The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  anybody by what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

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  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  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,

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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,