very well,' returned Miss Brass.  'My brother and I are just the
same.  I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.'

'As there are other parties interested besides myself,' said the
single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, 'we
had better confer together.  Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.'
Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and,
drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman,
formed a kind of fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into
a corner.  Her brother Sampson under such circumstances would
certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but she--all
composure--pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a pinch of
snuff.

'Miss Brass,' said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, 'we
professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can
say what we have to say, in very few words.  You advertised a
runaway servant, the other day?'

'Well,' returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her
features, 'what of that?'

'She is found, ma'am,' said the Notary, pulling out his pocket-
handkerchief with a flourish.  'She is found.'

'Who found her?' demanded Sarah hastily.

'We did, ma'am--we three.  Only last night, or you would have
heard from us before.'

'And now I have heard from you,' said Miss Brass, folding her arms
as though she were about to deny something to the death, 'what have
you got to say?  Something you have got into your heads about her,
of course.  Prove it, will you--that's all.  Prove it.  You have
found her, you say.  I can tell you (if you don't know it) that you
have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx
that was ever born.--Have you got her here?' she added, looking
sharply round.

'No, she is not here at present,' returned the Notary.  'But she is
quite safe.'

'Ha!' cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as
spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the
small servant's nose; 'she shall be safe enough from this time, I
warrant you.'

'I hope so,' replied the Notary.  'Did it occur to you for the
first time, when you found she had run away, that there were two
keys to your kitchen door?'

Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side,
looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her
mouth, but with a cunning aspect of immense expression.

'Two keys,' repeated the Notary; 'one of which gave her the
opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you
supposed her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential
consultations--among others, that particular conference, to be
described to-day before a justice, which you will have an
opportunity of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr
Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and
innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of
which I will only say that it may be characterised by the epithets
which you have applied to this wretched little witness, and by a
few stronger ones besides.'

Sally took another pinch.  Although her face was wonderfully
composed, it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise,
and that what she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with
her small servant, was something very different from this.

'Come, come, Miss Brass,' said the Notary, 'you have great command
of feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never
entered your imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of
its plotters must be brought to justice.  Now, you know the pains
and penalties you are liable to, and so I need not dilate upon
them, but I have a proposal to make to you.  You have the honour of
being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I
may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every respect quite
worthy of him.  But connected with you two is a third party, a
villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole
diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either.  For his
sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history of
this affair.  Let me remind you that your doing so, at our
instance, will place you in a safe and comfortable position--your
present one is not desirable--and cannot injure your brother; for
against him and you we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear)
already.  I will not say to you that we suggest this course in
mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not entertain any regard
for you), but it is a necessity to which we are reduced, and I
recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy.  Time,'
said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, 'in a business like this,
is exceedingly precious.  Favour us with your decision as speedily
as possible, ma'am.'

With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by
turns, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and
having by this time very little left, travelled round and round the
box with her forefinger and thumb, scraping up another.  Having
disposed of this likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket,
she said,--

'I am to accept or reject at once, am I?'

'Yes,' said Mr Witherden.

The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when
the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was
thrust into the room.

'Excuse me,' said the gentleman hastily.  'Wait a bit!'

So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence
occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as
servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.

'Sarah,' said Brass, 'hold your tongue if you please, and let me
speak.  Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to
see three such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of
sentiment, I think you would hardly believe me.  But though I am
unfortunate--nay, gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh
expressions in a company like this--still, I have my feelings like
other men.  I have heard of a poet, who remarked that feelings were
the common lot of all.  If he could have been a pig, gentlemen, and
have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been immortal.'

'If you're not an idiot,' said Miss Brass harshly, 'hold your
peace.'

'Sarah, my dear,' returned her brother, 'thank you.  But I know
what I am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing
myself accordingly.  Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is
hanging out of your pocket--would you allow me to--,

As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk
from him with an air of disgust.  Brass, who over and above his
usual prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade
over one eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and
looked round with a pitiful smile.

'He shuns me,' said Sampson, 'even when I would, as I may say, heap
coals of fire upon his head.  Well!  Ah! But I am a falling house,
and the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a
gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me!
Gentlemen--regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see
my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going
to, and being--may I venture to say?--naturally of a suspicious
turn, followed her.  Since then, I have been listening.'

'If you're not mad,' interposed Miss Sally, 'stop there, and say no
more.'

'Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, 'I
thank you kindly, but will still proceed.  Mr Witherden, sir, as we
have the honour to be members of the same profession--to say
nothing of that other gentleman having been my lodger, and having
partaken, as one may say, of the hospitality of my roof--I think
you might have given me the refusal of this offer in the first
instance.  I do indeed.  Now, my dear Sir,' cried Brass, seeing
that the Notary was about to interrupt him, 'suffer me to speak, I
beg.'

Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.

'If you will do me the favour,' he said, holding up the green
shade, and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, 'to look at
this, you will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get
it.  If you look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could
have been the cause of all these scratches.  And if from them to my
hat, how it came into the state in which you see it.  Gentlemen,'
said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, 'to
all these questions I answer--Quilp!'

The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.

'I say,' pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he
were talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling
malignity, in violent contrast to his usual smoothness, 'that I
answer to all these questions,--Quilp--Quilp, who deludes me into
his infernal den, and takes a delight in looking on and chuckling
while I scorch, and burn, and bruise, and maim myself--Quilp, who
never once, no never once, in all our communications together, has
treated me otherwise than as a dog--Quilp, whom I have always
hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately.  He gives
me the cold shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing
to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it.  I can't
trust him.  In one of his howling, raving, blazing humours, I
believe he'd let it out, if it was murder, and never think of
himself so long as he could terrify me.  Now,' said Brass, picking
up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually
crouching down, in the excess of his servility, 'What does all this
lead to?--what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?--could you
guess at all near the mark?'

Nobody spoke.  Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he
had propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:

'To be short with you, then, it leads me to this.  If the truth has
come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there's no standing up
against--and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen,
in its way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as
thunder-storms and that, we're not always over and above glad to
see it--I had better turn upon this man than let this man turn
upon me.  It's clear to me that I am done for.  Therefore, if
anybody is to split, I had better be the person and have the
advantage of it.  Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking you're
safe.  I relate these circumstances for my own profit.'

With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story;
bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making
himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though
subject--he acknowledged--to human weaknesses.  He concluded
thus:

'Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves.  Being
in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound.
You must do with me what you please, and take me where you please.
If you wish to have this in writing, we'll reduce it into
manuscript immediately.  You will be tender with me, I am sure.  I
am quite confident you will be tender with me.  You are men of
honour, and have feeling hearts.  I yielded from necessity to
Quilp, for though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers.  I
yield to you from necessity too; from policy besides; and because
of feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me.
Punish Quilp, gentlemen.  Weigh heavily upon him.  Grind him down.
Tread him under foot.  He has done as much by me, for many and many
a day.'

Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson
checked the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and
smiled as only parasites and cowards can.

'And this,' said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had
hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to
foot with a bitter sneer, 'this is my brother, is it!  This is my
brother, that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have
had something of the man in him!'

'Sarah, my dear,' returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; you
disturb our friends.  Besides you--you're disappointed, Sarah,
and, not knowing what you say, expose yourself.'

'Yes, you pitiful dastard,' retorted the lovely damsel, 'I
understand you.  You feared that I should be beforehand with you.
But do you think that I would have been enticed to say a word!  I'd
have scorned it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty
years.'

'He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed
to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her
any spark of manliness he might have possessed.  'You think so,
Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite
different, my good fellow.  You will not have forgotten that it was
a maxim with Foxey--our revered father, gentlemen--"Always
suspect everybody."  That's the maxim to go through life with!  If
you were not actually about to purchase your own safety when I
showed myself, I suspect you'd have done it by this time.  And
therefore I've done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well
as the shame.  The shame, gentlemen,' added Brass, allowing himself
to be slightly overcome, 'if there is any, is mine.  It's better
that a female should be spared it.'

With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more
particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be
doubted, with humility, whether the elevating principle laid down
by the latter gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is
always a prudent one, or attended in practice with the desired
results.  This is, beyond question, a bold and presumptuous doubt,
inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men of the world,
long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands
at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom
their polar star and compass.  Still, the doubt may be gently
insinuated.  And in illustration it may be observed, that if Mr
Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without prying and
listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their joint
behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty
hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his
distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much
better off in the end.  Thus, it will always happen that these men
of the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from
quite as much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and
absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of
wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.

The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments.  At
the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary
pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr
Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had
the opportunity of doing so.  At the same time he felt bound to
tell him that they would require his attendance, presently, before
a justice of the peace, and that in what he did or said, he was
guided entirely by his own discretion.

'Gentlemen,' said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in
spirit upon the ground before them, 'I will justify the tenderness
with which I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness,
I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst
position of the three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean
breast.  Mr Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits--
if you would do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a
glass of something warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what
has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in drinking your good
health.  I had hoped,' said Brass, looking round with a mournful
smile, 'to have seen you three gentlemen, one day or another, with
your legs under the mahogany in my humble parlour in the Marks.
But hopes are fleeting.  Dear me!'

Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that
he could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived.
Having partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state,
he sat down to write.

The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands
clasped behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her
brother was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her
snuff-box and bite the lid.  She continued to pace up and down
until she was quite tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the
door.

It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was
a sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the
dusk of the afternoon.  Whether this was an intentional and waking
departure, or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her
sleep, may remain a subject of contention; but, on one point (and
indeed the main one) all parties are agreed.  In whatever state she
walked away, she certainly did not walk back again.

Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be
inferred that Mr Brass's task occupied some time in the completion.
It was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that
worthy person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to
the private office of a justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm
reception and detaining him in a secure place that he might insure
to himself the pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the
others with the cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to
be granted next day for the apprehension of Mr Quilp, and that a
proper application and statement of all the circumstances to the
secretary of state (who was fortunately in town), would no doubt
procure Kit's free pardon and liberation without delay.

And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp's malignant career was
drawing to a close, and that retribution, which often travels
slowly--especially when heaviest--had tracked his footsteps with
a sure and certain scent and was gaining on him fast.  Unmindful of
her stealthy tread, her victim holds his course in fancied triumph.
Still at his heels she comes, and once afoot, is never turned
aside!

Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the
lodgings of Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably
in his recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour,
and to have conversed with cheerfulness.  Mrs Garland had gone home
some time since, but Mr Abel was still sitting with him.  After
telling him all they had done, the two Mr Garlands and the single
gentleman, as if by some previous understanding, took their leaves
for the night, leaving the invalid alone with the Notary and the
small servant.

