The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  such as the removal of papers on the desk, for instance?'

  But this was clearly shown to be quite impossible. Mr Swiveller,

  though an unwilling witness, could not help proving to

  demonstration, from the position in which it was found, that it

  must have been designedly secreted.

  'It's very distressing,' said Brass, 'immensely distressing, I am

  sure. When he comes to be tried, I shall be very happy to

  recommend him to mercy on account of his previous good character.

  I did lose money before, certainly, but it doesn't quite follow

  that he took it. The presumption's against him--strongly against

  him--but we're Christians, I hope?'

  'I suppose,' said the constable, looking round, 'that no gentleman

  here can give evidence as to whether he's been flush of money of

  late, Do you happen to know, Sir?'

  'He has had money from time to time, certainly,' returned Mr

  Garland, to whom the man had put the question. 'But that, as he

  always told me, was given him by Mr Brass himself.'

  'Yes to be sure,' said Kit eagerly. 'You can bear me out in that,

  Sir?'

  'Eh?' cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of

  stupid amazement.

  'The money you know, the half-crowns, that you gave me--from the

  lodger,' said Kit.

  'Oh dear me!' cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning heavily.

  'This is a bad case, I find; a very bad case indeed.'

  'What! Did you give him no money on account of anybody, Sir?'

  asked Mr Garland, with great anxiety.

  'I give him money, Sir!' returned Sampson. 'Oh, come you know,

  this is too barefaced. Constable, my good fellow, we had better be

  going.'

  'What!' shrieked Kit. 'Does he deny that he did? ask him,

  somebody, pray. Ask him to tell you whether he did or not!'

  'Did you, sir?' asked the notary.

  'I tell you what, gentlemen,' replied Brass, in a very grave

  manner, 'he'll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel

  any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some

  other tack. Did I, sir? Of course I never did.'

  'Gentlemen,' cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, 'Master, Mr

  Abel, Mr Witherden, every one of you--he did it! What I have done

  to offend him, I don't know, but this is a plot to ruin me. Mind,

  Page 318

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  gentlemen, it's a plot, and whatever comes of it, I will say with

  my dying breath that he put that note in my hat himself! Look at

  him, gentlemen! see how he changes colour. Which of us looks the

  guilty person--he, or I?'

  'You hear him, gentlemen?' said Brass, smiling, 'you hear him.

  Now, does this case strike you as assuming rather a black

  complexion, or does it not? Is it at all a treacherous case, do

  you think, or is it one of mere ordinary guilt? Perhaps,

  gentlemen, if he had not said this in your presence and I had

  reported it, you'd have held this to be impossible likewise, eh?'

  With such pacific and bantering remarks did Mr Brass refute the

  foul aspersion on his character; but the virtuous Sarah, moved by

  stronger feelings, and having at heart, perhaps, a more jealous

  regard for the honour of her family, flew from her brother's side,

  without any previous intimation of her design, and darted at the

  prisoner with the utmost fury. It would undoubtedly have gone hard

  with Kit's face, but that the wary constable, foreseeing her

  design, drew him aside at the critical moment, and thus placed Mr

  Chuckster in circumstances of some jeopardy; for that gentleman

  happening to be next the object of Miss Brass's wrath; and rage

  being, like love and fortune, blind; was pounced upon by the fair

  enslaver, and had a false collar plucked up by the roots, and his

  hair very much dishevelled, before the exertions of the company

  could make her sensible of her mistake.

  The constable, taking warning by this desperate attack, and

  thinking perhaps that it would be more satisfactory to the ends of

  justice if the prisoner were taken before a magistrate, whole,

  rather than in small pieces, led him back to the hackney-coach

  without more ado, and moreover insisted on Miss Brass becoming an

  outside passenger; to which proposal the charming creature, after

  a little angry discussion, yielded her consent; and so took her

  brother Sampson's place upon the box: Mr Brass with some reluctance

  agreeing to occupy her seat inside. These arrangements perfected,

  they drove to the justice-room with all speed, followed by the

  notary and his two friends in another coach. Mr Chuckster alone

  was left behind--greatly to his indignation; for he held the

  evidence he could have given, relative to Kit's returning to work

  out the shilling, to be so very material as bearing upon his

  hypocritical and designing character, that he considered its

  suppression little better than a compromise of felony.

  At the justice-room, they found the single gentleman, who had gone

  straight there, and was expecting them with desperate impatience.

