The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  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

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  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,

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  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

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  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.

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  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