'As you are so much better,' said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the
bedside, 'I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which
has come to me professionally.'

The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman
connected with legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing
but a pleasing anticipation.  Perhaps he connected it in his own
mind with one or two outstanding accounts, in reference to which he
had already received divers threatening letters.  His countenance
fell as he replied,

'Certainly, sir.  I hope it's not anything of a very disagreeable
nature, though?'

'if I thought it so, I should choose some better time for
communicating it,' replied the Notary.  'Let me tell you, first,
that my friends who have been here to-day, know nothing of it, and
that their kindness to you has been quite spontaneous and with no
hope of return.  It may do a thoughtless, careless man, good, to
know that.'

Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would.

'I have been making some inquiries about you,' said Mr Witherden,
'little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as
those which have brought us together.  You are the nephew of
Rebecca Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in
Dorsetshire.'

'Deceased!' cried Dick.

'Deceased.  If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have
come into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to
doubt it) of five-and-twenty thousand pounds.  As it is, you have
fallen into an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but
I think I may congratulate you even upon that.'

'Sir,' said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, 'you may.  For,
please God, we'll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet!  And
she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I
never rise from this bed again!'




CHAPTER 67


Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last
chapter, and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung
beneath him (for, to the end that he should have no warning of the
business a-foot, the profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole
transaction), Mr Quilp remained shut up in his hermitage,
undisturbed by any suspicion, and extremely well satisfied with the
result of his machinations.  Being engaged in the adjustment of
some accounts--an occupation to which the silence and solitude of
his retreat were very favourable--he had not strayed from his den
for two whole days.  The third day of his devotion to this pursuit
found him still hard at work, and little disposed to stir abroad.

It was the day next after Mr Brass's confession, and consequently,
that which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp's liberty, and
the abrupt communication to him of some very unpleasant and
unwelcome facts.  Having no intuitive perception of the cloud which
lowered upon his house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of
cheerfulness; and, when he found he was becoming too much engrossed
by business with a due regard to his health and spirits, he varied
its monotonous routine with a little screeching, or howling, or
some other innocent relaxation of that nature.

He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the
fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his
master's back was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful
exactness.  The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained
in its old place.  The face, horribly seared by the frequent
application of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the
insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled
blandly in its less lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy
martyr, to provoke its tormentor to the commission of new outrages
and insults.
The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was
damp, dark, cold and gloomy.  In that low and marshy spot, the fog
filled every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud.  Every
object was obscure at one or two yards' distance.  The warning
lights and fires upon the river were powerless beneath this pall,
and, but for a raw and piercing chillness in the air, and now and
then the cry of some bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars
and tried to make out where he was, the river itself might have
been miles away.

The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly
searching kind.  No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out.
It seemed to penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking
wayfarers, and to rack them with cold and pains.  Everything was
wet and clammy to the touch.  The warm blaze alone defied it, and
leaped and sparkled merrily.  It was a day to be at home, crowding
about the fire, telling stories of travellers who had lost their
way in such weather on heaths and moors; and to love a warm hearth
more than ever.

The dwarf's humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself;
and when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone.
By no means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he
ordered Tom Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and,
dismissing his work for that day, determined to be jovial.

To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on
the fire; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself
in somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great
bowl of hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the
evening.

At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his
attention.  When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly
opened the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who
was there.

'Only me, Quilp,' replied a woman's voice.

'Only you!' cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better
view of his visitor.  'And what brings you here, you jade?  How
dare you approach the ogre's castle, eh?'

'I have come with some news,' rejoined his spouse.  'Don't be angry
with me.'

'Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap
his fingers?' said the dwarf.  'Is the dear old lady dead?'

'I don't know what news it is, or whether it's good or bad,'
rejoined his wife.

'Then she's alive,' said Quilp, 'and there's nothing the matter
with her.  Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!'
'I have brought a letter,' cried the meek little woman.

'Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,' said Quilp,
interrupting her, 'or I'll come out and scratch you.'

'No, but please, Quilp--do hear me speak,' urged his submissive
wife, in tears.  'Please do!'

'Speak then,' growled the dwarf with a malicious grin.  'Be quick
and short about it.  Speak, will you?'

'It was left at our house this afternoon,' said Mrs Quilp,
trembling, 'by a boy who said he didn't know from whom it came, but
that it was given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it
must be brought on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest
consequence.--But please,' she added, as her husband stretched
out his hand for it, 'please let me in.  You don't know how wet and
cold I am, or how many times I have lost my way in coming here
through this thick fog.  Let me dry myself at the fire for five
minutes.  I'll go away directly you tell me to, Quilp.  Upon my
word I will.'

Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking
himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she
could be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade
her enter.  Mrs Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down
before the fire to warm her hands, delivered into his a little
packet.

'I'm glad you're wet,' said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at
her.  'I'm glad you're cold.  I'm glad you lost your way.  I'm glad
your eyes are red with crying.  It does my heart good to see your
little nose so pinched and frosty.'

'Oh Quilp!' sobbed his wife.  'How cruel it is of you!'

'Did she think I was dead?' said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a
most extraordinary series of grimaces.  'Did she think she was
going to have all the money, and to marry somebody she liked?  Ha
ha ha!  Did she?'

These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who
remained on her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr
Quilp's great delight.  But, just as he was contemplating her, and
chuckling excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was
delighted too; wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous
partner in his glee, the dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him
to the door, and after a short scuffle, kicked him into the yard.
In return for this mark of attention, Tom immediately walked upon
his hands to the window, and--if the expression be allowable--
looked in with his shoes: besides rattling his feet upon the glass
like a Banshee upside down.  As a matter of course, Mr Quilp lost
no time in resorting to the infallible poker, with which, after
some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his young friend one or
two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished precipitately,
and left him in quiet possession of the field.

'So!  That little job being disposed of,' said the dwarf, coolly,
'I'll read my letter.  Humph!' he muttered, looking at the
direction.  'I ought to know this writing.  Beautiful Sally!'

Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows:

'Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence.  It has
all come out.  You had better not be in the way, for strangers are
going to call upon you.  They have been very quiet as yet, because
they mean to surprise you.  Don't lose time.  I didn't.  I am not
to be found anywhere.  If I was you, I wouldn't either.  S.  B.,
late of B.  M.'

To describe the changes that passed over Quilp's face, as he read
this letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language:
such, for power of expression, as was never written, read, or
spoken.  For a long time he did not utter one word; but, after a
considerable interval, during which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed
with the alarm his looks engendered, he contrived to gasp out,

'If I had him here.  If I only had him here--'

'Oh Quilp!' said his wife, 'what's the matter?  Who are you angry
with?'

'--I should drown him,' said the dwarf, not heeding her.  'Too easy
a death, too short, too quick--but the river runs close at hand.
Oh! if I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and
pleasantly,--holding him by the button-hole--joking with him,--
and, with a sudden push, to send him splashing down!  Drowning men
come to the surface three times they say.  Ah!  To see him those
three times, and mock him as his face came bobbing up,--oh, what
a rich treat that would be!'

'Quilp!' stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch
him on the shoulder: 'what has gone wrong?'

She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this
pleasure to himself that she could scarcely make herself
intelligible.

'Such a bloodless cur!' said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly,
and pressing them tight together.  'I thought his cowardice and
servility were the best guarantee for his keeping silence.  Oh
Brass, Brass--my dear, good, affectionate, faithful,
complimentary, charming friend--if I only had you here!'

His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these
mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak,
when he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering
his late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear
immediately.

'There!' said the dwarf, pulling him in.  'Take her home.  Don't
come here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up.  Come back no
more till you hear from me or see me.  Do you mind?'

Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way.

'As for you,' said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, 'ask no
questions about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning
me.  I shall not be dead, mistress, and that'll comfort you.  He'll
take care of you.'

'But, Quilp?  What is the matter?  Where are you going?  Do say
something more?'

'I'll say that,' said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, 'and do
that too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you
go directly.'

'Has anything happened?' cried his wife.  'Oh!  Do tell me that?'

'Yes,' snarled the dwarf.  'No.  What matter which?  I have told
you what to do.  Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me
by a hair's breadth.  Will you go!'

'I am going, I'll go directly; but,' faltered his wife, 'answer me
one question first.  Has this letter any connexion with dear little
Nell?  I must ask you that--I must indeed, Quilp.  You cannot
think what days and nights of sorrow I have had through having once
deceived that child.  I don't know what harm I may have brought
about, but, great or little, I did it for you, Quilp.  My
conscience misgave me when I did it.  Do answer me this question,
if you please?'

The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and
caught up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott
dragged his charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could.
It was well he did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage,
pursued them to the neighbouring lane, and might have prolonged the
chase but for the dense mist which obscured them from his view and
appeared to thicken every moment.

'It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,' he said, as
he returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run.
'Stay.  We may look better here.  This is too hospitable and free.'

By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which
were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam.
That done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried
them.--Strong and fast.

'The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,' said
the dwarf, when he had taken these precautions.  'There's a back
lane, too, from there.  That shall be my way out.  A man need know
his road well, to find it in this lovely place to-night.  I need
fear no unwelcome visitors while this lasts, I think.'

Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands
(it had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he
returned to his lair; and, after musing for some time over the
fire, busied himself in preparations for a speedy departure.

While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into
his pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low
voice, or unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on
finishing Miss Brass's note.

'Oh Sampson!' he muttered, 'good worthy creature--if I could but
hug you!  If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your
ribs, as I COULD squeeze them if I once had you tight--what a
meeting there would be between us!  If we ever do cross each other
again, Sampson, we'll have a greeting not easily to be forgotten,
trust me.  This time, Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so
well, was so nicely chosen!  It was so thoughtful of you, so
penitent, so good.  oh, if we were face to face in this room again,
my white-livered man of law, how well contented one of us would
be!'

There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank
a long deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his
parched mouth.  Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his
preparations, he went on with his soliloquy.

'There's Sally,' he said, with flashing eyes; 'the woman has
spirit, determination, purpose--was she asleep, or petrified?  She
could have stabbed him--poisoned him safely.  She might have seen
this coming on.  Why does she give me notice when it's too late?
When he sat there,--yonder there, over there,--with his white
face, and red head, and sickly smile, why didn't I know what was
passing in his heart?  It should have stopped beating, that night,
if I had been in his secret, or there are no drugs to lull a man to
sleep, or no fire to burn him!'

Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a
ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again.