  But not fifty single gentlemen rolled into one could have helped

  poor Kit, who in half an hour afterwards was committed for trial,

  and was assured by a friendly officer on his way to prison that

  there was no occasion to be cast down, for the sessions would soon

  be on, and he would, in all likelihood, get his little affair

  disposed of, and be comfortably transported, in less than a

  fortnight.

  CHAPTER 61

  Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very

  questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much

  misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in

  the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a

  Page 319

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim

  of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail

  to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come

  right at last; 'in which case,' say they who have hunted him down,

  '--though we certainly don't expect it--nobody will be better

  pleased than we.' Whereas, the world would do well to reflect,

  that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly

  constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable,

  the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and that many clear

  consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound

  hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the knowledge of

  their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and rendering

  them the less endurable.

  The world, however, was not in fault in Kit's case. But Kit was

  innocent; and knowing this, and feeling that his best friends

  deemed him guilty--that Mr and Mrs Garland would look upon him as

  a monster of ingratitude--that Barbara would associate him with

  all that was bad and criminal--that the pony would consider

  himself forsaken--and that even his own mother might perhaps yield

  to the strong app
earances against him, and believe him to be the

  wretch he seemed--knowing and feeling all this, he experienced, at

  first, an agony of mind which no words can describe, and walked up

  and down the little cell in which he was locked up for the night,

  almost beside himself with grief.

  Even when the violence of these emotions had in some degree

  subsided, and he was beginning to grow more calm, there came into

  his mind a new thought, the anguish of which was scarcely less.

  The child--the bright star of the simple fellow's life--she, who

  always came back upon him like a beautiful dream--who had made

  the poorest part of his existence, the happiest and best--who had

  ever been so gentle, and considerate, and good--if she were ever

  to hear of this, what would she think! As this idea occurred to

  him, the walls of the prison seemed to melt away, and the old place

  to reveal itself in their stead, as it was wont to be on winter

  nights--the fireside, the little supper table, the old man's hat,

  and coat, and stick--the half-opened door, leading to her little

  room--they were all there. And Nell herself was there, and he--

  both laughing heartily as they had often done--and when he had got

  as far as this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon his

  poor bedstead and wept.

  It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end;

  but he slept too, and dreamed--always of being at liberty, and

  roving about, now with one person and now with another, but ever

  with a vague dread of being recalled to prison; not that prison,

  but one which was in itself a dim idea--not of a place, but of a

  care and sorrow: of something oppressive and always present, and

  yet impossible to define. At last, the morning dawned, and there

  was the jail itself--cold, black, and dreary, and very real

  indeed.

  He was left to himself, however, and there was comfort in that. He

  had liberty to walk in a small paved yard at a certain hour, and

  learnt from the turnkey, who came to unlock his cell and show him

  where to wash, that there was a regular time for visiting, every

  day, and that if any of his friends came to see him, he would be

  fetched down to the grate. When he had given him this information,

  and a tin porringer containing his breakfast, the man locked him up

  again; and went clattering along the stone passage, opening and

  shutting a great many other doors, and raising numberless loud

  echoes which resounded through the building for a long time, as if

  they were in prison too, and unable to get out.

  Page 320

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like

  some few others in the jail, apart from the mass of prisoners;

  because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and

  irreclaimable, and had never occupied apartments in that mansion

  before. Kit was thankful for this indulgence, and sat reading the

  church catechism very attentively (though he had known it by heart

  from a little child), until he heard the key in the lock, and the

  man entered again.

  'Now then,' he said, 'come on!'

  'Where to, Sir?' asked Kit.

  The man contented himself by briefly replying 'Wisitors;' and

  taking him by the arm in exactly the same manner as the constable

  had done the day before, led him, through several winding ways and

  strong gates, into a passage, where he placed him at a grating and

  turned upon his heel. Beyond this grating, at the distance of

  about four or five feet, was another exactly like it. In the space

  between, sat a turnkey reading a newspaper, and outside the further

  railing, Kit saw, with a palpitating heart, his mother with the

  baby in her arms; Barbara's mother with her never-failing umbrella;

  and poor little Jacob, staring in with all his might, as though he

  were looking for the bird, or the wild beast, and thought the men

  were mere accidents with whom the bars could have no possible

  concern.

