The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

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.

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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 squarefolded

  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,

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  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