'And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late
times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child--two
wretched feeble wanderers!  I'll be their evil genius yet.  And
you, sweet Kit, honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to
yourself.  Where I hate, I bite.  I hate you, my darling fellow,
with good cause, and proud as you are to-night, I'll have my turn.
--What's that?'

A knocking at the gate he had closed.  A loud and violent knocking.
Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen.
Then, the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before.
'So soon!' said the dwarf.  'And so eager!  I am afraid I shall
disappoint you.  It's well I'm quite prepared.  Sally, I thank
you!'

As he spoke, he extinguished the candle.  In his impetuous attempts
to subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which
came tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning
embers it had shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy
darkness.  The noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way
to the door, and stepped into the open air.

At that moment the knocking ceased.  It was about eight o'clock;
but the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in
comparison with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth,
and shrouded everything from view.  He darted forward for a few
paces, as if into the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then,
thinking he had gone wrong, changed the direction of his steps;
then stood still, not knowing where to turn.

'If they would knock again,' said Quilp, trying to peer into the
gloom by which he was surrounded, 'the sound might guide me!  Come!
Batter the gate once more!'

He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed.
Nothing was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals,
the distant barkings of dogs.  The sound was far away--now in one
quarter, now answered in another--nor was it any guide, for it
often came from shipboard, as he knew.

'If I could find a wall or fence,' said the dwarf, stretching out
his arms, and walking slowly on, 'I should know which way to turn.
A good, black, devil's night this, to have my dear friend here!  If
I had but that wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day
again.'

As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell--and next
moment was fighting with the cold dark water!

For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the
knocking at the gate again--could hear a shout that followed it--
could recognise the voice.  For all his struggling and plashing, he
could understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered
back to the point from which they started; that they were all but
looking on, while he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but
could not make an effort to save him; that he himself had shut and
barred them out.  He answered the shout--with a yell, which seemed
to make the hundred fires that danced before his eyes tremble and
flicker, as if a gust of wind had stirred them.  It was of no
avail.  The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on, upon
its rapid current.

Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water
with his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that
showed him some black object he was drifting close upon.  The hull
of a ship!  He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his
hand.  One loud cry, now--but the resistless water bore him down
before he could give it utterance, and, driving him under it,
carried away a corpse.

It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it
against the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass,
now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning
to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it
away, until, tired of the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp--
a dismal place where pirates had swung in chains through many a
wintry night--and left it there to bleach.

And there it lay alone.  The sky was red with flame, and the water
that bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it
flowed along.  The place the deserted carcass had left so recently,
a living man, was now a blazing ruin.  There was something of the
glare upon its face.  The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played
in a kind of mockery of death--such a mockery as the dead man
himself would have delighted in when alive--about its head, and
its dress fluttered idly in the night wind.




CHAPTER 68


Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad
voices, words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of
happiness--what a change is this!  But it is to such delights that
Kit is hastening.  They are awaiting him, he knows.  He fears he
will die of joy, before he gets among them.

They have prepared him for this, all day.  He is not to be carried
off to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first.  By degrees they
let him know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be
made, and perhaps he may be pardoned after all.  At last, the
evening being come, they bring him to a room where some gentlemen
are assembled.  Foremost among them is his good old master, who
comes and takes him by the hand.  He hears that his innocence is
established, and that he is pardoned.  He cannot see the speaker,
but he turns towards the voice, and in trying to answer, falls down
insensible.

They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear
this like a man.  Somebody says he must think of his poor mother.
It is because he does think of her so much, that the happy news had
overpowered him.  They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth
has gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with
sympathy for his misfortunes.  He has no ears for this.  His
thoughts, as yet, have no wider range than home.  Does she know it?
what did she say? who told her?  He can speak of nothing else.

They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a
while, until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them.
He is free to go.  Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is
time they went away.  The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake
hands with him.  He feels very grateful to them for the interest
they have in him, and for the kind promises they make; but the
power of speech is gone again, and he has much ado to keep his
feet, even though leaning on his master's arm.

As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail
who are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on
his release.  The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is
not quite hearty--there is something of surliness in his
compliments.  He looks upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has
obtained admission to that place on false pretences, who has
enjoyed a privilege without being duly qualified.  He may be a very
good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has no business there,
and the sooner he is gone, the better.

The last door shuts behind them.  They have passed the outer wall,
and stand in the open air--in the street he has so often pictured
to himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been
in all his dreams.  It seems wider and more busy than it used to
be.  The night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes!
One of the gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money
into his hand.  He has not counted it; but when they have gone a
few paces beyond the box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and
drops it in.

Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and,
taking Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home.  At first,
they can only travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on
before, because of the heavy fog.  But, as they get farther from
the river, and leave the closer portions of the town behind, they
are able to dispense with this precaution and to proceed at a
brisker rate.  On the road, hard galloping would be too slow for
Kit; but, when they are drawing near their journey's end, he begs
they may go more slowly, and, when the house appears in sight, that
they may stop--only for a minute or two, to give him time to
breathe.

But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly
to him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the
garden-gate.  Next minute, they are at the door.  There is a noise
of tongues, and tread of feet, inside.  It opens.  Kit rushes in,
and finds his mother clinging round his neck.

And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara's mother, still
holding the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day
when they little hoped to have such joy as this--there she is,
Heaven bless her, crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman
sobbed before; and there is little Barbara--poor little Barbara,
so much thinner and so much paler, and yet so very pretty--
trembling like a leaf and supporting herself against the wall; and
there is Mrs Garland, neater and nicer than ever, fainting away
stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is Mr Abel, violently
blowing his nose, and wanting to embrace everybody; and there is
the single gentleman hovering round them all, and constant to
nothing for an instant; and there is that good, dear, thoughtful
little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair,
with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring fearfully
without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of them are
for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and severally
commit all manner of follies.

And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves
again, and can find words and smiles, Barbara--that soft-hearted,
gentle, foolish little Barbara--is suddenly missed, and found to
be in a swoon by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she
falls into hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again,
and is, indeed, so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar
and cold water she is hardly a bit better at last than she was at
first.  Then, Kit's mother comes in and says, will he come and
speak to her; and Kit says 'Yes,' and goes; and he says in a kind
voice 'Barbara!' and Barbara's mother tells her that 'it's only
Kit;' and Barbara says (with her eyes closed all the time) 'Oh! but
is it him indeed?' and Barbara's mother says 'To be sure it is, my
dear; there's nothing the matter now.'  And in further assurance
that he's safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; and then Barbara
goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into another fit of
crying; and then Barbara's mother and Kit's mother nod to each
other and pretend to scold her--but only to bring her to herself
the faster, bless you!--and being experienced matrons, and acute
at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they comfort
Kit with the assurance that 'she'll do now,' and so dismiss him to
the place from whence he came.

Well!  In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters
of wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and
his friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob,
walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at
a most surprising pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges
which are to follow, and making the best use of his time, you may
believe.  Kit no sooner comes in, than that single gentleman (never
was such a busy gentleman) charges all the glasses--bumpers--and
drinks his health, and tells him he shall never want a friend while
he lives; and so does Mr Garland, and so does Mrs Garland, and so
does Mr Abel.  But even this honour and distinction is not all, for
the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of his pocket a massive
silver watch--going hard, and right to half a second--and upon
the back of this watch is engraved Kit's name, with flourishes all
over; and in short it is Kit's watch, bought expressly for him, and
presented to him on the spot.  You may rest assured that Mr and Mrs
Garland can't help hinting about their present, in store, and that
Mr Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the
happiest of the happy.

There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be
conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his
being an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of
slipping away and hurrying to the stable.  The moment he lays his
hand upon the latch, the pony neighs the loudest pony's greeting;
before he has crossed the threshold, the pony is capering about his
loose box (for he brooks not the indignity of a halter), mad to
give him welcome; and when Kit goes up to caress and pat him, the
pony rubs his nose against his coat, and fondles him more lovingly
than ever pony fondled man.  It is the crowning circumstance of his
earnest, heartfelt reception; and Kit fairly puts his arm round
Whisker's neck and hugs him.

But how comes Barbara to trip in there? and how smart she is again!
she has been at her glass since she recovered.  How comes Barbara
in the stable, of all places in the world?  Why, since Kit has been
away, the pony would take his food from nobody but her, and
Barbara, you see, not dreaming that Christopher was there, and just
looking in, to see that everything was right, has come upon him
unawares.  Blushing little Barbara!

It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough; it may be that
there are even better things to caress than ponies.  He leaves him
for Barbara at any rate, and hopes she is better.  Yes.  Barbara is
a great deal better.  She is afraid--and here Barbara looks down
and blushes more--that he must have thought her very foolish.
'Not at all,' says Kit.  Barbara is glad of that, and coughs--Hem!--
just the slightest cough possible--not more than that.

What a discreet pony when he chooses!  He is as quiet now as if he
were of marble.  He has a very knowing look, but that he always
has.  'We have hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,' says Kit.
Barbara gives him hers.  Why, she is trembling now!  Foolish,
fluttering Barbara!

Arm's length?  The length of an arm is not much.  Barbara's was not
a long arm, by any means, and besides, she didn't hold it out
straight, but bent a little.  Kit was so near her when they shook
hands, that he could see a small tiny tear, yet trembling on an
eyelash.  It was natural that he should look at it, unknown to
Barbara.  It was natural that Barbara should raise her eyes
unconsciously, and find him out.  Was it natural that at that
instant, without any previous impulse or design, Kit should kiss
Barbara?  He did it, whether or no.  Barbara said 'for shame,' but
let him do it too--twice.  He might have done it thrice, but the
pony kicked up his heels and shook his head, as if he were suddenly
taken with convulsions of delight, and Barbara being frightened,
ran away--not straight to where her mother and Kit's mother were,
though, lest they should see how red her cheeks were, and should
ask her why.  Sly little Barbara!

When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit
and his mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and
the baby to boot, had had their suppers together--which there was
no hurrying over, for they were going to stop there all night--Mr
Garland called Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they
could be alone, told him that he had something yet to say, which
would surprise him greatly.  Kit looked so anxious and turned so
pale on hearing this, that the old gentleman hastened to add, he
would be agreeably surprised; and asked him if he would be ready
next morning for a journey.

'For a journey, sir!' cried Kit.

'In company with me and my friend in the next room.  Can you guess
its purpose?'

Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head.

'Oh yes.  I think you do already,' said his master.  'Try.'

Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he
plainly pronounced the words 'Miss Nell,' three or four times--
shaking his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was
no hope of that.

But Mr Garland, instead of saying 'Try again,' as Kit had made sure
he would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right.