  But when little Jacob saw his brother, and, thrusting his arms

  between the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, but

  still stood afar off with his head resting on the arm by which he

  held to one of the bars, he began to cry most piteously; whereupon,

  Kit's mother and Barbara's mother, who had restrained themselves as

  much as possible, burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. Poor Kit

  could not help joining them, and not one of them could speak a

  word. During this melancholy pause, the turnkey read his newspaper

  with a waggish look (he had evidently got among the facetious

  paragraphs) until, happening to take his eyes off for an instant,

  as if to get by dint of contemplation at the very marrow of some

  joke of a deeper sort than the rest, it appeared to occur to him,

  for the first time, that somebody was crying.

  'Now, ladies, ladies,' he said, looking round with surprise, 'I'd

  advise you not to waste time like this. It's allowanced here, you

  know. You mustn't let that child make that noise either. It's

  against all rules.'

  'I'm his poor mother, sir,'--sobbed Mrs Nubbles, curtseying humbly,

  'and this is his brother, sir. Oh dear me, dear me!'

  'Well!' replied the turnkey, folding his paper on his knee, so as

  to get with greater convenience at the top of the next column. 'It

  can't be helped you know. He ain't the only one in the same fix.

  You mustn't make a noise about it!'

  With that he went on reading. The man was not unnaturally cruel or

  hard-hearted. He had come to look upon felony as a kind of

  disorder, like the scarlet fever or erysipelas: some people had it--

  some hadn't--just as it might be.

  'Oh! my darling Kit,' said his mother, whom Barbara's mother had

  charitably relieved of the baby, 'that I should see my poor boy

  here!'

  'You don't believe that I did what they accuse me of, mother dear?'

  Page 321

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  cried Kit, in a choking voice.

  'I believe it!' exclaimed the poor woman, 'I that never knew you

  tell a lie, or do a bad action from your cradle--that have never

  had a moment's sorrow on your account, except it was the poor meals

  that you have taken with such good humour and content, that I

  forgot how little there was, when I thought how kind and thoughtful

  you were, though you were but a child!--I believe it of the son

  that's been a comfort to me from the hour of his birth until this

  time, and that I never laid down one night in anger with! I

  believe it of you Kit!--'

  'Why then, thank God!' said Kit, clutching the bars with an

  earnestness that shook them, 'and I can bear it, mother! Come what

  may, I shall always have one drop of happiness in my heart when I

  think that you said that.'

  At this the poor woman fell a-crying again, and Barbara's mother

  too. And little Jacob, whose disjointed thoughts had by this time

  resolved themselves into a pretty distinct impression that Kit

  couldn't go out for a walk if he wanted, and
that there were no

  birds, lions, tigers or other natural curiosities behind those bars--

  nothing indeed, but a caged brother--added his tears to theirs

  with as little noise as possible.

  Kit's mother, drying her eyes (and moistening them, poor soul, more

  than she dried them), now took from the ground a small basket, and

  submissively addressed herself to the turnkey, saying, would he

  please to listen to her for a minute? The turnkey, being in the

  very crisis and passion of a joke, motioned to her with his hand to

  keep silent one minute longer, for her life. Nor did he remove his

  hand into its former posture, but kept it in the same warning

  attitude until he had finished the paragraph, when he paused for a

  few seconds, with a smile upon his face, as who should say 'this

  editor is a comical blade--a funny dog,' and then asked her what

  she wanted.

  'I have brought him a little something to eat,' said the good

  woman. 'If you please, Sir, might he have it?'

  'Yes,--he may have it. There's no rule against that. Give it to

  me when you go, and I'll take care he has it.'

  'No, but if you please sir--don't be angry with me sir--I am his

  mother, and you had a mother once--if I might only see him eat a

  little bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was

  all comfortable.'

  And again the tears of Kit's mother burst forth, and of Barbara's

  mother, and of little Jacob. As to the baby, it was crowing and

  laughing with its might--under the idea, apparently, that the

  whole scene had been invented and got up for its particular

  satisfaction.

  The turnkey looked as if he thought the request a strange one and

  rather out of the common way, but nevertheless he laid down his

  paper, and coming round where Kit's mother stood, took the basket

  from her, and after inspecting its contents, handed it to Kit, and

  went back to his place. It may be easily conceived that the

  prisoner had no great appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and

  ate as hard as he could, while, at every morsel he put into his

  mouth, his mother sobbed and wept afresh, though with a softened

  grief that bespoke the satisfaction the sight afforded her.

  Page 322

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about

  his employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion