The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  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

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  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

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  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, cas
t 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.

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  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!'

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  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

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  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!'