'The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,' he said, 'at
last.  And that is our journey's end.'

Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it
been found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?

'Happy she is, beyond all doubt,' said Mr Garland.  'And well, I--
I trust she will be soon.  She has been weak and ailing, as I
learn, but she was better when I heard this morning, and they were
full of hope.  Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.'

Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told.  Mr
Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would
remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he
was a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother lived
a long way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had
been his early friend.  How, although they loved each other as
brothers should, they had not met for many years, but had
communicated by letter from time to time, always looking forward to
some period when they would take each other by the hand once more,
and still letting the Present time steal on, as it was the habit
for men to do, and suffering the Future to melt into the Past.  How
this brother, whose temper was very mild and quiet and retiring--
such as Mr Abel's--was greatly beloved by the simple people among
whom he dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor (for so they called
him), and had every one experienced his charity and benevolence.
How even those slight circumstances had come to his knowledge, very
slowly and in course of years, for the Bachelor was one of those
whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in
discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in
trumpeting their own, be they never so commendable.  How, for that
reason, he seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for
all that, his mind had become so full of two among them--a child
and an old man, to whom he had been very kind--that, in a letter
received a few days before, he had dwelt upon them from first to
last, and had told such a tale of their wandering, and mutual love,
that few could read it without being moved to tears.  How he, the
recipient of that letter, was directly led to the belief that these
must be the very wanderers for whom so much search had been made,
and whom Heaven had directed to his brother's care.  How he had
written for such further information as would put the fact beyond
all doubt; how it had that morning arrived; had confirmed his first
impression into a certainty; and was the immediate cause of that
journey being planned, which they were to take to-morrow.

'In the meantime,' said the old gentleman rising, and laying his
hand on Kit's shoulder, 'you have a great need of rest; for such a
day as this would wear out the strongest man.  Good night, and
Heaven send our journey may have a prosperous ending!'




CHAPTER 69


Kit was no sluggard next morning, but, springing from his bed some
time before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition.  The
hurry of spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the
unexpected intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his
sleep through the long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams
about his pillow that it was rest to rise.

But, had it been the beginning of some great labour with the same
end in view--had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be
performed on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be
pursued under very privation and difficulty, and to be achieved
only with great distress, fatigue, and suffering--had it been the
dawn of some painful enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers
of resolution and endurance, and to need his utmost fortitude, but
only likely to end, if happily achieved, in good fortune and
delight to Nell--Kit's cheerful zeal would have been as highly
roused: Kit's ardour and impatience would have been, at least, the
same.

Nor was he alone excited and eager.  Before he had been up a
quarter of an hour the whole house were astir and busy.  Everybody
hurried to do something towards facilitating the preparations.  The
single gentleman, it is true, could do nothing himself, but he
overlooked everybody else and was more locomotive than anybody.
The work of packing and making ready went briskly on, and by
daybreak every preparation for the journey was completed.  Then Kit
began to wish they had not been quite so nimble; for the
travelling-carriage which had been hired for the occasion was not
to arrive until nine o'clock, and there was nothing but breakfast
to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half.
Yes there was, though.  There was Barbara.  Barbara was busy, to be
sure, but so much the better--Kit could help her, and that would
pass away the time better than any means that could be devised.
Barbara had no objection to this arrangement, and Kit, tracking out
the idea which had come upon him so suddenly overnight, began to
think that surely Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond
of Barbara.

Now, Barbara, if the truth must.be told--as it must and ought to
be--Barbara seemed, of all the little household, to take least
pleasure in the bustle of the occasion; and when Kit, in the
openness of his heart, told her how glad and overjoyed it made him,
Barbara became more downcast still, and seemed to have even less
pleasure in it than before!

'You have not been home so long, Christopher,' said Barbara--and
it is impossible to tell how carelessly she said it--'You have not
been home so long, that you need to be glad to go away again, I
should think.'

'But for such a purpose,' returned Kit.  'To bring back Miss Nell!
To see her again!  Only think of that!  I am so pleased too, to
think that you will see her, Barbara, at last.'

Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no gratification on
this point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one
little toss of her head, that Kit was quite disconcerted, and
wondered, in his simplicity, why she was so cool about it.

'You'll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever
saw, I know,' said Kit, rubbing his hands.  'I'm sure you'll say
that.'

Barbara tossed her head again.

'What's the matter, Barbara?' said Kit.

'Nothing,' cried Barbara.  And Barbara pouted--not sulkily, or in
an ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped
than ever.

There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in
which Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss.  He saw
what Barbara meant now--he had his lesson by heart all at once--
she was the book--there it was before him, as plain as print.

'Barbara,' said Kit, 'you're not cross with me?'

Oh dear no!  Why should Barbara be cross?  And what right had she
to be cross?  And what did it matter whether she was cross or not?
Who minded her!

'Why, I do,' said Kit.  'Of course I do.'

Barbara didn't see why it was of course, at all.

Kit was sure she must.  Would she think again?

Certainly, Barbara would think again.  No, she didn't see why it
was of course.  She didn't understand what Christopher meant.  And
besides she was sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and
she must go, indeed--

'No, but Barbara,' said Kit, detaining her gently, 'let us part
friends.  I was always thinking of you, in my troubles.  I should
have been a great deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn't been
for you.'

Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she coloured--and
when she trembled, like a little shrinking bird!

'I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so
strong as I could wish,' said Kit.  'When I want you to be pleased
to see Miss Nell, it's only because I like you to be pleased with
what pleases me--that's all.  As to her, Barbara, I think I could
almost die to do her service, but you would think so too, if you
knew her as I do.  I am sure you would.'

Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent.

'I have been used, you see,' said Kit, 'to talk and think of her,
almost as if she was an angel.  When I look forward to meeting her
again, I think of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to
see me, and putting out her hand and saying, "It's my own old Kit,"
or some such words as those--like what she used to say.  I think
of seeing her happy, and with friends about her, and brought up as
she deserves, and as she ought to be.  When I think of myself, it's
as her old servant, and one that loved her dearly, as his kind,
good, gentle mistress; and who would have gone--yes, and still
would go--through any harm to serve her.  Once, I couldn't help
being afraid that if she came back with friends about her she might
forget, or be ashamed of having known, a humble lad like me, and so
might speak coldly, which would have cut me, Barbara, deeper than
I can tell.  But when I came to think again, I felt sure that I was
doing her wrong in this; and so I went on, as I did at first,
hoping to see her once more, just as she used to be.  Hoping this,
and remembering what she was, has made me feel as if I would always
try to please her, and always be what I should like to seem to her
if I was still her servant.  If I'm the better for that--and I
don't think I'm the worse--I am grateful to her for it, and love
and honour her the more.  That's the plain honest truth, dear
Barbara, upon my word it is!'

Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and,
being full of remorse, melted into tears.  To what more
conversation this might have led, we need not stop to inquire; for
the wheels of the carriage were heard at that moment, and, being
followed by a smart ring at the garden gate, caused the bustle in
the house, which had laid dormant for a short time, to burst again
into tenfold life and vigour.

Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr Chuckster
in a hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the
single gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them.  This duty
discharged, he subsided into the bosom of the family; and,
entertaining himself with a strolling or peripatetic breakfast,
watched, with genteel indifference, the process of loading the
carriage.

'Snobby's in this, I see, Sir?' he said to Mr Abel Garland.  'I
thought he wasn't in the last trip because it was expected that his
presence wouldn't be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.'

'To whom, Sir?' demanded Mr Abel.

'To the old gentleman,' returned Mr Chuckster, slightly abashed.

'Our client prefers to take him now,' said Mr Abel, drily.  'There
is no longer any need for that precaution, as my father's
relationship to a gentleman in whom the objects of his search have
full confidence, will be a sufficient guarantee for the friendly
nature of their errand.'

'Ah!' thought Mr Chuckster, looking out of window, 'anybody but me!
Snobby before me, of course.  He didn't happen to take that
particular five-pound note, but I have not the smallest doubt that
he's always up to something of that sort.  I always said it, long
before this came out.  Devilish pretty girl that!  'Pon my soul, an
amazing little creature!'

Barbara was the subject of Mr Chuckster's commendations; and as she
was lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its
departure), that gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong
interest in the proceedings, which impelled him to swagger down the
garden, and take up his position at a convenient ogling distance.
Having had great experience of the sex, and being perfectly
acquainted with all those little artifices which find the readiest
road to their hearts, Mr Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted
one hand on his hip, and with the other adjusted his flowing hair.
This is a favourite attitude in the polite circles, and, accompanied
with a graceful whistling, has been known to do immense execution.

Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that
nobody took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure; the
wretches being wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell,
in kissing hands to each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like
tame and vulgar practices.  For now the single gentleman and Mr
Garland were in the carriage, and the post-boy was in the saddle,
and Kit, well wrapped and muffled up, was in the rumble behind; and
Mrs Garland was there, and Mr Abel was there, and Kit's mother was
there, and little Jacob was there, and Barbara's mother was visible
in remote perspective, nursing the ever-wakeful baby; and all were
nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or crying out, 'Good bye!' with all
the energy they could express.  In another minute, the carriage was
out of sight; and Mr Chuckster remained alone on the spot where it
had lately been, with a vision of Kit standing up in the rumble
waving his hand to Barbara, and of Barbara in the full light and
lustre of his eyes--his eyes--Chuckster's--Chuckster the
successful--on whom ladies of quality had looked with favour from
phaetons in the parks on Sundays--waving hers to Kit!

How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some
time rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was
the Prince of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul
of Snobs, and how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance
back to that old villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to
our purpose; which is to track the rolling wheels, and bear the
travellers company on their cold, bleak journey.

It was a bitter day.  A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against
them fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost
from the trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust.  But
little cared Kit for weather.  There was a freedom and freshness in
the wind, as it came howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp,
was welcome.  As it swept on with its cloud of frost, bearing down
the dry twigs and boughs and withered leaves, and carrying them
away pell-mell, it seemed as though some general sympathy had got
abroad, and everything was in a hurry, like themselves.  The harder
the gusts, the better progress they appeared to make.  It was a
good thing to go struggling and fighting forward, vanquishing them
one by one; to watch them driving up, gathering strength and fury
as they came along; to bend for a moment, as they whistled past;
and then to look back and see them speed away, their hoarse noise
dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering down before
them.

All day long, it blew without cessation.  The night was clear and
starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.
Sometimes--towards the end of a long stage--Kit could not help
wishing it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change
horses, and he had had a good run, and what with that, and the
bustle of paying the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and
running to and fro again until the horses were put to, he was so
warm that the blood tingled and smarted in his fingers' ends--
then, he felt as if to have it one degree less cold would be to
lose half the delight and glory of the journey: and up he jumped
again, right cheerily, singing to the merry music of the wheels as
they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople in their warm beds,
pursued their course along the lonely road.

Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to
sleep, beguiled the time with conversation.  As both were anxious
and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their
expedition, on the manner in which it had been brought about, and
on the hopes and fears they entertained respecting it.  Of the
former they had many, of the latter few--none perhaps beyond that
indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from suddenly awakened
hope, and protracted expectation.

In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night
had worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more
and more silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said
abruptly:

'Are you a good listener?'

'Like most other men, I suppose,' returned Mr Garland, smiling.  'I
can be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still
try to appear so.  Why do you ask?'

'I have a short narrative on my lips,' rejoined his friend, 'and
will try you with it.  It is very brief.'

Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman's
sleeve, and proceeded thus:

'There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly.  There
was a disparity in their ages--some twelve years.  I am not sure
but they may insensibly have loved each other the better for that
reason.  Wide as the interval between them was, however, they
became rivals too soon.  The deepest and strongest affection of
both their hearts settled upon one object.

'The youngest--there were reasons for his being sensitive and
watchful--was the first to find this out.  I will not tell you
what misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his
mental struggle was.  He had been a sickly child.  His brother,
patient and considerate in the midst of his own high health and
strength, had many and many a day denied himself the sports he
loved, to sit beside his couch, telling him old stories till his
pale face lighted up with an unwonted glow; to carry him in his
arms to some green spot, where he could tend the poor pensive boy
as he looked upon the bright summer day, and saw all nature healthy
but himself; to be, in any way, his fond and faithful nurse.  I may
not dwell on all he did, to make the poor, weak creature love him,
or my tale would have no end.  But when the time of trial came, the
younger brother's heart was full of those old days.  Heaven
strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of inconsiderate youth by
one of thoughtful manhood.  He left his brother to be happy.  The
truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the country, hoping to
die abroad.

'The elder brother married her.  She was in Heaven before long, and
left him with an infant daughter.

'If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you
will remember how the same face and figure--often the fairest and
slightest of them all--come upon you in different generations; and
how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits--
never growing old or changing--the Good Angel of the race--
abiding by them in all reverses--redeeming all their sins--

'In this daughter the mother lived again.  You may judge with what
devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to
this girl, her breathing image.  She grew to womanhood, and gave
her heart to one who could not know its worth.  Well!  Her fond
father could not see her pine and droop.  He might be more
deserving than he thought him.  He surely might become so, with a
wife like her.  He joined their hands, and they were married.

'Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the
cold neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he
brought upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life,
too mean and pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled
on, in the deep devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature,
as only women can.  Her means and substance wasted; her father
nearly beggared by her husband's hand, and the hourly witness (for
they lived now under one roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,--
she never, but for him, bewailed her fate.  Patient, and upheld by
strong affection to the last, she died a widow of some three weeks'
date, leaving to her father's care two orphans; one a son of ten or
twelve years old; the other a girl--such another infant child--
the same in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature--as she had
been herself when her young mother died.

'The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a
broken man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years
than by the heavy hand of sorrow.  With the wreck of his
possessions, he began to trade--in pictures first, and then in
curious ancient things.  He had entertained a fondness for such
matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to
yield him an anxious and precarious subsistence.

'The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like
her mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked
into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched
dream, and his daughter were a little child again.  The wayward boy
soon spurned the shelter of his roof, and sought associates more
congenial to his taste.  The old man and the child dwelt alone
together.

'It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest
and dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight
creature; when her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from
hour to hour, of the too early change he had seen in such another--
of all the sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child
had undergone; when the young man's profligate and hardened course
drained him of money as his father's had, and even sometimes
occasioned them temporary privation and distress; it was then that
there began to beset him, and to be ever in his mind, a gloomy
dread of poverty and want.  He had no thought for himself in this.
His fear was for the child.  It was a spectre in his house, and
haunted him night and day.

'The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and
had made his pilgrimage through life alone.  His voluntary
banishment had been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without
pain) reproach and slight for doing that which had wrung his heart,
and cast a mournful shadow on his path.  Apart from this,
communication between him and the elder was difficult, and
uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not so wholly broken off
but that he learnt--with long blanks and gaps between each
interval of information--all that I have told you now.

'Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him though
laden with pain and early care--visited his pillow yet oftener
than before; and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother's
side.  With the utmost speed he could exert, he settled his
affairs; converted into money all the goods he had; and, with
honourable wealth enough for both, with open heart and hand, with
limbs that trembled as they bore him on, with emotion such as men
can hardly bear and live, arrived one evening at his brother's
door!'

The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.

'The rest,' said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, 'I
know.'

'Yes,' rejoined his friend, 'we may spare ourselves the sequel.
You know the poor result of all my search.  Even when by dint of
such inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on
foot, we found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen--
and in time discovered the men themselves--and in time, the
actual place of their retreat; even then, we were too late.  Pray
God, we are not too late again!'

'We cannot be,' said Mr Garland.  'This time we must succeed.'

'I have believed and hoped so,' returned the other.  'I try to
believe and hope so still.  But a heavy weight has fallen on my
spirits, my good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will
yield to neither hope nor reason.'

'That does not surprise me,' said Mr Garland; 'it is a natural
consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time
and place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night.  A dismal
night, indeed!  Hark! how the wind is howling!'




CHAPTER 70


Day broke, and found them still upon their way.  Since leaving
home, they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and
had frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by
waiting for fresh horses.  They had made no other stoppages, but
the weather continued rough, and the roads were often steep and
heavy.  It would be night again before they reached their place of
destination.

Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and,
having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to
himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look
about him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for
thinking of discomforts.  Though his impatience, and that of his
fellow-travellers, rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours
did not stand still.  The short daylight of winter soon faded away,
and it was dark again when they had yet many miles to travel.

As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low
and mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling
covertly among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some
great phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled
as it stalked along.  By degrees it lulled and died away, and then
it came on to snow.

The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some
inches deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness.  The rolling
wheels were noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the
horses' hoofs, became a dull, muffled tramp.  The life of their
progress seemed to be slowly hushed, and something death-like to
usurp its place.

Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their
lashes and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the
earliest glimpse of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to
some not distant town.  He could descry objects enough at such
times, but none correctly.  Now, a tall church spire appeared in
view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the
ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps.  Now, there were
horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting
them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, turned
to shadows too.  A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up
in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be
the road itself.  Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of
water, appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful
and uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these
things, like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim
illusions.

He descended slowly from his seat--for his limbs were numbed--
when they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far
they had to go to reach their journey's end.  It was a late hour in
such by-places, and the people were abed; but a voice answered from
an upper window, Ten miles.  The ten minutes that ensued appeared
an hour; but at the end of that time, a shivering figure led out
the horses they required, and after another brief delay they were
again in motion.
It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four
miles, of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow,
were so many pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to
keep a footpace.  As it was next to impossible for men so much
agitated as they were by this time, to sit still and move so
slowly, all three got out and plodded on behind the carriage.  The
distance seemed interminable, and the walk was most laborious.  As
each was thinking within himself that the driver must have lost his
way, a church bell, close at hand, struck the hour of midnight, and
the carriage stopped.  It had moved softly enough, but when it
ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as startling as if some
great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness.

'This is the place, gentlemen,' said the driver, dismounting from
his horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn.  'Halloa!
Past twelve o'clock is the dead of night here.'

The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy
inmates.  All continued dark and silent as before.  They fell back
a little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black
patches in the whitened house front.  No light appeared.  The house
might have been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life
it had about it.

They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers;
unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now
raised.

'Let us go on,' said the younger brother, 'and leave this good
fellow to wake them, if he can.  I cannot rest until I know that we
are not too late.  Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!'

They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as
the house afforded, and to renew his knocking.  Kit accompanied
them with a little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when
they left home, and had not forgotten since--the bird in his old
cage--just as she had left him.  She would be glad to see her
bird, he knew.

The road wound gently downward.  As they proceeded, they lost sight
of the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village
clustering round it.  The knocking, which was now renewed, and
which in that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them.
They wished the man would forbear, or that they had told him not to
break the silence until they returned.

The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white,
again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close
beside it.  A venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the
hoary landscape.  An ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly
hidden by the snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was.
Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were
ever to displace the melancholy night.

A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path
across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to
take, they came to a stand again.

The village street--if street that could be called which was an
irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some
with their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends
towards the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed
encroaching on the path--was close at hand.  There was a faint
light in a chamber window not far off, and Kit ran towards that
house to ask their way.

His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently
appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as
a protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that
unseasonable hour, wanting him.

''Tis hard weather this,' he grumbled, 'and not a night to call me
up in.  My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from
bed.  The business on which folks want me, will keep cold,
especially at this season.  What do you want?'

'I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,'
said Kit.

'Old!' repeated the other peevishly.  'How do you know I am old?
Not so old as you think, friend, perhaps.  As to being ill, you
will find many young people in worse case than I am.  More's the
pity that it should be so--not that I should be strong and hearty
for my years, I mean, but that they should be weak and tender.  I
ask your pardon though,' said the old man, 'if I spoke rather rough
at first.  My eyes are not good at night--that's neither age nor
illness; they never were--and I didn't see you were a stranger.'

'I am sorry to call you from your bed,' said Kit, 'but those
gentlemen you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too,
who have just arrived from a long journey, and seek the
parsonage-house.  You can direct us?'

'I should be able to,' answered the old man, in a trembling voice,
'for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years.
The right hand path, friend, is the road.--There is no ill news
for our good gentleman, I hope?'

Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he
was turning back, when his attention was caught
by the voice of a child.  Looking up, he saw a very little creature
at a neighbouring window.

'What is that?' cried the child, earnestly.  'Has my dream come
true?  Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.'

'Poor boy!' said the sexton, before Kit could answer, 'how goes it,
darling?'
'Has my dream come true?' exclaimed the child again, in a voice so
fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener.
'But no, that can never be!  How could it be--Oh! how could it!'

'I guess his meaning,' said the sexton.  'To bed again, poor boy!'

'Ay!' cried the child, in a burst of despair.  'I knew it could
never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked!  But, all
to-night, and last night too, it was the same.  I never fall
asleep, but that cruel dream comes back.'

'Try to sleep again,' said the old man, soothingly.  'It will go in
time.'

