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.'
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'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
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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.
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'I wonder who is more an
xious 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
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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
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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, an
d, 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
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