'No no, I would rather that it staid--cruel as it is, I would
rather that it staid,' rejoined the child.  'I am not afraid to
have it in my sleep, but I am so sad--so very, very sad.'

The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and
Kit was again alone.

He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the
child's manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was
hidden from him.  They took the path indicated by the sexton, and
soon arrived before the parsonage wall.  Turning round to look
about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined
buildings at a distance, one single solitary light.

It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being
surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like
a star.  Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads,
lonely and motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with
the eternal lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.

'What light is that!' said the younger brother.

'It is surely,' said Mr Garland, 'in the ruin where they live.  I
see no other ruin hereabouts.'

'They cannot,' returned the brother hastily, 'be waking at this
late hour--'

Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and
waited at the gate, they would let him make his way to where this
light was shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about.
Obtaining the permission he desired, he darted off with breathless
eagerness, and, still carrying the birdcage in his hand, made
straight towards the spot.

It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another
time he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path.
Unmindful of all obstacles, however, he pressed forward without
slackening his speed, and soon arrived within a few yards of the
window.
He approached as softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall
as to brush the whitened ivy with his dress, listened.  There was
no sound inside.  The church itself was not more quiet.  Touching
the glass with his cheek, he listened again.  No.  And yet there
was such a silence all around, that he felt sure he could have
heard even the breathing of a sleeper, if there had been one there.

A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of
night, with no one near it.

A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he
could not see into the room.  But there was no shadow thrown upon
it from within.  To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to
look in from above, would have been attended with some danger--
certainly with some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child,
if that really were her habitation.  Again and again he listened;
again and again the same wearisome blank.

Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the
ruin for a few paces, he came at length to a door.  He knocked.  No
answer.  But there was a curious noise inside.  It was difficult to
determine what it was.  It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of
one in pain, but it was not that, being far too regular and
constant.  Now it seemed a kind of song, now a wail--seemed, that
is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself was never changed
or checked.  It was unlike anything he had ever heard; and in its
tone there was something fearful, chilling, and unearthly.

The listener's blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost
and snow, but he knocked again.  There was no answer, and the sound
went on without any interruption.  He laid his
hand softly upon the latch, and put his knee against the door.  It
was secured on the inside, but yielded to the pressure, and turned
upon its hinges.  He saw the glimmering of a fire upon the old
walls, and entered.




CHAPTER 71


The dull, red glow of a wood fire--for no lamp or candle burnt
within the room--showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with
its back towards him, bending over the fitful light.  The attitude
was that of one who sought the heat.  It was, and yet was not.  The
stooping posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands
were stretched out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver
compared its luxury with the piercing cold outside.  With limbs
huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast,
and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon its seat
without a moment's pause, accompanying the action with the mournful
sound he had heard.

The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash
that made him start.  The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look,
nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the
noise.  The form was that of an old man, his white head akin in
colour to the mouldering embers upon which he gazed.  He, and the
failing light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the
wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship.  Ashes, and dust,
and ruin!

Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they
were he scarcely knew.  Still the same terrible low cry went on--
still the same rocking in the chair--the same stricken figure was
there, unchanged and heedless of his presence.

He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form--
distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed
up--arrested it.  He returned to where he had stood before--
advanced a pace--another--another still.  Another, and he saw the
face.  Yes!  Changed as it was, he knew it well.

'Master!' he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand.
'Dear master.  Speak to me!'

The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow
voice,

'This is another!--How many of these spirits there have been
to-night!'

'No spirit, master.  No one but your old servant.  You know me now,
I am sure?  Miss Nell--where is she--where is she?'

'They all say that!' cried the old man.  'They all ask the same
question.  A spirit!'

'Where is she?' demanded Kit.  'Oh tell me but that,--but that,
dear master!'

'She is asleep--yonder--in there.'

'Thank God!'

'Aye!  Thank God!' returned the old man.  'I have prayed to Him,
many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been
asleep, He knows.  Hark!  Did she call?'

'I heard no voice.'

'You did.  You hear her now.  Do you tell me that you don't hear
THAT?'

He started up, and listened again.

'Nor that?' he cried, with a triumphant smile, 'Can any body know
that voice so well as I?  Hush!  Hush!'
Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber.
After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in
a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.

'She is still asleep,' he whispered.  'You were right.  She did not
call--unless she did so in her slumber.  She has called to me in
her sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen
her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that
she spoke of me.  I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake
her, so I brought it here.'

He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put
the lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some
momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face.
Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned
away and put it down again.

'She is sleeping soundly,' he said; 'but no wonder.  Angel hands
have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep
may be lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not
wake her.  She used to feed them, Sir.  Though never so cold and
hungry, the timid things would fly from us.  They never flew from
her!'

Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened
for a long, long time.  That fancy past, he opened an old chest,
took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things,
and began to smooth and brush them with his hand.

'Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he murmured, 'when
there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck
them!  Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends
come creeping to the door, crying "where is Nell--sweet Nell?"--
and sob, and weep, because they do not see thee.  She was always
gentle with children.  The wildest would do her bidding--she had
a tender way with them, indeed she had!'

Kit had no power to speak.  His eyes were filled with tears.

'Her little homely dress,--her favourite!' cried the old man,
pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand.
'She will miss it when she wakes.  They have hid it here in sport,
but she shall have it--she shall have it.  I would not vex my
darling, for the wide world's riches.  See here--these shoes--how
worn they are--she kept them to remind her of our last
long journey.  You see where the little feet went bare upon the
ground.  They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and
bruised them.  She never told me that.  No, no, God bless her! and,
I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might
not see how lame she was--but yet she had my hand in hers, and
seemed to lead me still.'

He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back
again, went on communing with himself--looking wistfully from time
to time towards the chamber he had lately visited.

'She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then.  We must
have patience.  When she is well again, she will rise early, as she
used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time.  I often
tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no
print upon the dewy ground, to guide me.  Who is that?  Shut the
door.  Quick!--Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble
cold, and keep her warm!'

The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his
friend, accompanied by two other persons.  These were the
schoolmaster, and the bachelor.  The former held a light in his
hand.  He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish
the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the
old man alone.

He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside
the angry manner--if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can
be applied--in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed
his former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old
action, and the old, dull, wandering sound.

Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever.  He had seen them, but
appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity.  The younger
brother stood apart.  The bachelor drew a chair towards the old
man, and sat down close beside him.  After a long silence, he
ventured to speak.

'Another night, and not in bed!' he said softly; 'I hoped you would
be more mindful of your promise to me.  Why do you not take some
rest?'

'Sleep has left me,' returned the old man.  'It is all with her!'

'It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,'
said the bachelor.  'You would not give her pain?'

'I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her.  She has
slept so very long.  And yet I am rash to say so.  It is a good and
happy sleep--eh?'

'Indeed it is,' returned the bachelor.  'Indeed, indeed, it is!'

'That's well!--and the waking--' faltered the old man.

'Happy too.  Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man
conceive.'

They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other
chamber where the lamp had been replaced.  They listened as he
spoke again within its silent walls.  They looked into the faces of
each other, and no man's cheek was free from tears.  He came back,
whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought she had
moved.  It was her hand, he said--a little--a very, very little--
but he was pretty sure she had moved it--perhaps in seeking his.
He had known her do that, before now, though in the deepest sleep
the while.  And when he had said this, he dropped into his chair
again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never
to be forgotten.

The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come
on the other side, and speak to him.  They gently unlocked his
fingers, which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in
their own.

'He will hear me,' said the schoolmaster, 'I am sure.  He will hear
either me or you if we beseech him.  She would, at all times.'

'I will hear any voice she liked to hear,' cried the old man.  'I
love all she loved!'

'I know you do,' returned the schoolmaster.  'I am certain of it.
Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have
shared together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures,
you have jointly known.'

'I do.  I do.  I think of nothing else.'

'I would have you think of nothing else to-night--of nothing but
those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it
to old affections and old times.  It is so that she would speak to
you herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.'

'You do well to speak softly,' said the old man.  'We will not wake
her.  I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile.
There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and
changeless.  I would have it come and go.  That shall be in
Heaven's good time.  We will not wake her.'

'Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when
you were Journeying together, far away--as she was at home, in the
old house from which you fled together--as she was, in the old
cheerful time,' said the schoolmaster.

'She was always cheerful--very cheerful,' cried the old man,
looking steadfastly at him.  'There was ever something mild and
quiet about her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy
nature.'

'We have heard you say,' pursued the schoolmaster, 'that in this
and in all goodness, she was like her mother.  You can think of,
and remember her?'

He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.

'Or even one before her,' said the bachelor.  'it is many years
ago, and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not
forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear to
you, even before you knew her worth or could read her heart?  Say,
that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant days--to
the time of your early life--when, unlike this fair flower, you
did not pass your youth alone.  Say, that you could remember, long
ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being but a child
yourself.  Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long
unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost
need came back to comfort and console you--'

'To be to you what you were once to him,' cried the younger,
falling on his knee before him; 'to repay your old affection,
brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at
your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans rolled
between us; to call to witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness
of bygone days, whole years of desolation.  Give me but one word of
recognition, brother--and never--no never, in the brightest
moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, we thought to
pass our lives together--have we been half as dear and precious to
each other as we shall be from this time hence!'

The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no
sound came from them in reply.

'If we were knit together then,' pursued the younger brother, 'what
will be the bond between us now!  Our love and fellowship began in
childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we
have proved it, and are but children at the last.  As many restless
spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the
world, retire in their decline to where they first drew breath,
vainly seeking to be children once again before they die, so we,
less fortunate than they in early life, but happier in its closing
scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish haunts, and
going home with no hope realised, that had its growth in manhood--
carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old yearnings
to each other--saving no fragment from the wreck of life, but that
which first endeared it--may be, indeed, but children as at first.
And even,' he added in an altered voice, 'even if what I dread to
name has come to pass--even if that be so, or is to be (which
Heaven forbid and spare us!)--still, dear brother, we are not
apart, and have that comfort in our great affliction.'

By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner
chamber, while these words were spoken.  He pointed there, as he
replied, with trembling lips.

'You plot among you to wean my heart from her.  You never will do
that--never while I have life.  I have no relative or friend but
her--I never had--I never will have.  She is all in all to me.
It is too late to part us now.'

Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he
went, he stole into the room.  They who were left behind, drew
close together, and after a few whispered words--not unbroken by
emotion, or easily uttered--followed him.  They moved so gently,
that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among
the group, and sounds of grief and mourning.

For she was dead.  There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest.
The solemn stillness was no marvel now.

She was dead.  No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace
of pain, so fair to look upon.  She seemed a creature fresh from
the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who
had lived and suffered death.

Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and
green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour.
'When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and
had the sky above it always.'  Those were her words.

She was dead.  Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead.  Her
little bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would
have crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong
heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless for ever.

Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and
fatigues?  All gone.  Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and
perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and
profound repose.

And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change.
Yes.  The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had
passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the
door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the
furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the
dying boy, there had been the same mild lovely look.  So shall we
know the angels in their majesty, after death.

The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand
tight folded to his breast, for warmth.  It was the hand she had
stretched out to him with her last smile--the hand that had led
him on, through all their wanderings.  Ever and anon he pressed it
to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it
was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those
who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.

She was dead, and past all help, or need of it.  The ancient rooms
she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning
fast--the garden she had tended--the eyes she had gladdened--the
noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour--the paths she had
trodden as it were but yesterday--could know her never more.

'It is not,' said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on
the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, 'it is not on earth that
Heaven's justice ends.  Think what earth is, compared with the
World to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; and
say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this
bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!'




CHAPTER 72


When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject
of their grief, they heard how her life had closed.

She had been dead two days.  They were all about her at the time,
knowing that the end was drawing on.  She died soon after daybreak.
They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the
night, but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep.  They could
tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of
her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes,
but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often
said 'God bless you!' with great fervour.  Waking, she never
wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music
which she said was in the air.  God knows.  It may have been.

Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that
they would kiss her once again.  That done, she turned to the old
man with a lovely smile upon her face--such, they said, as they
had never seen, and never could forget--and clung with both her
arms about his neck.  They did not know that she was dead, at
first.

She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were
like dear friends to her.  She wished they could be told how much
she thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked
together, by the river side at night.  She would like to see poor
Kit, she had often said of late.  She wished there was somebody to
take her love to Kit.  And, even then, she never
thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old, clear,
merry laugh.

For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a
quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered--save that she every day
became more earnest and more grateful to them--faded like the
light upon a summer's evening.

The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon
as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged
them to lay upon her breast.  It was he who had come to the window
overnight and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces
of small feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which
she lay, before he went to bed.  He had a fancy, it seemed, that
they had left her there alone; and could not bear the thought.

He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being
restored to them, just as she used to be.  He begged hard to see
her, saying that he would be very quiet, and that they need not
fear his being alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother
all day long when he was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him.
They let him have his wish; and indeed he kept his word, and was,
in his childish way, a lesson to them all.

Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once--except to her--
or stirred from the bedside.  But, when he saw her little
favourite, he was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as
though he would have him come nearer.  Then, pointing to the bed,
he burst into tears for the first time, and they who stood by,
knowing that the sight of this child had done him good, left them
alone together.

Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him
to take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him.
And when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly
shape from earthly eyes for ever, he led him away, that he might
not know when she was taken from him.

They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed.  It was
Sunday--a bright, clear, wintry afternoon--and as they traversed
the village street, those who were walking in their path drew back
to make way for them, and gave them a softened greeting.  Some
shook the old man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he
tottered by, and many cried 'God help him!' as he passed along.

'Neighbour!' said the old man, stopping at the cottage where
his young guide's mother dwelt, 'how is it that the folks are
nearly all in black to-day?  I have seen a mourning ribbon or a
piece of crape on almost every one.'

She could not tell, the woman said.  'Why, you yourself--you wear
the colour too?' he said.  'Windows are closed that never used to
be by day.  What does this mean?'

Again the woman said she could not tell.

'We must go back,' said the old man, hurriedly.  'We must see what
this is.'

'No, no,' cried the child, detaining him.  'Remember what you
promised.  Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so
often were, and where you found us, more than once, making those
garlands for her garden.  Do not turn back!'

'Where is she now?' said the old man.  'Tell me that.'

'Do you not know?' returned the child.  'Did we not leave her, but
just now?'

'True.  True.  It was her we left--was it?'

He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if
impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the
sexton's house.  He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the
fire.  Both rose up, on seeing who it was.

The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand.  It was the
action of an instant, but that, and the old man's look, were quite
enough.

'Do you--do you bury any one to-day)' he said, eagerly.

'No, no!  Who should we bury, Sir?' returned the sexton.

'Aye, who indeed!  I say with you, who indeed!'

'It is a holiday with us, good Sir,' returned the sexton mildly.
'We have no work to do to-day.'

'Why then, I'll go where you will,' said the old man, turning to
the child.  'You're sure of what you tell me?  You would not
deceive me?  I am changed, even in the little time since you last
saw me.'

'Go thy ways with him, Sir,' cried the sexton, 'and Heaven be with
ye both!'

'I am quite ready,' said the old man, meekly.  'Come, boy, come--'
and so submitted to be led away.

And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by night and
day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice--
rung its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so
good.  Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and
helpless infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride of
strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn
of life--to gather round her tomb.  Old men were there, whose eyes
were dim and senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten
years ago, and still been old--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the
palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the
closing of that early grave.  What was the death it would shut in,
to that which still could crawl and creep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen
snow that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting.
Under the porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought
her to that peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church
received her in its quiet shade.

They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a
time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement.  The
light streamed on it through the coloured window--a window, where
the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the
birds sang sweetly all day long.  With every breath of air that
stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling,
changing light, would fall upon her grave.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!  Many a young hand
dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard.  Some--
and they were not a few--knelt down.  All were sincere and
truthful in their sorrow.

The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers
closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone
should be replaced.  One called to mind how he had seen her sitting
on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she
was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky.  Another told, how he
had wondered much that one so delicate as she, should be so bold;
how she had never feared to enter the church alone at night, but
had loved to linger there when all was quiet, and even to climb the
tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon rays stealing
through the loopholes in the thick old wall.  A whisper went about
among the oldest, that she had seen and talked with angels; and
when they called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her
early death, some thought it might be so, indeed.  Thus, coming to
the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to
others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the
church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the mourning
friends.

They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down.  Then, when
the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the
sacred stillness of the place--when the bright moon poured in her
light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of
all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave--in that calm time,
when outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of
immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust
before them--then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned
away, and left the child with God.

Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will
teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn,
and is a mighty, universal Truth.  When Death strikes down the
innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the
panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy,
charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it.  Of every tear
that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is
born, some gentler nature comes.  In the Destroyer's steps there
spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path
becomes a way of light to Heaven.

It was late when the old man came home.  The boy had led him to his
own dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered
drowsy by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into
a deep sleep by the fireside.  He was perfectly exhausted, and they
were careful not to rouse him.  The slumber held him a long time,
and when he at length awoke the moon was shining.

The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching
at the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with
his little guide.  He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging
the old man to lean upon his arm, conducted him with slow and
trembling steps towards the house.

He repaired to her chamber, straight.  Not finding what he had left
there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they
were assembled.  From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster's
cottage, calling her name.  They followed close upon him, and when
he had vainly searched it, brought him home.

With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest,
they prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should
tell him.  Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare
his mind for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words
upon the happy lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at
last, the truth.  The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down
among them like a murdered man.

For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is
strong, and he recovered.

If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death--
the weary void--the sense of desolation that will come upon the
strongest minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at
every turn--the connection between inanimate and senseless things,
and the object of recollection, when every household god becomes a
monument and every room a grave--if there be any who have not
known this, and proved it by their own experience, they can never
faintly guess how, for many days, the old man pined and moped away
the time, and wandered here and there as seeking something, and had
no comfort.

Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up
in her.  He never understood, or seemed to care to understand,
about his brother.  To every endearment and attention he continued
listless.  If they spoke to him on this, or any other theme--save
one--he would hear them patiently for awhile, then turn away, and
go on seeking as before.

On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was
impossible to touch.  Dead!  He could not hear or bear the word.
The slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that
he had had when it was first spoken.  In what hope he lived, no man
could tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again--some
faint and shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him
from day to day more sick and sore at heart--was plain to all.

They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last
sorrow; of trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him.
His brother sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful
in such matters, and they came and saw him.  Some of the number
staid upon the spot, conversed with him when he would converse, and
watched him as he wandered up and down, alone and silent.  Move him
where they might, they said, he would ever seek to get back there.
His mind would run upon that spot.  If they confined him closely,
and kept a strict guard upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but
if he could by any means escape, he would surely wander back to
that place, or die upon the road.

The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any
influence with him.  At times he would suffer the child to walk by
his side, or would even take such notice of his presence as giving
him his hand, or would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the
head.  At other times, he would entreat him--not unkindly--to be
gone, and would not brook him near.  But, whether alone, or with
this pliant friend, or with those who would have given him, at any
cost or sacrifice, some consolation or some peace of mind, if
happily the means could have been devised; he was at all times the
same--with no love or care for anything in life--a broken-hearted
man.

At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with
his knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and
little basket full of such things as she had been used to carry,
was gone.  As they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a
frightened schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before,
sitting in the church--upon her grave, he said.

They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in
the attitude of one who waited patiently.  They did not disturb him
then, but kept a watch upon him all that day.  When it grew quite
dark, he rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to
himself, 'She will come to-morrow!'

Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and
still at night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, 'She will
come to-morrow!'

And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her
grave, for her.  How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant
country, of resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in
the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden--how many tones
of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form,
the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind--
how many visions of what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be--
rose up before him, in the old, dull, silent church!  He never
told them what he thought, or where he went.  He would sit with
them at night, pondering with a secret satisfaction, they could
see, upon the flight that he and she would take before night came
again; and still they would hear him whisper in his prayers, 'Lord!
Let her come to-morrow!'

The last time was on a genial day in spring.  He did not return at
the usual hour, and they went to seek him.  He was lying dead upon
the stone.

They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in
the church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered
hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together.




CHAPTER 73


The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler
thus far, now slackens in its pace, and stops.  It lies before the
goal; the pursuit is at an end.

It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have
borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.

Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm,
claim our polite attention.

Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the
justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to
protract his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under
his protection for a considerable time, during which the great
attention of his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he
was quite lost to society, and never even went abroad for exercise
saving into a small paved yard.  So well, indeed, was his modest
and retiring temper understood by those with whom he had to deal,
and so jealous were they of his absence, that they required a kind
of friendly bond to be entered into by two substantial
housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds a-piece, before
they would suffer him to quit their hospitable roof--doubting, it
appeared, that he would return, if once let loose, on any other
terms.  Mr Brass, struck with the humour of this jest, and carrying
out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his wide connection a
pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some halfpence short
of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail--for that was the
merry word agreed upon both sides.  These gentlemen being rejected
after twenty-four hours' pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to remain,
and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand jury
(who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other
wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with
a most facetious joy,--nay, the very populace entered into the
whim, and when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the
building where these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs
and carcases of kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into
shreds, which greatly increased the comicality of the thing, and
made him relish it the more, no doubt.

To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his
counsel, moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to
criminate himself, by assurances of safety and promises of pardon,
and claimed the leniency which the law extends to such confiding
natures as are thus deluded.  After solemn argument, this point
(with others of a technical nature, whose humorous extravagance it
would be difficult to exaggerate) was referred to the judges for
their decision, Sampson being meantime removed to his former
quarters.  Finally, some of the points were given in Sampson's
favour, and some against him; and the upshot was, that, instead of
being desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was
permitted to grace the mother country under certain insignificant
restrictions.

These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a
spacious mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and
boarded at the public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of
grey turned up with yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and
chiefly lived on gruel and light soup.  It was also required of him
that he should partake of their exercise of constantly ascending an
endless flight of stairs; and, lest his legs, unused to such
exertion, should be weakened by it, that he should wear upon one
ankle an amulet or charm of iron.  These conditions being arranged,
he was removed one evening to his new abode, and enjoyed, in common
with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the privilege of being
taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty's own carriages.

Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and
blotted out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been
always held in these latter times to be a great degradation and
reproach, and to imply the commission of some amazing villany--as
indeed it would seem to be the case, when so many worthless names
remain among its better records, unmolested.

Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad.  Some said with
confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and
had become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had
enlisted as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and
had been seen in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her
musket and looking out of a sentry-box in St james's Park, one
evening.  There were many such whispers as these in circulation;
but the truth appears to be that, after the lapse of some five
years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been
seen at all), two wretched people were more than once observed to
crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St Giles's, and to take
their way along the streets, with shuffling steps and cowering
shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as they went in
search of refuse food or disregarded offal.  These forms were never
beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the terrible
spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene hiding-places
of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture to creep
into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and Vice, and
Famine.  It was whispered by those who should have known, that
these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is
said, they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome
guise, close at the elbow of the shrinking passenger.

The body of Quilp being found--though not until some days had
elapsed--an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been
washed ashore.  The general supposition was that he had committed
suicide, and, this appearing to be favoured by all the
circumstances of his death, the verdict was to that effect.  He was
left to be buried with a stake through his heart in the centre of
four lonely roads.

It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous
ceremony had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been
secretly given up to Tom Scott.  But even here, opinion was
divided; for some said Tom dug them up at midnight, and carried
them to a place indicated to him by the widow.  It is probable that
both these stories may have had their origin in the simple fact of
Tom's shedding tears upon the inquest--which he certainly did,
extraordinary as it may appear.  He manifested, besides, a strong
desire to assault the jury; and being restrained and conducted out
of court, darkened its only window by standing on his head upon the
sill, until he was dexterously tilted upon his feet again by a
cautious beadle.

Being cast upon the world by his master's death, he determined to
go through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to
tumble for his bread.  Finding, however, his English birth an
insurmountable obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit
(notwithstanding that his art was in high repute and favour), he
assumed the name of an Italian image lad, with whom he had become
acquainted; and afterwards tumbled with extraordinary success, and
to overflowing audiences.  Little Mrs Quilp never quite forgave
herself the one deceit that lay so heavy on her conscience, and
never spoke or thought of it but with bitter tears.  Her husband
had no relations, and she was rich.  He had made no will, or she
would probably have been poor.  Having married the first time at
her mother's instigation, she consulted in her second choice nobody
but herself.  It fell upon a smart young fellow enough; and as he
made it a preliminary condition that Mrs Jiniwin should be
thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage
with no more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a
merry life upon the dead dwarf's money.

Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that
there was a change in their household, as will be seen presently),
and in due time the latter went into partnership with his friend
the notary, on which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and
great extent of dissipation.  Unto this ball there happened to be
invited the most bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom
Mr Abel happened to fall in love.  HOW it happened, or how they
found it out, or which of them first communicated the discovery to
the other, nobody knows.  But certain it is that in course of time
they were married; and equally certain it is that they were the
happiest of the happy; and no less certain it is that they deserved
to be so.  And it is pleasant to write down that they reared a
family; because any propagation of goodness and benevolence is no
small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no small subject
of rejoicing for mankind at large.

The pony preserved his character for independence and principle
down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long
one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr
of ponies.  He often went to and fro with the little phaeton
between Mr Garland's and his son's, and, as the old people and the
young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new
establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising
dignity.  He condescended to play with the children, as they grew
old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down
the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so
far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even to
look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any
one among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that
even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were
points between them far too serious for trifling.

He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for
when the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the
clergyman's decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and
amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least
resistance.  He did no work for two or three years before he died,
but lived in clover; and his last act (like a choleric old
gentleman) was to kick his doctor.

Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering
into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a
handsome stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in
redemption of the vow he had made upon his fevered bed.  After
casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of
her, he decided in favour of Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious
and genteel, and furthermore indicative of mystery.  Under this
title the Marchioness repaired, in tears, to the school of his
selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she
was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher
grade.  It is but bare justice to Mr Swiveller to say, that,
although the expenses of her education kept him in straitened
circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened in his
zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts
he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his monthly
visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary
gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in
quotation.

In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment
until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age--
good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider
seriously what was to be done next.  On one of his periodical
visits, while he was revolving this question in his mind, the
Marchioness came down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more
fresh than ever.  Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first
time, that if she would marry him, how comfortable they might be!
So Richard asked her; whatever she said, it wasn't No; and they
were married in good earnest that day week.  Which gave Mr
Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at divers subsequent periods
that there had been a young lady saving up for him after all.

A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden
a smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to
become its tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon
its occupation.  To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly
every Sunday to spend the day--usually beginning with breakfast--
and here he was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable
intelligence.  For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit,
protesting that he had a better opinion of him when he was supposed
to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he was shown to be
perfectly free of the crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had
in it something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but
another proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition.  By slow
degrees, however, he was reconciled to him in the end; and even
went so far as to honour him with his patronage, as one who had in
some measure reformed, and was therefore to be forgiven.  But he
never forgot or pardoned that circumstance of the shilling; holding
that if he had come back to get another he would have done well
enough, but that his returning to work out the former gift was a
stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition
could ever wash away.

Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic
and reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the
smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his
own mind the mysterious question of Sophronia's parentage.
Sophronia herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller,
putting various slight circumstances together, often thought Miss
Brass must know better than that; and, having heard from his wife
of her strange interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings
whether that person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able
to solve the riddle, had he chosen.  These speculations, however,
gave him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful,
affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an
occasional outbreak with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good sense
rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and
domesticated husband.  And they played many hundred thousand games
of cribbage together.  And let it be added, to Dick's honour, that,
though we have called her Sophronia, he called her the Marchioness
from first to last; and that upon every anniversary of the day on
which he found her in his sick room, Mr Chuckster came to dinner,
and there was great glorification.

The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr
James Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with
varying success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the
way of their profession, dispersed them in various directions, and
caused their career to receive a sudden check from the long and
strong arm of the law.  This defeat had its origin in the untoward
detection of a new associate--young Frederick Trent--who thus
became the unconscious instrument of their punishment and his own.

For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term,
living by his wits--which means by the abuse of every faculty that
worthily employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded,
sinks him far below them.  It was not long before his body was
recognised by a stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in
Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned; despite the
bruises and disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned
by some previous scuffle.  But the stranger kept his own counsel
until he returned home, and it was never claimed or cared for.

The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation
is more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his
lone retreat, and made him his companion and friend.  But the
humble village teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world,
and had become fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard.  Calmly
happy in his school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her
little mourner, he pursued his quiet course in peace; and was,
through the righteous gratitude of his friend--let this brief
mention suffice for that--a POOR school-master no more.

That friend--single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will--
had at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no
misanthropy or monastic gloom.  He went forth into the world, a
lover of his kind.  For a long, long time, it was his chief delight
to travel in the steps of the old man and the child (so far as he
could trace them from her last narrative), to halt where they had
halted, sympathise where they had suffered, and rejoice where they
had been made glad.  Those who had been kind to them, did not
escape his search.  The sisters at the school--they who were her
friends, because themselves so friendless--Mrs Jarley of the
wax-work, Codlin, Short--he found them all; and trust me, the man
who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.

Kit's story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and
many offers of provision for his future life.  He had no idea at
first of ever quitting Mr Garland's service; but, after serious
remonstrance and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate
the possibility of such a change being brought about in time.  A
good post was procured for him, with a rapidity which took away his
breath, by some of the gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the
offence laid to his charge, and who had acted upon that belief.
Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured from want, and
made quite happy.  Thus, as Kit often said, his great misfortune
turned out to be the source of all his subsequent prosperity.

Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry?  Of course
he married, and who should be his wife but Barbara?  And the best
of it was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle,
before the calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history,
had ever been encased in broadcloth pantaloons,--though that was
not quite the best either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle
too.  The delight of Kit's mother and of Barbara's mother upon the
great occasion is past all telling; finding they agreed so well on
that, and on all other subjects, they took up their abode together,
and were a most harmonious pair of friends from that time forth.
And hadn't Astley's cause to bless itself for their all going
together once a quarter--to the pit--and didn't Kit's mother
always say, when they painted the outside, that Kit's last treat
had helped to that, and wonder what the manager would feel if he
but knew it as they passed his house!

When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara
among them, and a pretty Barbara she was.  Nor was there wanting an
exact facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those
remote times when they taught him what oysters meant.  Of course
there was an Abel, own godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and
there was a Dick, whom Mr Swiveller did especially favour.  The
little group would often gather round him of a night and beg him to
tell again that story of good Miss Nell who died.  This, Kit would
do; and when they cried to hear it, wishing it longer too, he would
teach them how she had gone to Heaven, as all good people did; and
how, if they were good, like her, they might hope to be there too,
one day, and to see and know her as he had done when he was quite
a boy.  Then, he would relate to them how needy he used to be, and
how she had taught him what he was otherwise too poor to learn, and
how the old man had been used to say 'she always laughs at Kit;' at
which they would brush away their tears, and laugh themselves to
think that she had done so, and be again quite merry.

He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new
improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same.  The
old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was
in its place.  At first he would draw with his stick a square upon
the ground to show them where it used to stand.  But he soon became
uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he
thought, and these alterations were confusing.

Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do
things pass away, like a tale that is told!





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Old Curiosity Shop